motherhood: a young mother has just breathed her last; on her bosom sits a naked child, a loathsome idiot, looking out at life with wide open, bewildered, lack-lustre eyes. I can't help fancying that Orcio resembles that child."
With a sudden abrupt movement, she rang for the man-servant.
"Ask the nurse why the child is not in bed yet. I hear it making a noise. Tell her she must put it to bed. Or else take it farther away from this room."
When the servant had gone out, I said to her:
"Why, what made you speak so angrily to him."
"Really, I cannot recognize myself any more: my nerves are so horribly unstrung." … And she sank into a sombre reverie.
"Tell me more," I said, to draw her out.
"More? Well, I was not so badly ofif then. We took delight in the blue sky, in the murmuring green sea, and in our all but absolute solitude. Witold was ever by my side, tender and kind—masking with his exquisite courtesy the disgust I must have made him feel. Why, for myself I myself often felt pity
