sport beside his toil! If my limbs be weary, I sleep ; but I have seen him sit before his canvas with straining eyes and the big beads standing on his brow. When at last he gave o’er, and I have smoothed his pillow, and served and soothed him, what sleep could he snatch? His brain is haunted with evil visions, whereof some be merely of his own imagining, and others the phantoms of folk who are living or have lived, and who rouse his jealousy or mayhap his remorse, God only knows! If that be genius——to be alive to pain at every pore, to be possessed of a devil that robs you of your sleep and grants no space between the hours of grinding toil—I thank the saints I am a simple man!
FIAMETTA.
I grant thee thou mayst be right concerning him; he hath indeed a strange, sour mien. I shudder when he turns suddenly, as his wont is, and bends his evil eyes on me. The holy father tells me such warnings come from God. No matter how slight the service he asks of me, my flesh creeps and my limbs refuse to move, till I have whispered an Ave. But what of Lady Maria-Rosa ? Both heaven and earth smile upon her. To-night she wears a poor girl s dowry, a separate fortune, on her head, her neck, her hands, yes, on her little jeweled feet. One
