The Count was in Naples five
nights of the seven; the other two we sighed apart.
"At first it was the oldest story in literature--Eden plus Eve.
The place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was
heaven itself. So for a little; then one night, a Monday night,
Faustina burst out crying in the boat; and sobbed her story as
we drifted without mishap by the mercy of the Lord. And that
was almost as old a story as the other.
"She was engaged--what! Had I never heard of it? Did I mean to
upset the boat? What was her engagement beside our love?
'Niente, niente,' crooned Faustina, sighing yet smiling through
her tears. No, but what did matter was that the man had
threatened to stab her to the heart--and would do it as soon as
look at her--that I knew.
"I knew it merely from my knowledge of the Neapolitans, for I
had no idea who the man might be. I knew it, and yet I took
this detail better than the fact of the engagement, though now I
began to laugh at both. As if I was going to let her marry
anybody else! As if a hair of her lovely head should be touched
while I lived to protect her! I had a great mind to row away to
blazes with her that very night, and never go near the vineyard
again, or let her either. But we had not a lira between us at
the time, and only the rags in which we sat barefoot in the
boat. Besides, I had to know the name of the animal who had
threatened a woman, and such a woman as this.
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