Twice I slept by the way before I reached the end of my journey,—­once at Olevano and once at Trevi; for the road from Olevano to Trevi is long, and some parts are very rough, especially at first.  I could tell you just how every stone on the road looks—­Rojate, the narrow pass beyond, and then the long valley with the vines; then the road turns away and rises as you go along the plateau of Arcinazzo, which is hollow beneath, and you can hear the echoes as you tread; then at the end of that the desperate old inn, called by the shepherds the Madre dei Briganti,—­the mother of brigands,—­smoke-blackened within and without, standing alone on the desolate heath; farther on, a broad bend of the valley to the left, and you see Trevi rising before you, crowned with an ancient castle, and overlooking the stream that becomes the Aniene afterwards; from Trevi through a rising valley that grows narrower at every step, and finally seems to end abruptly, as indeed it does, in a dense forest far up the pass.  And just below the woods lies the town of Fillettino, where the road ends; for there is a road which leads to Tivoli, but does not communicate with Olevano, whence I had come.

Of course I had made an occasional inquiry by the way, when I could do so without making people too curious.  When anyone asked me where I was going, I would say I was bound for Fucino, to buy beans for seed at the wonderful model farm that Torlonia has made by draining the old lake.  And then I would ask about the road; and sometimes I was told there was a strange foreigner at Fillettino, who made everybody wonder about him by his peculiar mode of life.  Therefore, when I at last saw the town, I was quite sure that the count was there, and I got off my little donkey, and let him drink in the stream, while I myself drank a little higher up.  The road was dusty, and my donkey and I were thirsty.

I thought of all I would do, as I sat on the stone by the water and the beast cropped the wretched grass, and soon I came to the conclusion that I did not know in the least what I should do.  I had unexpectedly found what I wanted, very soon, and I was thankful enough to have been so lucky.  But I had not the first conception of what course I was to pursue when once I had made sure of the count.  Besides, it was barely possible that it was not he, after all, but another foreigner, with another daughter.  The thought frightened me, but I drove it away.  If it were really old Lira who had chosen this retreat in which to imprison his daughter and himself, I asked myself whether I could do anything save send word to Nino as soon as possible.

I felt like a sort of Don Quixote, suddenly chilled into the prosaic requirements of common sense.  Perhaps if Hedwig had been my Dulcinea, instead of Nino’s, the crazy fit would have lasted, and I would have attempted to scale the castle wall and carry off the prize by force.  There is no telling what a sober old professor of philosophy may not do when he is crazy.  But meanwhile I was sane.  Graf von Lira had a right to live anywhere he pleased with his daughter, and the fact that I had discovered the spot where he pleased to live did not constitute an introduction.  Or finally, if I got access to the old count, what had I to say to him?  Ought I to make a formal request for Nino?  I looked at my old clothes and almost smiled.