Next day I started for Lodi at day-break without telling anybody where I was going, and bought all the books I judged necessary for Clementine, who only knew Italian.  I bought numerous translation, which I was surprised to find at Lodi, which hitherto had been only famous in my mind for its cheese, usually called Parmesan.  This cheese is made at Lodi and not at Parma, and I did not fail to make an entry to that effect under the article “Parmesan” in my “Dictionary of Cheeses,” a work which I was obliged to abandon as beyond my powers, as Rousseau was obliged to abandon his “Dictionary of Botany.”  This great but eccentric individual was then known under the pseudonym of Renaud, the Botanist.  ’Quisque histrioniam exercet’.  But Rousseau, great man though he was, was totally deficient in humour.

I conceived the idea of giving a banquet at Lodi the day after next, and a project of this kind not calling for much deliberation I went forthwith to the best hotel to make the necessary arrangements.  I ordered a choice dinner for twelve, paid the earnest money, and made the host promise that everything should be of the best.

When I got back to St. Angelo, I had a sackfull of books carried into Clementine’s room.  She was petrified.  There were more than one hundred volumes, poets, historians, geographers, philosophers, scientists—­nothing was forgotten.  I had also selected some good novels, translated from the Spanish, English, and French, for we have no good novels in Italian.

This admission does not prove by any means that Italian literature is surpassed by that of any other country.  Italy has little to envy in other literatures, and has numerous masterpieces, which are unequalled the whole world over.  Where will you find a worthy companion to the Orlando Furioso?  There is none, and this great work is incapable of transalation.  The finest and truest panegyric of Ariosto was written by Voltaire when he was sixty.  If he had not made this apology for the rash judgement of his youthful days, he would not have enjoyed, in Italy at all events, that immortality which is so justly his due.  Thirty-six years ago I told him as much, and he took me at my word.  He was afraid, and he acted wisely.

If I have any readers, I ask their pardon for these digressions.  They must remember that these Memoirs were written in my old age, and the old are always garrulous.  The time will come to them also, and then they will understand that if the aged repeat themselves, it is because they live in a world of memories, without a present and without a future.

I will now return to my narrative, which I have kept steadily in view.

Clementine gazed from me to the books, and from the books to me.  She wondered and admired, and could scarcely believe this treasure belonged to her.  At last she collected herself, and said in a tone full of gratitude,—­

“You have come to St. Angelo to make me happy.”