The beccamorti looked at me in surprise; one laughed grimly and swore.  “By the body of God, if I thought he were not I would twist his accursed neck for him!  But the cholera never fails, he is dead for certain—­see!” And he knocked the head of the corpse to and fro against the sides of the coffin with no more compunction than if it had been a block of wood.  Sickened at the sight, I turned away and said no more.  On reaching one of the more important thoroughfares I perceived several knots of people collected, who glanced at one another with eager yet shamed faces, and spoke in low voices.  A whisper reached my ears, “The king! the king!” All heads were turned in one direction; I paused and looked also.  Walking at a leisurely pace, accompanied by a few gentlemen of earnest mien and grave deportment, I saw the fearless monarch, Humbert of Italy—­he whom his subjects delight to honor.  He was making a round of visits to all the vilest holes and corners of the city, where the plague raged most terribly—­he had not so much as a cigarette in his mouth to ward off infection.  He walked with the easy and assured step of a hero; his face was somewhat sad, as though the sufferings of his people had pressed heavily upon his sympathetic heart.  I bared my head reverently as he passed, his keen kind eyes lighted on me with a smile.

“A subject for a painting, yon white-haired fisherman!” I heard him say to one of his attendants.  Almost I betrayed myself.  I was on the point of springing forward and throwing myself at his feet to tell him my story.  It seemed to me both cruel and unnatural that he, my beloved sovereign, should pass me without recognition—­me, to whom he had spoken so often and so cordially.  For when I visited Rome, as I was accustomed to do annually, there were few more welcome guests at the balls of the Quirinal Palace than Count Fabio Romani.  I began to wonder stupidly who Fabio Romani was; the gay gallant known as such seemed no longer to have any existence—­a “white-haired fisherman” usurped his place.  But though I thought these things I refrained from addressing the king.  Some impulse, however, led me to follow him at a respectful distance, as did also many others.  His majesty strolled through the most pestilential streets with as much unconcern as though he wore taking his pleasure in a garden of roses; he stepped quietly into the dirtiest hovels where lay both dead and dying; he spoke words of kindly encouragement to the grief-stricken and terrified mourners, who stared through their tears at the monarch with astonishment and gratitude; silver and gold were gently dropped into the hands of the suffering poor, and the very pressing cases received the royal benefactor’s personal attention and immediate relief.  Mothers with infants in their arms knelt to implore the king’s blessing—­which to pacify them he gave with a modest hesitation, as though he thought himself unworthy, and yet with a parental tenderness that was infinitely touching.  One wild-eyed, black-haired girl flung herself down on the ground right in the king’s path; she kissed his feet, and then sprung erect with a gesture of triumph.