I bowed.  I understood him perfectly.  He wanted no more poachers on the land he himself had pilfered.  Quite right, from his point of view!  But I was the rightful owner of the land after all, and I naturally had a different opinion of the matter.  However, I made no remark, and feigned to be rather bored by the turn the conversation was taking.  Seeing this, Ferrari exerted himself to be agreeable; he became a gay and entertaining companion once more, and after he had fixed the hour for our visit to the Villa Romani the next afternoon, our talk turned upon various matters connected with Naples and its inhabitants and their mode of life.  I hazarded a few remarks on the general immorality and loose principles that prevailed among the people, just to draw my companion out and sound his character more thoroughly—­though I thought I knew his opinions well.

“Pooh, my dear conte,” he exclaimed, with a light laugh, as he threw away the end of his cigar, and watched it as it burned dully like a little red lamp among the green grass where it had fallen, “what is immorality after all?  Merely a matter of opinion.  Take the hackneyed virtue of conjugal fidelity.  When followed out to the better end what is the good of it—­where does it lead?  Why should a man be tied to one woman when he has love enough for twenty?  The pretty slender girl whom he chose as a partner in his impulsive youth may become a fat, coarse, red-faced female horror by the time he has attained to the full vigor of manhood—­and yet, as long as she lives, the law insists that the full tide of passion shall flow always in one direction—­always to the same dull, level, unprofitable shore!  The law is absurd, but it exists; and the natural consequence is that we break it.  Society pretends to be horrified when we do—­yes, I know; but it is all pretense.  And the thing is no worse in Naples than it is in London, the capital of the moral British race, only here we are perfectly frank, and make no effort to hide our little sins, while there, they cover them up carefully and make believe to be virtuous.  It is the veriest humbug—­the parable of Pharisee and Publican over again.

“Not quite,” I observed, “for the Publican was repentant, and Naples is not.”

“Why should she be?” demanded Ferrari, gayly; “what, in the name of Heaven, is the good of being penitent about anything?  Will it mend matters?  Who is to be pacified or pleased by our contrition?  God?  My dear conte, there are very few of us nowadays who believe in a Deity.  Creation is a mere caprice of the natural elements.  The best thing we can do is to enjoy ourselves while we live; we have a very short time of it, and when we die there is an end of all things so far as we are concerned.”

“That is your creed?” I asked.

“That is my creed, certainly.  It was Solomon’s in his heart of hearts.  ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.’  It is the creed of Naples, and of nearly all Italy.  Of course the vulgar still cling to exploded theories of superstitious belief, but the educated classes are far beyond the old-world notions.”