“Hum—­yes—­pretty enough,” he grudgingly acknowledged.  “But even so?” the ingrate added, as he turned away, and let himself drop back into his lounging-chair.  “My dear good woman, no amount of prettiness can disguise the fundamental banality of things.  Your fireflies—­St. Dominic’s beads, if you like—­and, apropos of that, do you know what they call them in America? —­they call them lightning-bugs, if you can believe me—­remark the difference between southern euphuism and western bluntness —­your fireflies are pretty enough, I grant.  But they are tinsel pasted on the Desert of Sahara.  They are condiments added to a dinner of dust and ashes.  Life, trick it out as you will, is just an incubus—­is just the Old Man of the Sea.  Language fails me to convey to you any notion how heavily he sits on my poor shoulders.  I thought I had suffered from ennui in my youth.  But the malady merely plays with the green fruit; it reserves its serious ravages for the ripe.  I can promise you ’t is not a laughing matter.  Have you ever had a fixed idea?  Have you ever spent days and nights racking your brain, importuning the unanswering Powers, to learn whether there was —­well, whether there was Another Man, for instance?  Oh, bring me drink.  Bring me Seltzer water and Vermouth.  I will seek nepenthe at the bottom of the wine-cup.”

Was there another man?  Why should there not be?  And yet was there?  In her continued absence, the question came back persistently, and scarcely contributed to his peace of mind.

A few days later, nothing discouraged, “Would you like to have a good laugh, Signorino?” Marietta enquired.

“Yes,” he answered, apathetic.

“Then do me the favour to come,” she said.

She led him out of his garden, to the gate of a neighbouring meadow.  A beautiful black-horned white cow stood there, her head over the bars, looking up and down the road, and now and then uttering a low distressful “moo.”

“See her,” said Marietta.

“I see her.  Well—?” said Peter.

This morning they took her calf from her—­to wean it,” said Marietta.

“Did they, the cruel things?  Well-?” said he.

“And ever since, she has stood there by the gate, looking down the road, waiting, calling.”

“The poor dear.  Well—?” said he.

“But do you not see, Signorino?  Look at her eyes.  She is weeping—­weeping like a Christian.”

Peter looked-and, sure enough, from the poor cow’s eyes tears were falling, steadily, rapidly:  big limpid tears that trickled down her cheek, her great homely hairy cheek, and dropped on the grass:  tears of helpless pain, uncomprehending endurance.  “Why have they done this thing to me?” they seemed dumbly to cry.

“Have you ever seen a cow weep before?  Is it comical, at least?” demanded Marietta, exultant.

“Comical—?” Peter gasped.  “Comical—!” he groaned . . . .