and Jesuit dogs—­with your head in the air, and your heart in your hand—­to be thrown like soldi to these routing swine!  Misery, ah, misery!” She flung her head sideways that she should not look at me, and with her hands gripped my shoulders till I winced.  She tossed her hair from her face and leapt into the battle again, scolding, rating, praying like a mad thing.  Her words came so fast that I cannot attempt their semblance here, and her voice rose and fell in a kind of querulous chant to which sometimes she nodded her head, as if she was beating the time.  “Yes, I know, yes, I know—­I will tell you the truth for once, and you shall kill Virginia with your own hands, and lay her on your bed and go away and be a fool.  Your Jesuit wants your money, and your count your mistress, and Palamone will take you stripped of all and sell you to the Grand Duke.  So you will kill your Virginia because she loves you, and love your Aurelia because she does not, and all those others will trick you, and play with you, and suck you dry, and throw you away like the rind of an orange.  Ah, now you have the truth, and now you will kill me.  Kill, kill, Francis!”

She had a fit of shivering which made her teeth chatter together and her breath draw in with a moaning most piteous to hear.  She showed the whites of her eyes, swayed about, was on the point of falling, when all of a sudden she came to herself again, caught me in her arms, pressed her bosom against me, kissed me on the lips—­kissed until I felt her teeth—­then sprang from me, and before I could stop her was out of the room, and half way downstairs.  Half divining her purpose, I flew to get her back, but was too late.  I heard the street door open and shut.  She was in the Piazza.

My landlord—­he was a notary by trade, and by name Ser Torpe—­was dismayed to see me in bedgown and slippers.  “Never go as you are, sir!” he cried.  “Go like an eccellenza, bid them fetch a chair.  Light of Light, what a costume for Volterra!” I ran upstairs past him, took down my birding-piece, primed it and went to the window.  Virginia was talking to two of the sbrri, putting up her hair as she did so, with complete unconcern of what she displayed.  She was in her usual negligent undress—­ all her class are the same in the mornings—­of a loose shift and stuff petticoat.  Her bosom was bare, her bare feet were in slippers; for her hair she had but a single pin.  It was to be seen that the men viewed her with admiration, as some wanton newly from her bed.  They used an easy familiarity not at all pleasant; one of them, who could not take his eyes off her, said nothing, the other put his hand on her waist.  I was angry with her, I confess without reason.  She disengaged herself.  I heard her impatient “No, no! ma senta—­“; she continued in rapid undertones.