At last she left me, nor did I see her again during the time I was confined to my bed.
On the eleventh day I rose, and the weather being mild and spring-like, I was permitted by my grave-faced doctor to take the air a little on the terrace that overlooks the sea.

I found no garments but some suits of motley, and so, in despite of my repugnance now to reassume that garb, I had no choice but to array myself in one of these.

I selected the least garish one--a suit of black and yellow stripes, with hose that was half black, half yellow, too; and so, leaning upon the crutch they had left me, I crept forth into the sunlight, the very ghost of the man that I had been a fortnight ago.
I found a stone seat in a sheltered corner looking southward towards Ancona, and there I rested me and breathed the strong invigorating air of the Adriatic.

The snows were gone, and between me and the wall some twenty paces off--there was a stretch of soft, green turf.
I had brought with me a book that Madonna Lucrezia had sent me while I was yet abed.

It was a manuscript collection of Spanish odes, with the proverbs of one Domenico Lopez--all very proper nourishment for a jester's mind.