Freya, as if fearing the effects of the captain's meditations, suddenly cut them short with her headlong chatter.
The doctor and she had come from Rome to take refuge in Naples, fleeing from the intrigues and mutterings of the capital.

The Italians were squabbling among themselves; some were partisans of the war, others of neutrality; none of them wished to aid Germany, their former ally.
"We, who have protected them so much!" she exclaimed.

"False and ungrateful race!..." Her gestures and her words recalled to Ulysses' mind the image of the doctor, execrating the Italian country from a little window of the coach, the first day that they had talked together.
The two women were in Naples, whiling away their tedious waiting with trips to neighboring places of interest, when they met the sailor.
"I have a very pleasant recollection of you," continued Freya.

"I guessed from the very first instant that our friendship was going to terminate as it has terminated." She read a question in his glance.
"I know what you are going to say to me.

You wonder that I have made you wait so long, that I should have made you suffer so with my caprices....