And, truly, Nino Cardegna is a better man, for all his peasant blood, than I ever was; a better lover, and perhaps a better hater.

There is his guitar, that he always leaves here, and it reminds me of him and his ways.

Fourteen years he lived here with me, from child to boy and from boy to man, and now he is gone, never to live here any more.

The end of it will be that I shall go and live with him, and Mariuccia will take her cat and her knitting, and her _Lives of the Saints_ back to Serveti, to end her life in peace, where there are no professors and no singers.

For Mariuccia is older than I am, and she will die before me.