Rome, for her, is just a place where everything's dear, and a field of danger in which at any moment she may be assaulted by a passing vehicle. She says the trams seem to her like awful stags (she has never seen a stag) and that she can't go to mass at the Pantheon because that church with the round hole on top, like a Sardinian oven, makes her laugh. She wants to know whether in Sardinia we still bake at home. I said yes, and she began to cry, thinking of the jokes and games in the days when she baked bread in her father's oven. Then she asked if there are still shepherds, and if they still sit on the ground under the trees. How she sighed thinking of a certain Easter banquet forty years ago at Goceano! Aunt Varvara can't bear the Englishwoman, and she in her turn regards the old thing as a savage. Sometimes while she does her cooking she sings songs in the Logudorese dialect. Also this dirge which I have heard at Nuoro: Dear Hearts, hush-a-bye! _Coro anninnò, anninnò 'Tis my day to die. Dego de partire so While I linger still E de fagher testamentu._ . . . Let me make my will. "Then in the evening mistress and maid repeat the Rosary in dialect; and it amuses me to join in from my room, because it makes Aunt Varvara furious. She breaks off her prayers to swear at me. "'_Su diaulu chi ti ha fattu_' ('Go to the devil who made you!')" she shouts, and the padrona says, changing her voice: "'Aunt Varvara have you gone clean out of your mind?' "Enough of this, Margherita, my own, my sweet lovely Margherita! Let's turn to something else. It's very hot now-a-days, but generally grows fresh in the evening. I work hard all day--seriously; because it's not only my duty but my pleasure. I go oftener than anybody to the University and to the Libraries. For this reason I'm the darling of the Professors. In the evening I walk along the banks of the Tiber and spend hours watching the running water. I ask myself silly questions such as 'What _is_ water?' It's not true that the Tiber is clear coloured. Sometimes it's yellow and muddy, oftener it's green, sometimes blue, sometimes livid. I have seen it quite milky and reflecting the lamps, the bridges, the moon, like polished marble. I compare the perennial flowing of the water to my love for you,--thus constant, silent, inexhaustible. Why, oh why, are you not here with me, my Margherita? The mere thought of you makes everything more beautiful, gives everything deeper meaning. What would not the world be if I could see it reflected in your adored eyes! When, when will the tormenting and delicious dream of our souls be made real? I don't know how I manage to live thus divided from you, but I turn with joy to the thought that in two months we shall again be together. O my Margherita, my pearl of pearls, I cannot express even to you what I feel. No human speech could express it. It's a continual fire which devours me, an unspeakable thirst which only one fountain can slake.