“For years I have been compelled to keep away from Florence,” he began. “As you know, there were at that time those political uprisings, that kept wavering so long, this way and that. I am a lawyer, and so know hosts of people, and write and receive a great number of letters throughout the year. Added to this, I was an independent, spoke my mind when it was necessary and was heartily hated, although I never wished to thrust any hand of mine into their secret game. Finally it became necessary for me to fly if I wished to escape an endless trial and imprisonment that would be neither for profit nor purpose. I went to Bologna, practised law for a living, and saw few people, women least of all; for of the gay young fellow for whom you have been wearing your heart out for seven years, there is nothing left, except that my head, or my heart, if you will, is still ready to burst if I can not be conquering something--in these days to be sure something other than the bolt of a pretty girl’s bedroom door. You have heard, perhaps, how at the last there was also a disturbance at Bologna. They had arrested certain highly respected men, among them one whose way of living I had known for a long time, and knew, too, that his spirit was far from these matters. After that a miserable government undertook to reform matters, much as if a sickness had broken out among your sheep and you sent a wolf into the fold. But that is neither here nor there. Enough that my friend begged me to plead his cause for him, and that I helped him to gain his freedom. No sooner had this become known, when one day a wretched fellow came running up to me on the street and covered me with insults. I could not get rid of him except by thrusting him aside with my arm against his chest, for he was intoxicated. Scarcely had I found myself out of the crowd and had stepped into a café, when there came toward me a relative of this man, also intoxicated, not with wine but with venom and anger, and upbraided me as if I had been guilty of answering words with blows, instead of doing what every man of honor would have done. I answered as calmly as I could, for I now perceived that the whole affair was a preconcerted plan of the government to force me shamelessly into a duel. So one word led to another until my enemy at last won his game. He pretended that he was obliged to go into Tuscany, and insisted that the affair should be settled over there. I agreed, for it was time that one of us calm members should prove to the hot-heads that the cause of our restraint was not lack of spirit, but simply the hopelessness of all private intrigue when opposed to such superior power. But when, the day before yesterday, I applied for a passport, it was refused me--unless I were willing to give my reasons; these were the orders of the supreme authority, so they said. It was now clear to me that they wanted either to draw me into disgrace by