No sleep returned to me that night. I rose in the morning unrested and out of humor. Marianna scolded me for sitting too long with my books. Was not Signor Campelli learned enough for all of us? We had a magnificently conceived fête that day; a “Court of Love” after the Provençal troubadour fashion; Madonna Marianna sitting in a rose bower, while all we gentlemen came before our goddess, and chanted verses in her honor, each striving to outdo the other in elaborate compliment; and then laid before her carefully wrought questions touching matters of the “gay science” of Messere Cupido. Her own wit was exquisite, but afterward she scolded me for my banal remarks and verses. “You were even more stupid than the bishop,” she said at the end of her reproof. I promised amends, but in truth my mind was growing ill at ease. The festival of Pan had been the climax to my days of pleasure. After that, the reaction--often resisted--never abated. Strangely enough, now that I was released from all need of speaking it, my thoughts frequently came to me in German. I once so far forgot myself as to assert I preferred beer to Chianti, and when a valet was very slow and clumsy I whipped out “Donnerwetter!”--an awful oath, that made the poor fool turn pale as a sheet. If one had asked me what was wrong, I would have answered frankly, “I do not know. All seems well with me.” Yet I was ever moody, irritable, and frequently, I fear, an ungracious host. “Ah! carissime,” Marianna said one evening, as we stood together on the logia, her hand on my shoulder; “are we not happy? Very happy? Are not our days drifting on like a little brown boat on the blue waves of a bay, straight in the face of the sunshine?” “Very happy, Madonetta, but I do not like your simile to the sunshine.” “Wherefore, Gualtiero?” “The sun will set, and take the light with him.” “Our sun will never set.” “If we only could be sure, Marianna mia!” “Silence,” she commanded. “Have you not everything a man could wish? For us there is no sunset, only an ever brightening glow and glory.” “I will not argue against the wisdom of Signora Minerva and the grace of Donna Venus.” She seemed appeased at my answer, but I was not pleased at myself. Spasmodically and by marked effort I threw myself into the task of enlivening my guests. For a few days the festivities at the palazzo were more furious than ever. Once I heard Andrea remarking to a fellow valet, “His Excellency is drinking an unusual amount of late.” This, however, hardly troubled me. So long as I did not think about Wittenberg and the Harzland, about Luther and Ilsa, I was tolerably content. Then came a letter from Rome which raked up old memory. A quondam boon companion sent a goodly parcel of court news, an account of the wedding of the Duca di Caserna, a discussion of the latest Latin play, and thus concluded:--