She was a rather tall, stout lady, with a haughty, hooked nose and high-arched black eyebrows, very beautiful and imposing. She looked at me so majestically out of her big, glittering eyes that I was overwhelmed with awe. So confused was I that I could only make bow after bow, and at last I attempted to kiss her hand. But she snatched it from me, and said something in Italian to her maid which I could not understand. Meanwhile, the racket I had made had aroused the entire neighborhood. Dogs barked, children screamed, and men's voices were heard, approaching the garden. The Lady gave me another glance, as though she would have liked to pierce me through and through with fiery bullets, then turned hastily and went into the room, with a haughty, forced laugh, slamming the door directly in my face. The maid seized me by the sleeve and pulled me toward the garden gate. "Your stupidity is beyond belief!" she said in the most spiteful way as we went along. I too was furious. "What the devil did you mean," I said, "by telling me to come here?" "That's just it!" exclaimed the girl. "My Countess favored you so--first threw flowers out of the window to you, sang songs--and _this_ is her reward! But there is absolutely nothing to be done with you; you positively throw away your luck." "But," I rejoined, "I meant the Countess from Germany, the lovely Lady fair--" "Oh," she interrupted me, "she went back to Germany long ago, with your crazy passion for her. And you'd better run after her! No doubt she is pining for you, and you can play the fiddle together and gaze at the moon, only for pity's sake let me see no more of you!" All was confusion about us by this time. People from the next garden were climbing over the fence armed with clubs, others were searching among the paths and avenues; frightened faces in nightcaps appeared here and there in the moonlight; it seemed as if the devil had let loose upon us a mob of evil spirits. The lady's-maid was nowise daunted. "There, there goes the thief!" she called out to the people, pointing across the garden. Then she pushed me out of the gate and clapped it to behind me. There I stood once more beneath the stars in the deserted Square, as forlorn as when I had seen it first the day before. The fountain, which had but now seemed to sparkle as merrily in the moonlight as if cherubs were flitting up and down in it, plashed on, but all joy and happiness were buried beneath its waters. I determined to turn my back forever on treacherous Italy, with its crazy painters, its oranges, and its lady's-maids, and that very hour I wandered forth through the gate. CHAPTER IX On guard the faithful mountains stand: "Who wanders o'er the moorland there From other climes, in morning fair?" And as I look far o'er the land, For very glee my heart laughs out. The joyous "vivats" then I shout; Watchword and battle-cry shall be: Austria, for thee!