"Would you like to know exactly what I do? I rise at half-past five, I breakfast at seven o'clock; at eight o'clock, I go back to my study, I write to you, or do some business, when there is any to do (the detail-work in connection with the French establishments and the French poor is pretty considerable); at mid-day, I go to wander for two or three hours among the ruins, or to St. Peter's, or to the Vatican. Sometimes I pay a necessary visit before or after my walk; at five o'clock, I come home; I dress for the evening; I dine at six o'clock; at half-past seven, I go to a party with Madame de Chateaubriand, or I receive a few people at home. At eleven, I go to bed, or else I go back once more to the _campagna_, in spite of the robbers and the _malaria._ What do I do there? Nothing: I listen to the silence and watch my shadow passing from portico to portico along the moonlit aqueducts. "The Romans are so accustomed to my 'methodical' life that they reckon the hours by me. They must be quick about it; I shall soon have been round the clock." "ROME, _Thursday_, 8 _January_ 1828. "I am very unhappy; the finest weather in the world has changed into rain, so that I am no longer able to take my walks. And yet that is the only pleasant moment of my day. I used to go thinking of you to these deserted _campagne_; they linked the past and the future in my sentiments, for formerly I used to take the same walks. Once or twice a week, I go to the place where the English girl was drowned: who now remembers that poor young woman, Miss Bathurst[700]? Her fellow-countrymen and women gallop along the river-side without thinking of her. The Tiber, which has seen many other things, does not trouble about her at all. Besides, its waters have been renewed: they are as pale and still as when they passed over that creature full of hope, beauty and life. "I have fallen into a very lofty strain without knowing it. Forgive a poor hare imprisoned and steeped in his form. I must tell you a little story of my last 'Tuesday.' There was an immense crowd at the Embassy; I was standing with my back against a marble table, bowing to the people arriving and leaving. An Englishwoman, of whom I knew neither the name nor the appearance, came up to me, looked me straight in the face and said, with the famous accent: "'Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you are very unhappy!' "Astonished at this apostrophe and at this manner of entering into conversation, I asked her what she meant. She replied: "'I mean to say that I pity you.'