"What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her again before me ... yes it is herself ... that funeral procession was a wicked, unseemly jest ... and this disguise, this flight hither into the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia. Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will soon drive me mad." The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression, such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his eyes. "Faith, he is drunk already!" howled the old woman. "Speak, tell me, is the Podesta's daughter dead then? Dead is she? and when?" "This evening," said the weeper, "I met her corpse." "So she too!" continued the old woman merrily, as she filled her glass again. "Well, now will the family of Marconi in Venice be right glad." "Why so?" "Because they are now the only heirs to their rich kinsman. This is what the long-sighted knaves have always wisht, but could never hope for." "Woman!" exclaimed Antonio with new horrour; "why thou knowest everything!" "Not everything," replied she, "but some little. And then a good deal more may perhaps be guessed at. And I will not deny it, a little witchcraft now and then helps on the game. Only don't be too much frightened at it. Nor in truth was it altogether for nothing that their Florentine worships would have built me a throne of faggots: some petty trifling bits of reasons for this wish they might fairly enough have brought forward.... Look me in the face, boy! stroak away the curls from thy forehead: good! now give me thy left hand: the right: heyday! strange and marvellous! That's it; some near misfortune is hanging over thee; but if thou outlivest it, thou wilt see thy beloved again." "In the next world!" sighed Antonio. "The next world? what is the next world?" cried the old hag in her drunkenness: "no, in this world, here, on what we call earth. What words the fools make use of! There is no next world, you silly ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds, and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his heart lusteth after." Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply; but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for her mother that his anger was disarmed.