"You and your mother are two cold-blooded serpents, two venomous Palmarosas! Ah! I hate that family which has persecuted me and my family so cruelly, and some day I will make a bloody example, even of those members of it who claim to be good patriots and nobles who sympathize with the people. I hate all nobles for my part! and you whose mouths blow hot and cold in turn may well tremble before my frank declaration! I have hated the nobles for the last few moments, since I have found that I am not noble, because I have a legitimate brother and am only a bastard. I hate the name of Castro-Reale, since I can no longer bear it. I am envious, revengeful, and ambitious as well! my intelligence and my adroitness were a stronger justification of that claim on my part than the art of painting on the part of the nursling of the Muses and of Pier-Angelo! I should have made a greater name than he if our conditions had remained unchanged. And the thing that makes my vanity more endurable, Prince Michel, is that I proclaim it proudly, while you conceal it shamefacedly, on the pretext of modesty. In short, I am the child of uncivilized nature and of unshackled liberty, while you are the slave of custom and of fear. I practise cunning after the manner of wolves, and my cunning leads me to my goal. You play with falsehood, after the manner of men, and you will always miss your goal, without having had the merit of sincerity. Our lives are before us. If yours annoys me overmuch, I shall rid myself of you as of any other obstacle, do you understand? Woe to you if you irritate me! Farewell; do not try to see me again; this is my brotherly greeting! "And as for you, Princess of Castro-Reale," he said, bowing ironically to Agatha, "who might well have refrained from making me crawl at your feet, whose share in the catastrophe by the _Destatore's_ Cross is now very clear in my mind, who did not deem me worthy to be informed of the mischance of your youth, but preferred to pose before my eyes as a spotless virgin, caring not whether you caused me to pine away in frenzied anticipation of your priceless favors--I wish that you may be happy and forget what has taken place between us; but I shall remember it, and I warn you, signora, that you gave a ball over a volcano, in reality as well as figuratively." As he spoke, the Piccinino threw his cloak over his head and shoulders, walked into the boudoir, and not deigning to wait for the door to be opened, leaped through one of the large panes of glass into the flower-garden. Then he returned to the door leading into the passage, which he had not chosen to pass through, and, after the manner of the authors of the Sicilian Vespers, cut with his dagger a cross over the crest of the Palmarosas, which was carved on that door. A few moments later he was on the mountain, flying like an arrow.