IN THE CHURCH ON SAN GIULIO. About eight days might have elapsed since Blanden's departure. Giulia meanwhile had dissolved her agreement with the managers, and at home denied herself to all visitors. She was in a state of excitement which she could conceal with difficulty. Whenever a carriage drove up in her vicinity she rushed to the window. She watched for Beate with dread expectancy. At last the carriage stopped before the house, and her friend's first words were, "Be calm! All is well." After having shaken off the dust of her journey, Beate soon appeared in Giulia's drawing-room with the unfailing cunning smile upon her lips, and with a calm gladsomeness, such as follows the execution of a good deed; she stirred the crackling fire in the stove, seated herself comfortably upon the sofa, poured as much arack as possible into her tea, to warm herself, and then began to relate the events of her journey: "Oh, our beautiful south! How melancholy to drive over these plains of ice, through the snow-laden pine forests, through these districts where sleepy Nature never seems to open her eyes, how terribly wearisome all the world here appears to one! And those passengers in mail coaches, those Polish Jews, those people from the small towns with their boxes, their baggage, their stupid faces! Thus it went on night and day, day and night. People have given themselves the trouble to find names for all these heaths, these towns through which one drives, and yet one looks like another, it is most immaterial what they are called! Even a little rocky nest in our Italy at least looks picturesque, here they are always the same barns, the same bad pavement, over which the mail coach rattles. "A long row of extra carriages followed the principal one, in which a most unpleasant company seemed to be congregated. In the dark corners of the passengers' room I saw figures which resembled brigands, one passenger especially, with a black bandage over one eye, and a dark beard, clings to my recollections. I saw him creep past me several times, wrapped up in his cloak. I had an eerie feeling as if he had cast an evil eye upon me, it seemed sometimes as if he were staring piercingly at me out of the dark with his only sound one. I had to rest in the capital, for three days and three nights I had not left the rattling coach, and, at last, from over fatigue, had fallen into an unrefreshing sleep. I had hardly looked after my baggage and put my large box into the charge of a postal official in order to seek my long missed rest at an hotel, before I saw a special post-chaise drive up and the man in the cloak, with the bandage over his eye, get in. "He must be in great haste to proceed, for the post-chaise had four horses.