what wonder is it that she had prevailed in that dream-strife which I
had witnessed in the villa garden, what wonder when she had to contend
with the soiled wife of a vile man--with Aurelia, the lovely, caressing,
silken woman, bought by a place, bought by a house, who, possessed by
two men, sought yet another. Ah, thou glowing, honey-tongued, unhappy
one, in what a horrible web of affairs was I enmeshed along with thee!
What a world was that into which I went ruffling with my money, and rank
and fine prospects! Never more, never more would I enter that world of
bargain and sale.

So I swore, and so purposed; but in pursuance of a plan which I had
formed in my most private mind, I travelled to Lucca in a coach and four
horses, with postillions before and my body-servant behind. On this
occasion I was furnished with a passport and abundance of money. All my
property in Florence, all my household gear had been transferred to the
city of my choice. I left behind me in Florence not one vestige of
myself, and (so far as I know) not one true friend. I intended to be two
days upon the road, and lay the night at Empoli; early on the following
morning, a fine day in early autumn, I departed from the inn for my
final stage, and fared without incident as far as Ponte a Cappiano.

Before the hill of Altopascio is reached, the traveller must accomplish
a lonely stretch of road, which runs for some three miles through a
ragged wood. This place bears a bad name; it is debatable land, as we
say, between the Republic of Lucca and the Grand Duchy, and a well-known
haunt for footpads, highwaymen, outlaws, and other kinds of cut-throat.
So, at least, my servant said when, stopping the carriage, I got out and
proposed to walk through the wood by a direct path and meet my
conveyance at the top of the pass. He begged me very earnestly to do
nothing of the kind. "The road is the only tolerable way for your