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Gina, who might have then been thirteen though she looked eighteen, vivacious and frank as you know her to be, was so afraid of bursting into laughter at the sight of my outfit that she dared not eat; the Marchesa, on the contrary, overwhelmed me with reserved attentions, having recognized hints of impatience in my expression. In a word, I cut a foolish figure as I swallowed my ration of scorn, a thing said to be impossible for a Frenchman. At last I was inspired by a Heaven-sent idea; I began describing my wretchedness to these ladies, and all we had suffered the last two years in the mountains around Genoa where we had been stationed by imbecilic old generals.

At seven-thirty last night I reached my chestnut-tree: it had leaves, lovely young leaves, already quite large! I kissed them without disturbing a single one, and respectfully spaded the soil around the beloved tree. And then and there, filled with new hopes, I crossed the mountain to Menaggio: I would need a passport in order to enter Switzerland. Time had flown, it was already one in the morning when I found myself at Vasi’s door. ’ and flung himself into my arms.

The departure of the last Austrian regiment marked the fall of the old ideas: risking one’s life became fashionable; happiness depended, after centuries of insipidity, upon loving one’s country with a passion, upon seeking out heroic actions to perform. People had been plunged into darkness by the persistence of the jealous despotism of Charles V and Philip II; they pulled down their statues and were forthwith flooded with light. For the last fifty years, even as the Encyclopédie and Voltaire were exploding in France, the monks had adjured the good people of Milan that learning to read, or learning anything at all, was a worthless effort, and that by promptly paying one’s tithe to the curé and by offering him a faithful account of all one’s petty sins, a fine place in paradise was virtually assured.