“Do no vapors enter at night?” asked Shelley.
“Niccolò mistrusts the idea of pestilential vapors,” said Keats. “Our science has not well described them.”
“Yet Niccolò has not cured all the fevers,” Giuditta said, and put a hand to her belly.
Shelley walked from one ruined wall to the other and marveled at their height. He felt like one of the cats in the Roman forum, he said; Keats must write something titanic here. Mary stood apart and asked Giuditta if she did not find rustic life, without servants, to be incommodious.
“Incommodious?” said Giuditta. “We have mice in the thatch. They are the devil’s acrobats, and if I hang the flour from rafters they crawl down the ropes. Pray check your chairs for spiders.”
“I am surprised there were no rooms to let within the castello,” said Mary.
