I.The green hue of the country disappeared under the heavy November rain. Caserta, down below, shrouded by the falling water as by a veil of mist, seemed but a large grey blot on a background of paler grey. The Tifata hills, that are tinged with so deep a violet during the long autumn twilights, had vanished behind the thick, opaque downpour. The small and aristocratic village of Centurano, entirely composed of lordly villas, separated from each other by narrow lanes and flowering hedges, held its peace.
At the corner of the high road that leads to Caserta, the fountain which Ferdinand of Bourbon had bestowed on Michelangiolo Viglia, his favourite barber, overflowed with rain-water. The long, melancholy, watery day was slowly dying, in a rainy twilight that seemed already evening. No soun
