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Updated: May 18, 2025
Then, with her little basket on her arm, she turns away slowly to join the maid-servant who is waiting for her in the hall. "I am SO fond of that child," sighs Signora Evelina, with the sweetest inflexion in her voice, "but she doesn't like me at all!" "What an absurd idea!...Doretta is a very self-willed child."
This excellent suggestion is joy to the soul of Doretta, who hastens to carry the news to the kitchen, and then, in a series of journeys back and forth from the dining-room to the study, transports with her own hands the knives, forks, plates, tablecloth, and napkins, and, with the man-servant's aid, lays them out upon one of her papa's tables. How merry she is!
They are all grumbling about the weather, about the cold, about the earliness of the hour, and declaring that nothing but the most urgent business would have got them out of bed at that time of day. There is but one person in the station who is all liveliness and smiles Doretta.
The cloud has settled again upon Doretta's forehead, the same cloud that darkened it in the morning. Not a word is said of La Fontaine's fable. Instead, Signor Odoardo grumbles irritably: "This blessed room is as cold as ever." "Why shouldn't it be," Doretta retorts with a touch of asperity, "when you open the window every few minutes?"
And she had answered: "Oh, so happy!" just like Doretta. The train races and flies. Farewell, farewell, for ever, Signora Evelina. And did Signora Evelina die of despair? Oh, no; Signora Evelina has a perfect disposition and a delightful home. The perfect disposition enables her not to take things too seriously, the delightful home affords her a thousand distractions.
He orders his luggage packed for an absence of two months. Doretta goes to bed early, but all night long she tosses about under the bed-clothes, waking her nurse twenty times to ask: "Is it time to get up?" Signor Odoardo, too, is awake when the man-servant comes to call him the next morning at six o'clock. "What sort of a day is it?" "Very bad, sir just such another as yesterday.
"Dear me, Melanio is not very polite to-day," says Doretta, escorting the doll back to the sofa. "But you mustn't be offended; he's very seldom impolite. I think it must be the weather; doesn't the weather make you sleepy too, Nini? ...Come, let's take a nap; go by-bye, baby, go by-bye." Nini sleeps.
And she was pretty, like Doretta, even though she did not possess the fair hair and captivating eyes of Signora Evelina. The man-servant who brings in the breakfast is accompanied by a newcomer, the cat Melanio, who is always present at Doretta's meals. The cat Melanio is old; he has known Doretta ever since she was born, and he honors her with his protection.
There is a sound of steps in the hall; Signor Odoardo pauses in the middle of the room. The door re-opens, and Doretta rushes up to her father, her cheeks flushed, her hood falling over her forehead, her warm coat buttoned up to her chin, her hands thrust into her muff. "It is snowing and the teacher has sent us home." She tosses off her hood and coat and goes up to the stove.
Doretta, crouching in a corner of the room, cries less vehemently, but has not yet finished crying. Just like the weather outside, it snows less heavily, but it still snows. Signor Odoardo covers his eyes with his hand. How many thoughts are thronging through his head, how many affections are contending in his heart! If he could but banish the vision of Signora Evelina but he tries in vain.
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