No matter how well
they are treated they grow nervous and careworn and haggard,
wearing themselves out in a perpetual longing for freedom.
Giovanni, on the contrary, as he looked round the bright, airy
room, felt that he might inhabit it for a year without once caring
to go out into the world. A few books to read, the means of
writing if he pleased--he needed nothing else. To be alone was
happiness enough.
He ate his breakfast slowly, and sat down in an old-fashioned
chair to smoke a cigarette and bask in the sunshine while it
lasted. It was not much like prison, and he did not feel like a
man arrested for murder. He was conscious for a long time of
nothing but a vague, peaceful contentment. He had given a list of
things to be bought, including a couple of novels, to the man who
waited upon him, and after a few hours everything was brought. The
day passed tranquilly, and when he went to bed he smiled as he
blew out the candle, partly at himself and partly at his
situation.
"My friends will not say that I am absolutely lacking in
originality," he reflected as he went to sleep.
On the morrow he read less and thought more. In the first place he
wondered how long he should be left without any communication from
the outside world.
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