The Emigrant

On the 15th of October, 19—, at four o’clock in the afternoon, in the garden of the Monte Pincio in Rome, sat a girl, no longer in the first flush of youth, Irene Mstinskaia. She held a book in her hand, having come to the park with the object of reading in the fresh air; but, as had always been the case since her arrival in Rome, she could not concentrate her thoughts on the English novel open before her. Her glance glided across the blue autumnal sky, lingered caressingly on the magnificent southern pines and palms, rested on the statues gleaming white among the verdure, and always returned to the[2] Eternal City, as it lay spread out before her, at the feet of the Pincio.