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at the very end of a dark corridor which for no apparent reason smelt of roses. When I agreed to take the place I was unaware that the passage was left unlighted at night; the long walk through its vault-like dampness, guided only by the flicker of a small wax taper subsequently proved no pleasant experience.

The studio itself was the usual bare room; and opening into it was a kind of alcove where wedged in between high, windowless walls, was a large bed that looked dirty. I always used to hesitate before getting into it, and then curl myself up in order to escape as much as possible the disagreeable surroundings.

On the day I choose the studio I visited the manager in his office. He was young and most obliging, but as I was about to leave the room he got up, and to my surprise, began expressing in passionate terms the pleasure he felt at my having chosen the studio on the ground floor. His own rooms, he explained, gave on to the same garden, and he could easily manage to climb into my room at night to visit me.

I left the office without showing any signs of having understood him but later, although the studio was often hot and stuffy, I carefully kept the window closed at night.

Judging Italian men silly I carefully avoided making friends with them. Yet I was entirely free from prejudice and had none of the hypocrisy of the Anglo-Saxons who generally show strong antagonism to all sins other than their own. But it was one thing to be unprejudiced and another to be the object of attention of a seemingly sex-starved population  The importunate guide or begger was a pleasant person indeed compared to the hungry male who sidled up to one on the streets, and with steel-like fingers tried to pinch what ought to have been the fat part of the body but which was, in my case, as thin as the rest. But fat or thin one was young and that was sufficient. I soon learned that a pleasant walk alone was impossible. The male was always present, following, or waiting, if one happened to stand still an instant.