of
Continental Fiction.
Guy de Maupassant.
PIERRE AND JEAN.
Matilde Serao.
FAREWELL, LOVE.
Jonas Lie.
NIOBE.
Count Lyon Tolstoi.
WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT.
Juan Valera.
DOÑA LUZ.
Don Armando Palacio Valdés.
THE GRANDEE.
Gemma Ferruggia.
WOMAN'S FOLLY.
Karl Emil Franzos.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
Matilde Serao.
FANTASY.
Rudolf Golm.
THE OLD ADAM AND THE NEW EVE.
Ivan Gontcharoff.
A COMMON STORY.
J. P. Jacobsen.
SIREN VOICES.
Joseph Ignatius Kraszewski.
THE JEW.
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.
IN GOD'S WAY.
MATILDE SERAO
FAREWELL LOVE!
A Novel
BY
MATILDE SERAO
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN
BY
Mrs. HENRY HARLAND
LONDON:
LONDON BOOK CO.
1906
(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
SPECIAL LIMITED SUBSCRIPTION EDITION.
To
MY DEAD FRIEND
... et ultra?
M. S.
INTRODUCTION
The most prominent imaginative writer of the latestgeneration in Italy is a woman. What little is known ofthe private life of Matilde Serao (Mme. Scarfoglio) adds,as forcibly as what may be divined from the tenour andmaterial of her books, to the impression that everystudent of literary history must have formed of the difficultieswhich hem in the intellectual development of anambitious girl. Without unusual neglect, unusual misfortune,it seems impossible for a woman to arrive atthat experience which is essential to the production ofwork which shall be able to compete with the work ofthe best men. It is known that the elements of hardshipand enforced adventure have not been absent from thecareer of the distinguished Italian novelist. MadameSerao has learned in the fierce school of privation whatshe teaches to us with so much beauty and passion in herstories.
Matilde Serao was born on the 17th of March 1856, in[viii]the little town of Patras, on the western coast of Greece.Her father, Francisco Serao, was a Neapolitan politicalexile, her mother a Greek princess, the last survivor ofan ancient