The Last of the Valerii

She rode with him sometimes in the tufty shadow of aqueducts and tombs, and sometimes suffered him to show his beautiful wife at Roman dinners and balls. She played dominoes with him after dinner, and carried out in a desultory way a daily scheme of reading him the newspapers. This observance was subject to fluctuations caused by the Counts invincible tendency to go to sleep, a failing his wife never attempted to disguise or palliate. She would sit and brush the flies from him while he lay picturesquely snoozing, and, if I ventured near him, would place her linger on her lips and whisper that she thought her husband was as handsome asleep as awake.