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Title: A Siren

Author: Thomas Adolphus Trollope

Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5179]
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[This file was first posted on May 31, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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A SIREN

By Thomas Adolphus Trollope




CONTENTS

BOOK I
Ash Wednesday Morning
CHAPTER
I     The Last Night of Carnival
II    Apollo Vindex
III   St. Apollinare in Classe
IV    Father Fabiano
V     "The Hours passed, and still she came not"
VI    Gigia's Opinion
VII   An Attorney-at-Law in the Papal States
VIII  Lost in the Forest
IX    "Passa la bella Donna e par che dorma"

BOOK II
Four Mmonth Before That Ash Wednesday Morning
CHAPTER
I     How the Good News came to Ravenna
II    The Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare
III   The Impresario's Report
IV    Paolina Foscarelli
V     Rivalry
VI    The Beginning of Trouble
VII   The Teaching of a Great Love
VIII  A Change in the Situation
IX    Uncle and Nephew
X     The Coutessa Violante
XI    The Cardinal's Reception, and the Marchese's Ball
XII   The Arrival of the "Diva"

BOOK III
"Sirenum Pocula"
CHAPTER
I     "Diva Potens"
II    An Adopted Father and an Adopted Daughter
III   "Armed at All Points"
IV    Throwing the Line
V     After-thoughts
VI    At the Circolo
VII   Extremes Meet
VIII  The Diva shows her Cards
IX    One Struggle more

BOOR IV
The Last Days of the Carnival

CHAPTER
I     In the Cardinal's Chapel
II    The Corso
III   "La Sonnambula"
IV    The Marchese Lamberto's Correspondence
V     Bianca at Home
VI    Paolina at Home
VII   Two Interviews
VIII  A Carnival Reception
IX    Paolina's Return to the City

BOOK V
Who Did The Deed?
CHAPTER
I     At the City Gate
II    Suspicion
III   Guilty or Not Guilty?
IV    The Marchese hears the Ill News
V     Doubts and Possibilities
VI    At the Circolo again
VII   A Prison Visit
VIII  Signor Giovacchino Fortini at Home
IX    The Post-Mortem Examination
X     Public Opinion
XI    In Father Fabiano's Cell
XII   The Case against Paolina

BOOK VI
Poena Pede Claudo
CHAPTER
I     Signor Fortini receives the Signora Steno in his Studio
II    Was it Paolina after all?
III   Could it have been the Aged Friar?
IV    What Ravenna thought of it
V     "Miserrimus"
VI    The Trial
VII   The Friar's Testimony
VIII  The Truth!
IX    Conclusion




A SIREN

By Thomas Adolphus Trollope




BOOK I

Ash Wednesday Morning



CHAPTER I

The Last Night of Carnival


It was Carnival time in the ancient and once imperial, but now
provincial and remote, city of Ravenna. It was Carnival time, and
the very acme and high-tide of that season of mirth and revel. For
the theory of Carnival observance is, that the life of it, unlike
that of most other things and beings, is intensified with a
constantly crescendo movement up to the last minutes of its
existence. And there now remained but an hour before midnight on the
Tuesday preceding the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday--Dies
Cinerum!--that sad and sober morrow which has brought with it
"sermons and soda-water" to so many generations of revellers.

Of course Carnival, according to the Calendar and Time's hour-glass,
is over at twelve o'clock on the night of Shrove Tuesday. Generally,
however, in the pleasure-loving cities of Italy, a few hours' law
are allowed or winked at. The revellers are not supposed to become
aware that it is past midnight till about three or four in the
morning.

Very generally the wind-up of the season of fun and frolic consists
of what is called a "Veglione," or "great making a night of it,"
which means a masked ball at the theatre. And the great central
chandelier does not begin to descend into the body of the house, to
have its lights flapped out by the handkerchiefs of the revellers
amid a last frantic rondo, till some four hours after midnight. But
in provincial Ravenna, a Pope's city under the rule of a Cardinal
Legate, there is--or was in the days when the Pope held sway there--
no Veglione. Its place was supplied, as far as "the society" of the
city was concerned, by a ball at the "Circolo dei Nobili."

It was not, therefore, till four o'clock in the morning, or perhaps
even a little later, that the lights would be extinguished on the
night in question at the "Circolo dei Nobili," and Carnival would,
in truth, be over, and the tired holiday-makers would go home to
their beds.

A few hours more remained, and the revelry was at its height, and
the dancers danced as knowing that their minutes were numbered.

There had been a ball on the previous night at the Palazzo of the
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. But the scene at the Circolo was a
much more brilliant, animated, and varied one than that of the night
before at the Castelmare palace. The Marchese Lamberto was the
wealthiest noble in Ravenna, and--putting aside his friend the
Cardinal Legate--was, in many other respects, the first and foremost
man of the city. He was a bachelor of some fifty years old. And
bachelors' houses and bachelors' balls have the reputation of
enjoying the privilege of a somewhat freer and more unreserved
gaiety and jollity than those of their neighbours more heavily
weighted with the cares and responsibilities of life. But such was
not the case at the Palazzo Castelmare. Presided over on such
occasions as that of the great annual Carnival ball by a widowed
sister-in-law of the Marchese, the Castelmare palace was the most
decorous and respectable house, as its master was the most decorous
and respectable man, in Ravenna.

Not that it was a dull house. The Marchese Lamberto, though a grave
and dignified personage in the eyes of the "jeunesse doree" of
Ravenna, was looked up to as one of the best loved, as well as most
respected, men in the city. And there was not a member of the
"society" who would not have been sadly hurt at not being invited to
the great annual Carnival ball at the Castelmare palace. But the
same degree of laissez aller jollity would not have been "de mise"
there as was permissible at the Circolo. The fun was not so fast and
furious as it was wont to be at the club of the nobles on the last
night of Carnival.

The whole society were at the latter gathering. All the nobles of
Ravenna were the hosts. and everybody was there solely and entirely
to amuse and enjoy themselves. Host and guests, indeed, were almost
identical. There were but few persons present, and those strangers
to the town, who did not belong to their own class.

To the Marchese, on the previous night, most of the company had
contented themselves with going in "domino." At the Circolo ball a
very large proportion of the dancers were in costume. The Conte
Leandro Lombardoni,--lady-killer, Don Juan, and poet, whose fortunes
and misfortunes in these characters had made him the butt of the
entire society, and had perhaps contributed, together with his well-
known extraordinarily pronounced propensity for cramming himself
with pastry, to give him the pale, puffed, pasty face, swelling
around a pair of pale fish-like eyes, that distinguished him,--the
Conte Leandro Lombardoni; indeed, had gone to the Castelmare palace
as "Apollo," in a costume which young Ludovico Castelmare, the
Marchese Lamberto's nephew, would insist on mistaking for that of
Aesop; and had now, according to a programme perfectly well known
previously throughout the city, come to the Circolo as "Dante." The
Tuscan "lucco," or long flowing gown, had at least the advantage of
concealing from the public eye much that the Apollo costume had
injudiciously exhibited.

Ludovico Castelmare had adopted the costume of a Venetian noble of
the sixteenth century; and very strikingly handsome he looked in
that most picturesque of all dresses. The Marchese Lamberto was at
the ball, of course, but not in costume. Perhaps the most striking
figure in the rooms, however, was one of those few persons who have
been mentioned as present, but not belonging to Ravenna, or to the
class of its nobles. This was a lady, well known at that day
throughout Italy as Bianca Lalli--"La Lalli," or "La Bianca," in
theatrical parlance--for she was one of the first singers of the
day. Special circumstances--to be explained at a future page--had
rendered it possible for remote little Ravenna to secure the
celebrated artist for the Carnival, which was now expiring. The
Marchese Lamberto, who, among many other avocations and occupations,
all of them contributing in some way or other to the welfare and
advantage of his native city, was a great lover and connoisseur of
music, and patron of the theatre, had been mainly instrumental in
bringing La Lalli to Ravenna. The engagement had been a most
successful one. The "Diva Bianca" had sung through the Carnival,
charming all ears and hearts in Ravenna with her voice, and all eyes
with her very remarkable and fascinating beauty. And now, on this
last night of the festive season, she was the cynosure of all eyes
at the ball.

Bianca had, as it so happened, also chosen a Venetian costume of the
same period as that of Ludovico--about the middle of the sixteenth
century. In truth, it was mere chance that had led to this
similarity. And neither of them, as it happened, had mentioned to
the other the dress they intended to wear. Bianca, in fact, used as
she was to wear costumes of all sorts, and to outshine all beauties
near her in all or any of them, had thought nothing about her dress,
till the evening before; and then had consulted the Marchese
Lamberto on the subject: but had been so much occupied with him
during nearly the whole of that evening at his ball, that she had
not said a word about it to any one else.

It could not but seem, however, to everybody that the Marchese
Ludovico and La Lalli had agreed together to represent a pair
belonging to the most gorgeous and picturesque days of Venetian
history. And a most magnificently handsome pair they made. Bianca's
dress, or at least the general appearance and effect of it, will
readily be imagined by those acquainted with the full-length
portraits of Titian or Tintoretto. A more strictly "proper" costume
no lady could wish to wear. And the jeunesse doree of Ravenna, who
had thought it likely that the Diva would appear as some light-
skirted Flora, or high-kirtled Diana, were altogether disappointed.

But there was much joking and raillery about the evident and notable
pair-ship of Ludovico and Bianca; and it came to pass that, almost
without any special intention on their own part, they were thrown
much together, and danced together frequently. And this, under the
circumstances, was still more the case than it would have otherwise
been, in consequence of the Marchese Lamberto not dancing. It was a
long time since he had done so. There were many men dancing less
fitted than he, as far as appearance and capability, and even as far
as years went, to join in such amusements. Nevertheless, all Ravenna
would have been almost as much surprised to see the Marchese
Lamberto dressed in mumming costume, and making one among Carnival
revellers, as to see the Cardinal himself doing the same things. He
had made for himself a social position, and a life so much apart
from any such levities, that his participation in them would have
seemed a monstrosity.

It may be doubted, however, whether on this occasion, at least, the
dignified Marchese was satisfied with the position he had thus made
for himself. It would have been too absurd and remarkable for La
Bianca to have abstained from dancing and attached herself to him in
the ball-room, instead of consorting with the younger folks. Of
course that was entirely out of the question. But none the less for
that was the evening a time of cruel suffering and martyrdom to the
Marchese. Of course he believed that the adoption of so singularly
similar a costume by Bianca and his nephew was the result of pre-
arranged agreement. And the thought, and all that his embittered
fancy built upon the thought, were making everything around him, and
all the prospect of his life before him, utterly intolerable to him.

Ludovico and Bianca had been dancing together for the third time--a
waltz fast and furious, which they had kept up almost incessantly
till the music had ceased. Heated and breathless, he led her out of
the ball-room to get some refreshment. There was a large supper-room
which, on the cessation of the waltz, immediately became crowded by
other couples bent on a similar errand. But there had also been
established a little subsidiary buffet in a small cabinet at the
furthest end of the suite of rooms, for the purpose of drawing off
some of the crowd from the main supper-room. And thither Ludovico
led Bianca, thinking to avoid the crush of people rushing in to the
larger room.

The young Marchese--the "Marchesino," as he was often called, to
distinguish him from his uncle, the Marchese Lamberto--was one of
the small committee of the Circolo, who had had the management of
all the arrangements for the ball; and was, accordingly, well aware
of the whereabouts of this little "succursale" to the supper-room.
But it is probable that the existence of it was unknown to the great
majority of the company. At all events, so it happened, that when
Ludovico and Bianca reached it, it was wholly untenanted, save by
Dante, in his long red gown, solitarily occupied in cramming himself
with pastry.

"What, Dante in exile!" cried Ludovico. "Pray, Sir Poet, which
bolgia was set apart for those who are lost by the `peccato della
gola?' or is a bilious fit in the more immediate future bolgia
fearful enough?"

"It is not so bad a bolgia as that appointed some other sins," said
the Conte Leandro, with mouth stuffed with cake, as he moved out of
room.

"What an animal it is!" said Ludovico, laughing, as he gave Bianca a
glass of champagne, and filled another for himself.

"Take some of this woodcock pie, Signora Bianca? You must be starved
by this time; and I can recommend it."

"How so? You have not tasted it yourself yet."

"No; but I am going to do so. And my recommendation is based on my
knowledge of the qualities of our woodcocks. They are the finest in
the world. The marshes in the neighbourhood of the Pineta breed them
in immense quantities."

"Oh, I have heard so much of the Pineta. They say it is so lovely."

"The most beautiful forest in the world. And this is just the time
when it is in its greatest beauty,--the early spring, when the wild
flowers are all beginning to blossom, and the birds are all singing.
There is nothing like our Pineta!"

"I should so like to see it. It does seem really a shame to leave
Ravenna without ever having seen the Pineta."

"Oh, you must not dream of doing so. You must make a little
excursion one of these fine spring days. It is just the time for it.
Some morning, the earlier the better. But I dare say your habits are
not very matutinal, Signora?"

"Well, not very, for the most part. But I would willingly make them
matutinal for such a purpose at any time. How far is it?"

"Oh, a mere nothing--at the city gates almost a couple of miles,
perhaps. You may go out by the Porta Nuova, at the end of the Corso,
and so to that part of the forest which lies to the southward of the
city; or by the northern road, which very soon enters the wood on
that side. Perhaps the finest part of the Pineta is that to the
southwards. Of all places in the world it is the spot for a
colazione al fresco."

"I should so like it. I have heard of the Pineta di Ravenna all my
life."

"What do you say to going this very morning?" said Ludovico, after
thinking for a minute. "There is no time like the present. It will
be a charming finish to our Carnival--new and original, too! Do you
feel as if you had go enough left for it?"

"Oh, as for that," said Bianca, laughing with lips and eyes, "I am
up to anything. I should like it of all things. But--"

"Ah! what a terrible word that 'but' is. But what?" said Ludovico,
who had no sooner conceived the idea than he became eager to put it
into execution. "But what?"

"But--a great many things. Unhappily, there is no word comes oftener
into one's life than that odious 'but.' But who is to go with me? I
cannot go all alone by myself?"

"Oh, that's no but at all. Of course, Signora, I did not propose
such an expedition to you without proposing to myself the honour of
accompanying you," said Ludovico with a profound bow.

"What a scappata! I should like it of all things. But--there it
comes again! `But' the second; will not the good people say all
sorts of ill-natured and absurd things?"

"Not a bit of it--in my case, Signora. Everybody knows that we have
been very good friends; and that I have not been coxcomb enough to
have ever hoped to be aught more to you, having been protected, as
they all know, from such danger in the only way in which a man could
possibly be protected from it," said Ludovico, bowing again.

"Dear me! What way is that? It might be so useful to know. Would it
be equally applicable to a lady, I wonder?" said Bianca, looking at
him half laughingly, half-poutingly, with her head on one side. "Oh
yes! perfectly applicable in all cases, Signora. It is only to have
no heart to lose, having lost it already," returned he.

"Oh, come! This is a confidence dans les regles! And in return for
it, Signor Ludovico, do you know--speaking in all seriousness--that-
-if we really do put this wild scheme into execution--I have a
confidence to give you, and may take that opportunity of making it--
a confidence, not which may or may not be made, like yours, but
which I ought to make to you, the necessity of making which
furnishes, to say the truth, a very plausible reason for our
projected tete-a-tete."

"Davvero, Signora! Better and better; I shall be charmed to receive
such a mark of your friendship," said Ludovico, thinking and caring
little on what subject it might be that the Diva purposed speaking
to him: "and then, the fact is," he continued, "that to-morrow
morning will be the best morning for the purpose of all the days of
the year. For we shall be quite sure that every soul here will be in
bed and asleep. On the first morning in Lent one is tolerably safe
not to fall in with early risers. Our little trip, you may be very
sure, will never be heard of by anybody, unless we choose to tell of
it ourselves."

"And I am sure that I do not see why we should not," said Bianca.

"I see no reason against telling all the town, for my part,"
rejoined Ludovico; "afterwards though--you understand; and not
beforehand, or our little escapade would be spoilt by some blockhead
or other insisting on joining us. Our friend Leandro there, for
instance; think of it!"

"The idea is a nightmare! No; we will not say a word till
afterwards. 'Tis the most charming notion for a finale to a Carnival
that ever was conceived. I make you my compliments on it, Signor
Ludovico."

"So, then, all the `buts' have been butted and rebutted?" said he.

"Well, I suppose so,"--by the help of a strong desire to yield to
the temptation of so pleasant a scheme, the way `buts' generally are
answered. "But we cannot go on the expedition as we are, I suppose?"
said she.

"I don't see why not. I dare say the old pines have seen similar
figures beneath them before now. But you would not be comfortable
without changing your dress, and the mornings are still sharp. This
is how it must be. I will slip away before long, and make all
preparation necessary. I will get a bagarino and a pony--not from
the Castelmare stables, you understand, but from a man I know and
can trust--and I will come with it to the door of your lodging at
six o'clock. You will stay at the ball till the end. Everybody will
go by four o'clock, or soon after. That will give you plenty of time
to change your dress. By six o'clock every soul in Ravenna will be
fast asleep. We shall drive to a little farm-house I know on the
border of the forest, leave our bagarino there, and have our stroll
under the trees just as long and as far as is agreeable to you.
Won't that do?"

"Perfect! I shall enjoy it amazingly. I will be sure to be ready
when you come at six o'clock."

"I will be there at six or thereabouts. Now we will go back to the
ball-room; but don't dance till you have not a leg left to stand on.
We must have a good long stroll in the Pineta."

"Lascia fare a me! I dare say I shan't dance another dance--unless,
indeed, we have one more turn together before you go. Is there
time?"

"Oh yes, for that plenty of time. If you are not afraid of tiring
yourself, one more last dance by all means."

So giving her his arm, the Marchesino led his beautiful and
fascinating companion back to the ballroom, where the music was
again making the most of the time with another waltz.



CHAPTER II

Apollo Vindex


The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had not passed a pleasant Carnival.
Reconciled, as he had recently professed himself to be--after some
one of the frequent misfortunes that happened to his intercourse
with them--with the fair sex, he had begun his Carnival by
attempting to make his merit acceptable in the eyes of La Lalli; and
had failed to obtain any recognition from her, even as a poet, to
say nothing of his pretensions as a Don Juan. To a certain limited
degree, it had been forced upon his perception, that he had been
making an ass of himself; and the appreciation of that fact by the
other young men among whom he lived had been indicated with that
coarse brutality, as the poet said to himself, which was the outcome
of minds not "softened by the study of the ingenuous arts," as his
own was. He had been consistently snubbed and flouted, he and his
poetry, and his love-making, and his carefully prepared Carnival
costumes.

The result was, that at the ball on that last night of the Carnival,
the Conte Leandro was not in charity with all men, and, indeed,
hardly with any man. He was feeling very sore, and would fain have
avenged his pain by making any one else feel equally sore, if he had
it in his power to do so.

He was especially angry with Ludovico di Castelmare. Had he not
chaffed him unmercifully about the verses he had sent to La Bianca?
Was it not, to all appearance, due to him that the Diva had never
condescended to cast a glance on either him or his poetry? Had he
not called him Aesop, when it was plain to all the world that he
represented Apollo? And now this night, again, he had taken the
opportunity of turning him into ridicule in the presence of La
Bianca; and he and she had spoken of the possibility of their being
troubled with his company as of a nightmare. For the painful fact
was that their uncomplimentary expressions had been heard by the
poet; who, when he had left Ludovico and Bianca in the little
supper-room together, had retreated no further than just to the
other side of a curtain, which hung, Italian fashion, by the side of
the open door. Finding that there was nobody there--for the little
buffet was at the end of the entire suite of rooms, and all those
who were not either in the ball-room, or in the card-room, were at
that moment in the principal supper-room--it had seemed well to the
Conte Leandro, in his dudgeon and spite against all the world, to
ensconce himself quietly behind the curtain, and hear what use
Ludovico and Bianca would make of their tete-a-tete.

The first advantage he obtained was to hear himself spoken of as a
nightmare; and that naturally: prompted him to prick up his ears to
hear more. But when he had thus learned the whole secret of the
projected expedition, it struck him, as well worth considering,
whether there might not be found in this the means of making his
tormentor pay him for some of the annoyances he had suffered at his
hands.

So! the Marchese Ludovico, who ought to be paying his addresses to
the Contessa Violante in the sight of all Ravenna--the Contessa
Violante Marliani was great niece of the Cardinal Legate, between
whom and the Marchese Ludovico their respective families had
projected an alliance--was, instead of that, going off on a partie
fine with the notorious Bianca Lalli! A tete-a-tete in the Pineta!
Mighty fine, indeed! So sure, too, that nobody in the world would
find them out on Ash Wednesday morning! And he is to be at her door
at six o'clock in the morning! Very good! Capitally well arranged--
were it not that Leandro Lombardoni may perhaps think fit to put a
spoke in the wheel.

A little further consideration of the manner in which such spoke
might be most effectually supplied, decided the angry and malicious
poet--(poets, like women, will become malicious when scorned)--to
seek out the Marchese Lamberto, whom he thought he should probably
find in the card-room. For though the Marchese was no great card-
player, and never touched a card in his own house, he was wont, at
the Circolo, on such occasions as the present, to cast in his lot
with those who so consoled themselves for the years that made the
ball-room no longer their proper territory.

But the Conte Leandro did not find the Marchese among the card-
players.

The events of the evening had already thrown him back again into a
very miserable state of mind, from which the Marchese had been
suffering such torments as the jealous only know, during all the
latter half of the Carnival. It was strange that such a man as the
Marchese Lamberto--it would have seemed passing strange to any of
those his fellow-citizens who had known him, thoroughly as they
supposed, all his life; very strange that such a man, so calm, so
judicious, so little liable to the gusts of passion of any sort; a
man, the even tenor of whose well-regulated life had ever been such
as to expose him rather to the charge of almost apathetic placidity
of temper, should thus suddenly, in the full meridian time of his
mature years, become subject to such violent oscillations of
passion; to such buffetings by storms, blowing now from one and now
from the opposite quarter of the sky. But no length of prosperous
navigation in the quiet waters of a land-locked harbour will give
evidence of the vessel's fitness to encounter the storms and the
waves of the open sea. The storm-wind of a strong passion had, all
at once for the first time, blown in upon the sheltered harbour in
which that placid life had been led.

And yet that storm-wind did not produce the same effect, as it would
have produced, and is seen to produce every day on the strong, wide-
spread canvas of some young navigator on the ocean of life, putting
out into the open waters at the time when such storms are frequent.
Every day we see such craft scudding with all sails spread before
the blast without attempt at reefing or tacking. Right ahead they
drive before the wind with no doubtful course. But it was not and
could not be so in the case of the Marchese Lamberto. The whole
habits of a life--the ways, notions, hopes, desires, ambitions, that
time had made into a part of the nature of the man; the passions,
which though calm and unviolent in their nature, had become strong,
not by forcible energy, but by the deep and unconscious sinking of
their roots into the depths of his character--all these things
opposed a resistance to the new and suddenly-loosed passion-wind,
such as that which the deep-rooted oak opposes to the tempest with
no result of conquering it, only with the result of causing its own
leaves and branches to be buffeted to and fro, torn, broken, and
wrecked.

Thus it was that the unhappy Marchese was violently driven to and
fro from hour to hour between the extremities of love and hate, till
his brain reeled in the terrible conflict; and alternate attraction
and repulsion bandied his soul backwards and forwards between them.

A ball-room is not a pleasant exercise-ground for a jealous man who
does not dance. No "bolgia" of the hell invented by the sombre
imagination of the great poet could have surpassed, in torment, the
Circolo ball-room on that last Carnival night to the Marchese
Lamberto.

The sight of the sorceress who had bewitched him, as he watched her
in the dance, had once again scattered to the winds all resolution,
all hope of the possibility of escaping from the toils. What was all
else that he desired to be put in comparison with that raging,
craving desire that he felt and sickened with for her? That was what
he really wanted--what he must have or die. It was madness to see
her, as he saw her then, in the arms of other men, laughing,
sparkling, brilliant with animation and enjoyment. Worst hell of all
to see her thus with his nephew, her admiration for whom she had
frankly confessed; whose ways with women he knew, and whose intimacy
with Bianca had already become suspicious to him.

Yet not the less did he stand and gaze, as they danced together,
clearly the handsomest and best-matched couple in the room--matched
so admirably evidently by design and forethought.

He had seen Ludovico and Bianca leave the ball-room, after the last
dance, together with the crowd of most of those who had been joining
in it, and had begun fluttering, poor moth, after the irresistible
attraction, to follow them towards the supper-room. Missing sight of
them in the throng for a minute, he had followed on to the principal
supper-room, and not finding them there (for the reason the reader
wots of) had returned on his steps, and was sitting on the end of a
divan, by the door of the next room to the ball-room, through which
all had to pass who wished to go thence to the supper-room. There
were people passing through the centre of the room from door to
door; but there was no other, save the Marchese, sitting down in it.

There the Conte Leandro found him, and came and sat down by his
side; much, at first, to the Marchese's annoyance.

"What! you not in the supper-room, Signor Leandro. I thought your
place was always there?" said the Marchese.

"I'm no greater a supper-eater than another; let them say what they
please. But I have just been getting a glass of wine and a biscuit
in the little supper-room at the further end there."

"What, are there two supper-rooms? I did not know that!"

"Only a buffet in the little room at the end, where the papers
generally are. It was mainly Ludovico's doing,--in order to have
less crowd in the supper-room,--and perhaps to have a quiet place
for a tete-a-tete supper himself. Oh! I knew better than not to
clear out, when he and La Diva Bianca came in; specially as there
was nobody else there. Faith! I left them there alone together."

"Oh! that's where he is supping, then?" said the Marchese, in the
most unconcerned tone he could manage.

"Yes; supping,--or enjoying himself in some other way, quite as
delightful. The fact is, Signor Marchese," continued the poet, in a
lowered voice, and rapidly glancing around to see that there were no
ears within such a distance as to overhear his words,--"the fact is,
that I am afraid Signor Ludovico is less cautious than it would be
well for him to be, circumstanced as he is! I am sure I did not want
to listen to what he and the Lalli were saying to each other. It is
nothing to me. But they spoke with such little precaution, that I
could not help overhearing what they said; and what do you think
Ludovico is up to now?"

"How should I know!" said the Marchese, with the tips of his pale
lips; for he was grinding his teeth together to prevent them from
chattering in his head.

"He is off at six o'clock to-morrow morning tete-a-tete with La
Bianca, on an excursion to the Pineta. Coming it strong, isn't it?"

"To-morrow morning!" said the Marchese under his breath, and with
difficulty; for his blood seemed suddenly to rush back cold to his
heart, and he was shivering all over.

"Niente meno! I heard them arrange it all. He is to slip away from
the ball presently, in order to make all needful preparations, and
to be at her door with a bagarino at six o'clock in the morning.
Doing the thing nicely, isn't it?"

For a minute or two the Marchese was utterly unable to answer him a
word. His head swam round. He felt sick. A cold perspiration broke
out all over him; and he feared that he should have fallen from his
seat.

"He is a great fool for his pains," he said at last, mastering
himself by a great effort, sufficiently to enable himself to utter
the words in an ordinary voice and manner.

"Well, it seemed to me a mad scheme, considering all things. And the
truth is, that I thought your lordship would very likely think it
well to put a stop to it. And that is why I have bored your lordship
by mentioning it to you."

"At six o'clock, you say?" asked the Marchese.

"Yes; that was the hour they fixed. Then he is to drive her to a
farm-house on the border of the forest, leave the bagarino there,
and go into the wood for a stroll. Not a bad idea for a wind-up of
the Carnival, upon my word!"

"I think you have done very wisely and kindly in telling me this,
Signor Conte," said the Marchese, in as quiet tones as he could
command; "and if you will complete your kindness by saying no word
of it to anybody else, I shall esteem myself much obliged to you."

"Oh! for that you may depend on me, Signor Marchese. I should never
have thought of mentioning it to you, but for thinking that it would
be a real kindness to Ludovico to put a stop to it."

"Thanks, Signor Conte. A rivederla!" said the Marchese, rising.

"Felicissima notte, Signor Marchese," returned Leandro, rising also,
and bowing to his companion.



CHAPTER III

St. Apollinare in Classe


The Marchese remained at the ball to see one more dance between
Ludovico and Bianca after their supper; and then left the rooms.
There was nothing at all to cause remark in his thus retiring before
the evening. He never danced;--he happened not to be playing cards
on that evening. It was quite natural that such a man should prefer
going home to bed to remaining with the jeunes gens till the break-
up of the ball.

How he enjoyed that last dance, which he stayed to see, the reader
may perhaps imagine. Standing by a chimney-piece, on one corner of
which he rested his elbow, he in great measure shaded his face with
his hand, yet not so as to prevent him from seeing every movement of
the persons, and every expression of the faces of the couple he was
watching. There was a raging hell in his heart. And yet he stood
there, and gazed eagerly, greedily one would have said. And every
minute, and every movement blasted his eyes and stabbed his heart,
and poured poison into his veins.

When the dance was over he did not move for some time; for he
doubted his power to hold himself upright and walk steadily.
Presently, however, when Ludovico and Bianca had again quitted the
ball-room together, he gathered himself up, and moved slowly away,
shaking in every limb, pale, fever-lipped, and haggard.

The man who gave him his cloak in the ante-room remarked to another
servant, as soon as he was gone, that he would bet that the Marchese
Lamberto would not be at the next Carnival ball.

At six o'clock, with wonderful punctuality for an Italian, Ludovico,
with a neat little bagarino and fast-trotting pony, was at the door
of the Diva's lodging. But Bianca was not ready. Her maid came down
to the door with all sorts of apologies, and assurances that her
mistress would be ready in a few minutes. The few minutes, however,
became half an hour, as minutes will under such circumstances. And
the result of this delay was that Ludovico and his companion were
not the first travellers out of the Porta Nuova that morning.

During the whole of the past Carnival and the latter months of the
previous year there had been living in Ravenna a young girl,--an
artist from Venice, who had come to Ravenna with a commission given
her by a travelling Englishman to make copies of some of the more
remarkable of the very extraordinary and unique series of mosaics
which exist in the old imperial city. She had brought with her a
letter of introduction from her employer to the Marchese Lamberto,--
a circumstance which had led to a degree of intimacy between the
Marchesino Ludovico and the extremely attractive young artist, which
threatened to stand more or less in the way of the match which had
been arranged by the high-contracting parties between Ludovico and
the Lady Violante, the great niece of the Cardinal. The girl's name
was Paolina Foscarelli.

It is probable that in due time and season the reader may become
better acquainted with Paolina. But at present there is no need of
troubling him with more particulars respecting her than the above,
save to mention that, having industriously and successfully
completed the greater portion of her task in the churches within the
city, she had determined to make her first visit to the strange old
Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe, on that same Ash Wednesday
morning. She did not purpose beginning her task there on that day;
but intended merely to reconnoitre the ground, look to the needful
preparations that had been made for her work, and ascertain how far
the spot was within her powers of walking.

Paolina, too, had felt that the morning of Ash Wednesday was a
favourable time for the first experiment of an undertaking that a
little alarmed her. For she also had calculated that on such a
morning she should be little likely to meet anybody. It was just
about six o'clock when Paolina started on her proposed walk; and she
passed through the Porta Nuova, therefore, a little more than half-
an-hour before Ludovico and his companion passed, travelling in the
same direction.

The road, which it was necessary for her to follow in order to reach
St. Apollinare in Classe, is the same for the whole of the distance
between the city and the ancient church as that which Ludovico and
Bianca would follow to reach the celebrated pine forest. The soil on
which the forest stands is composed of the accumulation of sand
which the rivers--mainly the Po--have brought from distant
mountains, and deposited in the bed of the Adriatic since the old
church was built "in Classe,"--where the fleet once used to be
moored. The building thus stands nearly at the edge of the forest,
hardly more than a stone's throw from the furthest advanced
sentinels of the wood. The road coming out from the city by the
Porta Nuova, on its way to the little town of Cervia, a few miles to
the southward, traverses ground once thickly covered with palaces,
streets, and churches, now open fields,--and passes by the western
front and doorway of the almost deserted old Basilica, a little
before it reaches the turning off towards the left, which enters the
forest.

The walk before Paolina, when she had passed the city gate, was
about two miles or rather more. So that had La Bianca taken a few
less minutes to put the finishing touches to the charming morning
toilette which replaced the gorgeous Venetian costume she had taken
off, the bagarino which carried her and Ludovico would infallibly
have overtaken the young artist. As it was, however, having more
than half-an-hour's start of it, she reached the church before they
came within sight of it.

Little Paolina had felt rather nervous when first stepping into the
cool fresh morning air from the door of the lodging she occupied.
But the street was utterly empty, and she took courage. The first
human beings she saw on her way were the octroi officers at the
gate. They sat apparently half asleep at the doorway of their den,
by the side of the city gate, wrapped in huge cloaks; and took not
even so much heed of her as to say "Good morning."

The long bit of straight flat road outside the gate was equally
deserted; and Paolina, braced by the morning air, stepped out
vigorously, and began to enjoy her walk.

There is little enough, however, in the country through which she
was passing to delight the eye. The fields in the immediate
neighbourhood of the city are cultivated, and not devoid of trees.
But the cheerfulness thence arising does not last long. Very soon
the trees cease, and there are no more hedge-rows. Large flat
fields, imperfectly covered with coarse rank grass, and divided by
the numerous branches of streams, all more or less diked to save the
land from complete inundation, succeed. The road is a causeway
raised above the level of the surrounding district; and presently a
huge lofty bank is seen traversing the desolate scene for miles, and
stretching away towards the shore of the neighbouring Adriatic. This
is the dike which contains the sulkily torpid but yet dangerous
Montone.

Gradually, as the traveller proceeds, the scene grows worse and
worse. Soon the only kind of cultivation to be seen from the road
consists of rice-grounds, looking like--what in truth they are--
poisonous swamps. Then come swamps pure and simple, too bad even to
be turned into rice grounds,--or rather simply swamps impure; for a
stench at most times of the year comes from them, like a warning of
their pestilential nature, and their unfitness for the sojourn of
man. A few shaggy, wild-looking cattle may be seen wandering over
the flat waste, muddy to the shoulders from wading in the soft
swamps. A scene of more utter desolation it is hardly possible to
meet with in such close neighbourhood to a living city.

Paolina shivered, and drew her little grey cloak more closely around
her shoulders; not from cold, though a bleak wind was blowing across
the marshes. She was warmed by walking; but the aspect of the scene
before her almost frightened the Venetian girl by the savagery of
its desolation.

The raised causeway, however, keeps on its course amid the low-lying
marshes on either side of it; and presently the peculiar form of
outline belonging to a forest composed entirely of the maritime pine
is distinguishable on the horizon to the left. The road quickly
draws nearer to it; and the large, heavy, velvet-like masses of dark
verdure become visible. In a forest such as the famous Pineta,
consisting of the maritime pine only, the lines, especially when
seen at a distance, have more of horizontal and less of
perpendicular direction than in any other assemblage of trees. And
the effect produced by the continuity of spreading umbrella-like
tops is peculiar.

Then, soon after the forest has become visible, the road brings the
wayfarer within sight of a vast lonely structure heaving its huge
long back against the low horizon, like some monster antidiluvian
saurian, the fit denizen of this marsh world. It is the venerable
Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe.

Through all this dismal scene Paolina tripped lightly along with a
quick step through the crisp morning air, no little awed by the
dreary, voiceless desolation of it, but yet encouraged and not
unpleased by the solitude of it.

The walk she found to be quite within her powers, at all events at
that hour of the morning and in that season of the year; and when
she stood before the western door of the ancient church, in front of
which the road passes, Ludovico and Bianca were only then on the
point of starting from the quarters of the latter, in the Strada di
Porta Sisi.

Though knowing but little of the long and strangely diversified
story which presses on the mind of a stranger read in history as he
stands before the door of that desolate old church, Paolina could
not but be much struck by the appearance of the building and of the
scene around it. If ever a spot was expressive in every way by which
a locality can speak to the imagination of the abomination of
desolation, the view which spreads before the eye at the huge
doorway of the Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe is so. The
general character of the country around it has been described. But
the church itself is the most dreary and melancholy feature in the
landscape. No desolation resulting solely from the operations of
Nature, even in her least kindly mood, can ever suffice to speak to
the imagination as the change and decay of the works of man's hand
speak. To produce the effect of desolation in its highest degree man
must have at some former period been present on the scene, and the
remains of his work must be there to show that activity, life,
energy, has once existed where it exists no more. Nature is always
and everywhere progressive, and no sentiment of sadness belongs to
progress. Man's ruined work alone imparts the suggestion--(a
delusive one, indeed, but most forcible)--of falling back from the
better to the worse.

Wonderfully eloquent after this fashion are the temples of Paestum,
far away there to the south beyond Naples, on the flat strip of
miserably cultivated soil between the Apennines and the
Mediterranean. But they are too far gone in ruin and decay to speak
with so living a voice of sadness as does this old Byzantine church.
The human element is at Paestum too far away,--too utterly dead and
forgotten. In St. Apollinare life still lingers. Life, flickering in
its last spark, like the twinkling of a lamp which the next moment
will extinguish, is still there. Life more suggestive of death, than
any utter absence of life could be.

There are some dilapidated remains of conventual buildings on the
southern side of the church, mean, and of a date some thousand years
subsequent to that of the Basilica. They are nearly ruinous, but are
still--or were till within a few years--inhabited by one Capucin
friar, and one lay brother of the order, whose duty it was to mutter
a mass, with ague-chattering jaws, at the high altar, and act as
guardians of the building.

Small guardianship is needed. The huge ancient doors--made of planks
from vine trunks which grew fifteen hundred years ago on the
Bosphorus--are never closed; probably because their weight would
defy the efforts of the two poor old friars, to whom the keeping of
the building is committed, to move them. But a poor and mean low
gate of iron rails has been fitted to the colossal marble door-
posts, which suffices to prevent the wandering cattle of the waste
from straying into the church, but does not prevent the fever-laden
mists from the marshes from drifting into the huge nave, and
depositing their unwholesome moisture in great trickling drops upon
the green-stained walls.

But not even the low iron gateway was closed when Paolina reached
the church. It stood partially open. After having stood a minute or
two before the building to look round upon the scene, Paolina
stepped up to the gate and looked into the church, but could see no
human being. Within, as without, all was utter death-like silence.
She shivered, and drew her cloak more closely round her, as she
stood at the gate; for the healthy blood was running rapidly through
her veins after her brisk walk, and the deadly cold damp air from
the church struck her with a shudder, which was but the physical
complement of the moral impression produced by the aspect of the
place.

After a minute, however, wondering at the stillness, half frightened
at the utter solitude, and awed by the vast gloomy grandeur of the
naked but venerable building, she pushed the gate, and entered.



CHAPTER IV

Father Fabiano


Paolina entered hesitatingly, and starting at the echoes of her
footsteps on the flagstones, wet and green, and slimy from the
water, which often in every year lies many inches deep on the floor
of the church. She advanced towards a small marble altar which
stands quite isolated in the middle of the huge nave. And as she
neared it she perceived, with a violent start, that there was a
living figure kneeling at it. So still, so utterly motionless had
this solitary worshipper been, so little visible in the dim light
was the hue of the Franciscan's frock that entirely covered him,
that Paolina had not imagined that there had been any living
creature in the church. She saw, however, in the same instant that
she became aware of his presence, that the figure was that of a
Capucin friar, and doubted not that he must be the guardian of the
church, whom she had been told she would find there.

The little low altar, of an antiquity coeval with that of the
church, which stands in the centre of the nave, is the sole
exception to the entire and utter emptiness of the place. There are,
indeed, ranged along the walls of the side aisles, several ancient
marble coffins, curiously carved, and with semi-circular covers,
which contain the bodies of the earliest Bishops of the See. But the
little altar is the sole object that breaks the continuity of the
open floor. The body of St. Apollinare was originally laid beneath
it, but was in a subsequent age removed to a more specially
honourable position under the high altar at the eastern end of the
church. There is still, however, the slab deeply carved with letters
of ancient form, which tells how St. Romauld, the founder of the
order of Camaldoli, praying by night at that altar, saw in a vision
St. Apollinare, who bade him leave the world, and become the founder
of an order of hermits.

It was on the same stones that the knees of St. Romauld had pressed,
that the Capucin was kneeling, as Paolina walked up the nave of the
church. The peaked hood of his brown frock was drawn over his head,
for the air of the church was deadly cold, and the fever and ague of
many a successive autumn had done their work upon him. He was called
Padre Fabiano, and was said to be, and looked to be, upwards of
eighty years old. Probably, however, his age was much short of that.
For the nature of his dwelling-place was such as to stand in the
place of time, in its power to do worse than time's work on the
human frame.

Of course, it can be no matter of question, why a monk is here or is
there, does this or does that. Obedience to the will of his
superiors is the only reason for all that, in the case of other
human beings, depends on their own volition. The monk has no
volition.

No human being who had, it might be supposed, would consent to live
at St. Apollinare in Classe, with one lay brother for a companion,
and discharge the duties assigned to the Padre Fabiano. But the
question why his superiors sent him there, was still one that might
suggest itself, though it was little likely ever to be answered. And
the absence of all answer to such question was supplied by the
gossips of Ravenna, by tales of some terrible crime against
ecclesiastical discipline of which the Padre Fabiano had been guilty
some sixty years or so ago. Certain it was that be had occupied his
dreary position for many years; and it was wonderful that fever and
ague and the marsh pestilence had not long since dismissed him to
the reward of his long penitence on earth.

He rose from his knees as Paolina approached him, and gravely bent
his cowled head to her in salutation.

"You are early, Signora," he said. "I suppose you are the person for
whom yonder scaffold has been prepared."

"Yes, father, I am the artist for whom leave has been obtained to
copy some of your mosaics."

"You will find it cold work, daughter. The church is damp somewhat.
You would do better, methinks, not to begin your day's work till the
sun has had time to warm the air a little."

"I had no thought, father, of beginning to-day. I have brought
nothing with me. I only thought that I would walk out and have a
look at the job before me. It is not so far from the city as I
thought."

"It is far enough to be as lonely and as deserted as if it were a
thousand miles from a human habitation," said the monk, looking into
the girl's face with a grave smile.

"Yet you live here, from year's end to year's end all alone, Padre
mio," said Paolina, timidly.

"Not quite so, daughter," replied he. "Brother Barnaba, a lay
brother of our order, is my companion. But he is ill with a touch of
ague at present."

"And how early would it be not inconvenient to you, Padre mio, to
open the church for me?" asked Paolina.

"I spoke not of your being early on my account, daughter. If you
come here at sunrise, you will find the gate open, and me where you
found me this morning; and if you come at midnight you will find the
same."

"At midnight, father!" said Paolina, with a glance of surprise and
pity.

"Last October I was down with the fever," returned the monk; "but
since that time I have not failed one night to be on my knees where
the blessed St. Romauld knelt at the stroke of midnight. But I have
not had his reward;--doubtless because I am not worthy of it."

"What was the reward of St. Romauld, father?" demanded Paolina.

"His midnight prayers were rewarded by the vision of St. Apollinare
in glory, who spoke to him, and gave him the counsel he sought.
Night after night, and hour after hour, have I knelt and prayed. And
I have heard the moaning of the wind from the Adriatic among the
pines of the forest yonder, and I have seen the great crucifix above
the high altar sway and move in the moonlight when it comes
streaming through the southern windows; and sometimes I have hoped--
and prayed--and hoped--but no vision came!"

The old monk sighed, and dropped his head upon his bosom; and
Paolina gazed at him with a feeling of awe, mingled with a suddenly
rising fear, that the tall and emaciated old man, whose light-blue
eyes gleamed out from beneath his cowl, was not wholly right in his
mind. She would have been more alarmed had she been aware that the
old Padre Fabiano of St. Apollinare was generally considered in
Ravenna to be crazed by all those who did not, instead of that, deem
him a saint.

Before she had gained courage to answer him, however, he lifted his
head, with another deep sigh, and said, in a very quiet and ordinary
tone and manner,

"Your scaffold is all prepared for you there, Signora, according to
the directions of the Signor Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare, who
brought with him an order from the Archbishop's Chancellor. Will you
look at it, and see if it is as you wish, and say where you wish to
have it placed."

The mosaics in the apse of the centre nave are the most remarkable
of those that remain at St. Apollinare, though many of the series of
medallion portraits of the Bishops of the See from the foundation of
it, which circle the entire nave, are very curious. Paolina had
engaged to copy two or three of the most remarkable of these; but
she intended to begin her work by attacking the larger figures in
the apse. And the scaffolding had been placed there on the southern
side.

"I think that is just where I should wish to have it," said Paolina,
looking up at the vault. "If I may, I will go up and see whether it
is near enough to the figure I have to copy."

"Do so, my daughter. It looks a great height, but I have no doubt
that it is quite safe. The Signor Marchese was very particular in
seeing to it himself. See, I will go up first to give you courage."

And so saying, the old man with a slow but firm step began to ascend
the ladder of the scaffolding. And when he had reached the platform
at the top, Paolina, more used to such climbing than he, and who in
truth had felt no alarm whatever, followed him with a lighter step.

"Yes, this will do nicely, Padre mio!" she said, when she had
reached the top; "it is placed just where it should be, and this
large window gives just all the light I want. It is a much better
light than I had to work by in San Vitale."

"I never was in San Vitale," replied the monk. "I have been here
fourteen years next Easter, and I have never once been in Ravenna in
all that time, nor, indeed, further away from this church than just
a stroll within the edge of the Pineta."

"That is the Pineta we see from this window, of course, Padre mio.
What a lovely view of it! And how beautiful it is! Where does that
road go to, Padre? To Venice?"

"No, figliuola mia. It goes in exactly the opposite direction,
southwards, to Cervia. The Venice road lies away to the northward,
through the wood that you can see on the furthest horizon. It was by
that road I came to Ravenna. I shall never travel it again."

"From Venice, father? Did you come from Venice?" asked Paolina,
eagerly.

"From La bella Venezia I came, daughter--fourteen years ago. And
once in every month I indulge myself by going to the top of our
tower--you can't see it from this window, it is on the northern side
of the church--and looking out over the north Pineta as far as I can
see towards it. May God and St. Mark grant that no tempter ever
offer me the sight of Venice again at the price of my soul's
salvation! I shall never, never see Venice more!"

"You must be a Venetian, father, surely, to love it so well?" said
Paolina, after a minute or two of silence.

"A Venetian I am--or was, daughter; as I well knew you were when you
first spoke. Might I ask your name?"

"Paolina Foscarelli, father. I am an orphan," said she, softly.

"No!" said the monk, shaking his head, with a deep sigh, and looking
earnestly into the girl's face, but without any appearance of
surprise,--"No; you are not Paolina Foscarelli."

"Indeed, father, that is my name," said Paolina, again recurring to
her doubt whether the monk was altogether of sound mind, and
speaking very quietly and gently; "my father's name was Foscarelli,
and the baptismal name of my mother was the same as mine--Paolina."

"Jacopo and Paolina Foscarelli, who lived in the little house at the
corner of the Campo di San Pietro and Paolo," rejoined the monk,
speaking in a dreamy far-away kind of manner.

"I have truly heard that they lived there," said she; "but I was
only four years old when they died, one very soon after the other,
and since that I have lived with a friend of my mother's, Signora
Steno."

"The child of Jacopo and Paolina Foscarelli," said the monk, in the
same dreamy tone, and pressing his thin emaciated hands before his
eyes as he spoke; "and you have come here to find me?"

"Nay, father, not to find you. I knew not that the padre guardiano
of St. Apollinare was a Venetian. I came only to copy these pictures
for my employer."

"Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful are the ways of God! Paolina
Foscarelli, daughter of Jacopo and Paolina, I Fabiano---"

"Look, padre min!" cried Paolina, suddenly and sharply, turning very
pale, and grasping the parapet rung of the scaffolding as she spoke,
"look! in the bagarino there on the road, just passing the church;
certainly that must be the Signor Marchese Ludovico!--And with him--
that lady?--yes, it is--it certainly is La Lalli--the prima donna,
who has been singing at the theatre this Carnival."

She pointed as she spoke to a bagarino that had just passed the
western front of the church, and was now moving along the bit of
road visible from the high window at which the monk and Paolina were
standing.

The tone in which she spoke caused the friar to look at her first,
before turning his glance in the direction to which she pointed. She
was pale, and evidently much moved, after a fashion that, taken
together with the nature of the objects to which she drew his
attention, and the fact that it was the Marchese Ludovico who had
come to St. Apollinare to make the arrangements needed for the
artist's work there, left but little doubt in the old man's mind as
to the nature of her emotion.

He looked shrewdly and earnestly into her face for a moment; and
then turning his eyes to the stretch of road below, answered her:

"Certainly, my daughter, that is the Marchese Ludovico. The lady I
never saw before as far as I am aware. They are going towards
Cervia."

"No! See, father! They are turning off from the road to the left.
Where does that turning to the left go?"

"Only into the forest, daughter,--or to that little farm-house you
see there just at the edge of it. You may get as far as the sea-
shore through the Pineta; but the road is very bad for a carriage."

"To the sea-shorn!" said Paolina, dreamily.

"Yes, by keeping the track due east. The shore is not above a couple
of miles away. But there is no port, or even landing-place there.
And there are many tracks through the forest. You may get to Cervia,
too, that way. But it is hardly likely that any one would leave the
road to find a longer way by worse ways through the forest. More
likely the object of the Signor Marchese is only to show the lady
the famous Pineta."

Paolina, while the monk was thus speaking, had kept her eyes fixed
upon the little carriage, which was making its way along a by-road
constructed on the top of a dike by the side of one of the numerous
streams that intersect all the district; and she continued to watch
it till she saw it stop at the entrance to the yard of the little
farmhouse, to which the monk had called her attention. She then saw
Ludovico and his companion descend from the carriage, and leave it
apparently in the charge of a man, who came out from the farm-yard.
And they then left the spot where they had alighted on foot, and in
another minute were no longer visible from the window at which
Paolina and the monk stood.

"How long a walk is it, father, from here into the wood?" asked
Paolina, musingly.

"It is a very short distance, daughter. There is a footpath
practicable in dry weather like this, a good deal nearer than the
road we saw the bagarino follow. You might get to the edge of the
Pineta in that way in less than ten minutes."

"And would it be possible to return to the city that way, instead of
coming back to the road?" enquired Paolina.

"Yes; for a part of the way there is a path along the border of the
wood. Then you must fall back into the road. The way lies by the
gate of the farm-house."

"I think I will go back to the city now, father. This scaffold is
just where it will suit me. And tomorrow, a little later perhaps
than this, I hope to come and begin my work. I shall have to come in
a carriage, at all events, the first time, because of bringing my
things. I am so much obliged to you, father, for your kindness. And
I am so glad that you are a Venetian. I little thought to find a
fellow-countryman here."

"Or I to see this morning a Venetian--much less--but we will speak
more of that another time--if you will permit an old man sometimes
to speak to you when you are at your work?"

"Ma come--I can talk while I work. It will be a real pleasure to me
to hear the dear home tongue. I will go down the ladder first. I am
not the least afraid."

So Paolina left the church, and the monk stood at the yawning ever-
open western door, looking after her as she took the path he had
indicated to her towards the forest.



CHAPTER V

"The Hours passed, and still she came not"


There was misgiving in the heart of the old man as he stood at the
door of the Basilica looking after the light little form of Paolina
as she moved along the path, raised above the swamp on either side,
that led towards the edge of the forest.

The rays of the sun slanting from the eastward lighted up all the
path on which she was walking; and though the western front of the
church was still in shade, had begun to suck up the mists, and to
make the air feel at least somewhat more genial and wholesome. The
monk pushed back the cowl of his frock, which had hitherto been
drawn over his head, the better to watch the receding figure of the
girl as she moved slowly along the path; and still, as he gazed
after her, he shook his head from time to time with an uneasy sense
of misgiving.

It was not that the mere fact of the girl's entering the Pineta
alone seemed to him, accustomed as he was to the place and its
surroundings, to involve any danger to her of any sort, beyond,
indeed, the possibility of losing herself for a few hours in the
forest. The whole extent of it is very frequently traversed by the
men in the employment of the farmers to whom the Papal government
was in the practice of letting out the right of pasturage and
management of the wood. And these people were all known. There were,
it is true, encroachers on these rights, who might well be less
known, and less responsible persons; and possibly the forest paths
might sometimes be traversed by people bound on some errand of
smuggling. But nothing had ever happened of late years in the forest
to suggest the probability of any danger.

It was rather the nature of Paolina's own motives for her
expedition, as they were patent to the old monk, that disquieted him
on her behalf. He had marked the expression of her face when she had
seen the bagarino with Ludovico and his companion pass along the
road towards the forest, and the change in her whole manner after
that. And monk, and octogenarian as he was, he had been at no loss
to comprehend the nature of the emotions which had been aroused in
her mind by the sight. And he feared that evil might arise from the
collision of passions, which it seemed likely were about to be
brought into the presence of each other.

Perhaps, monk and aged as he was, the apprehensions with which his
mind was busy seemed more big with possible evil than they might to
another. Perhaps it was so long since he had had aught to do with
stormy passions that the contemplation of them affrighted his
stagnant mind all the more by reason of the long years of
passionless placidity to which it was accustomed. Perhaps he had
known passions stormy enough in the long long past, and had
experience of the harvest of evils which might be expected to be
produced by them.

Report said, that when Father Fabiano had been sent by his superiors
to occupy the miserable and forlorn sentinel's post at the church-
door of St. Apollinare, amid inundations in winter, and fever and
ague in summer, his appointment to the dreary office had been of the
nature of a penance and an exile. It was said, too, that the
sentence of exile, which placed him in his present position, had
been an alleviation of a more rigorous punishment; that he had been
allowed, after a period of many years of imprisonment in a monastery
of his order at Venice, to change that punishment for the duty to
which he had been appointed, and which would scarcely have seemed an
amelioration of destiny to any one save a man who had for years been
deprived of the light of the sun and the scent of the free air. Some
deed there had been in that life which had called for such monastic
discipline; some outcome of human passion when the blood, that now
crept slowly, while the aged monk passed the hours in waiting for
visions before the altar of St. Apollinare, was running in his veins
too rapidly for monastic requirements.

It was evident from the few words that he had let drop, when he
became aware who the young Venetian visitor to the church under his
care was, that some special circumstances caused him to feel a more
than ordinary interest in her. Some connection there must have been
between some portion of his life and that of some member or members
of her family. Of what nature was it? Monkish tribunals, however
else they may treat those subjected to them, at least keep their
secrets. Frailties must be expiated; but they need not be exposed.
And the true story of the fault which condemned Father Fabiano to
end his days amid the swamps of St. Apollinare, as well as the
precise nature of the connection which had existed between him and
Paolina's parents, can be only matter of conjecture.

Paolina, as has been said, pursued her path slowly. She had tripped
along much more lightly on her way from the city to St. Apollinare.
And yet she was urged on by a burning anxiety to know whither
Ludovico and Bianca had gone, and for what purpose they had come
thither. But, despite this nervous anxiety, she stepped slowly,
because her heart disapproved of the course she was taking. It
seemed as if she was drawn on towards the forest by some mysterious
mechanical force, which she had not the strength to resist. Again
and again she had well nigh made up her mind to turn aside from the
path she was following. She would go only a few steps further
towards the edge of the forest. She looked out eagerly before her,
standing on tip-toe on every little bit of vantage ground which the
path afforded. She would only go as far as that next bend in the
path. But the bend in the path disclosed a stile a little further
on, from which surely a view of all the ground between the path she
was on and the farmhouse at which Ludovico and his companion had
descended, might be had. She would go so far and no further. And
thus, poor child, she went on and on, long and long after the monk
had lost sight of her, and with a deep sigh, had turned to go back
again into the church.

It had been six o'clock when Paolina started on her walk to the
church, and nothing had been settled with any accuracy between her
and the old friend and protectress, with whom she had come to
Ravenna, and lived during her stay there, as to the exact time at
which she might be expected to return. The name of the protectress
in question was Signora Orsola Steno, an old friend of her mother's,
who, when Paolina Foscarelli had been left an orphan, had, for pure
charity and friendship's sake, taken the child, and brought her up.
Latterly, by the exercise of the talent inherited from her father,
Paolina had been able to do something, not only towards meeting her
own expenses, but towards making some return for all that the good
Orsola had done for her out of her own poverty. And now this
commission of the Englishman who had sent her to Ravenna would go
far towards improving the prospects of both Paolina and her old
friend.

Old Orsola did not know exactly at what time to expect Paolina back;
but she knew that Paolina's purpose on that Ash Wednesday morning
was merely to walk to the church, and, having seen the preparations
that had been made for her work, to return, without on that occasion
remaining to begin her task. So that when the hour of the midday
meal arrived, and her young friend had not returned, old Orsola
began to be a little uneasy about her.

Nor was her uneasiness lessened by her entire ignorance as to there
being little or much, or no cause at all for it. Never having left
Venice before in her life, old Orsola was as much a stranger in
Ravenna, and felt herself to be in an unknown world, as completely
as an Englishman would in Japan. Since she had been in Ravenna she
had frequently heard the Pineta spoken of, and the old church out
there in which her young friend was to do a portion of her task. But
she had heard them both mentioned as strange and wild places, not
exactly like all the rest of the world. And the old woman felt,
that, for aught she knew, this Pineta, and the old church in the
wilderness on the borders of it, might be a place full of dangers
for a young girl all by herself.

And as the hours crept on, and no Paolina came, her uneasiness
increased till she felt it impossible to sit quietly at home waiting
for her any longer. She must go out, and--do what? The poor old
woman did not in the least know what to do; or of whom to make any
inquiry. The only person with whom the two Venetian strangers had
become at all intimate in Ravenna was the Marchese Ludovico. And the
only step in her difficulty which old Orsola could think of taking,
after much doubt and hesitation, was to go to the Palazzo
Castelmare, and endeavour to speak with the Marchesino. The letter
of introduction, which they had brought from the English patron, was
addressed to the Marchese Lamberto. But the acquaintance of the
Venetians with him had remained very slight; and Orsola felt so much
awe of so grand and reverend a Signor, that it was to the nephew
only that she thought of applying.

So, not without much doubt and misgiving, the old woman put on her
bonnet and cloak and made the best of her way to the Castelmare
palace. There she found a porter lounging before the door, to whom
she made her petition to be allowed to speak to the Signor Marchese
Ludovico.

"My name is Orsola Steno," said the old woman humbly, a little in
awe of the majestic porter, chosen for that situation for his size;
"and the Signor Marchesino knows me very well. I am sure he would
not refuse to see me."

Insolent servants in a great house are generally a sure symptom of
something amiss in the moral nature of their masters. Good and
kindly masters have and make civil and kindly servants; and the big
porter of the palazzo Castelmare was accordingly by no means a
terrible personage.

"Signora Orsola Steno! To be sure. I remember you very well,
Signora, when you called on the padrone last summer. I am sure the
Signor Marchesino would have pleasure in seeing you, if he were at
home. But he is not here. And to tell you the truth, we have no idea
where he is. He came home early this morning after the ball, and
instead of going to bed, changed his dress, and went out again at
once; and has not been back since. Some devilry or other! Che vuole!
We were all young once upon a time, eh, Signora Orsola? And as for
the Marchesino, he is as good a gentleman as any in Ravenna or out
of it, for that matter. But he is young, Signora, he is young! And
that's all the fault he has. Can I give him any message for you,
Signora?"

"The fact is," said old Orsola, after a few moments of rapid
reflection as to the expediency of telling her trouble to the
porter, and a decision prompted by the good-natured manner of the
man, and by the poor woman's extreme need of some one to tell her
trouble to,--"the fact is, that I wanted to ask the advice of the
Signor Marchesino about a young friend of mine, the Signora Paolina
Foscarelli, who went out of the city early this morning to go to St.
Apollinare in Classe, and ought to have been back hours ago. And I
am quite uneasy about her."

"Why, your trouble, Signora, is of a piece with our own," said the
porter, with a burly laugh; "and it seems to me like enough we can
help each other. You miss a young lady; and we miss a young
gentleman. When I used to go out into the marshes a-shooting with
the Marchese, we used to be sure, when we had put up the cock bird,
that the hen was not far off; or, if we got the hen, we knew we had
not far to look for the cock. Do you see, Signora? Two to one the
pair of runaways are together; and they'll come home safe enough
when they've had their fun out. I dare say the Signor Marchesino and
the Signorina you speak of are old friends?"

"Why, yes, Signore. For that matter they are old friends!" replied
Orsola, adopting the porter's phrase for want of one which could
express the meaning she had in her mind more desirably.

"To be sure--to be sure. And if you will take my advice, Signora,
you will go home, and give yourself no trouble at all about the
young lady. Lord bless us! what though 'tis Lenten-tide? Young folks
will be young, Signora Orsola. They'll come home safe enough. And
maybe I might as well say nothing to the Signor Marchesino about
your coming here, you know. When folks have come to that time of
life, Signora, as brings sense with it, they mostly learn that least
said is soonest mended," said the old porter, with a nod of deep
meaning.

And Signora Orsola was fain to take the porter's advice, so far as
returning to her home went. But it was not equally easy to give
herself no further trouble about Paolina. It might be as the porter
said; and if she could have been sure that it was so the old lady
would have been perfectly easy. But it was not at all like Paolina
to have planned such an escapade without telling her old friend
anything about it. She felt sure that when Paolina said she was
going to St. Apollinare to look after the preparations for her
copying there, she had no other or further intention in her
thoughts. To be sure there was the possibility that Ludovico might
have known her purpose of going thither, and might have planned to
accompany her on her expedition, without having apprized her of any
such scheme. And it might not be unlikely that in such a case they
had been tempted to spend a few hours in the Pineta. And with these
possibilities Signora Steno was obliged to tranquillize herself as
she best might.

She returned home not without some hope that she might find that
Paolina had returned during her absence; but such was not the case--
Paolina was still absent. And though it was now some eight or nine
hours from the time she had left home, old Orsola had nothing for it
but to wait for tidings of her as patiently as she could.



CHAPTER VI

Gigia's Opinion


The aged monk of St. Apollinare, after watching Paolina as she
departed from the Basilica, and took the path towards the forest,
returned into the church to his devotions at the altar of the saint,
as has been said. But he found himself unable to concentrate his
attention as usual, not on the meaning of the words of the litanies
he uttered,--that, it may be imagined, few such worshippers do, or
even attempt to do,--but on such devotional thoughts as, on other
occasions, constituted his mental attitude during the hours he spent
before the altar.

He could not prevent his mind from straying to thoughts of the girl
who had just left him; of certain long-sleeping recollections of his
own past, which her name had recalled to him; of her very manifest
emotion at the sight of the couple in the bagarino, and the too easy
interpretation of the meaning of that emotion; and specially of her
implied intention of taking the same route that they had taken.

He thought of these things, and a certain sense of uneasiness and
misgiving came over him. The young artist had spoken kindly and
sweetly to him. She had seemed to him wonderfully pretty,--and that
is not without its influence even on eyes over which the cowl had
been drawn for more than three-score years; she was a fellow-
Venetian too,--and that with Italians, who find themselves in a
stranger city, is a stronger tie of fellowship than the people of
less divided nations can readily appreciate; and, above all, there
were motives connected with those awakened remembrances of the old
man which made her an object of interest to him. And the result of
all this was, that he was uneasy at seeing her depart on the errand
on which he suspected that she had gone.

After awhile he arose from his knees, and, returning to the great
open door of the church, stood awhile irresolutely gazing out
towards the forest to the southward. He could not see the farmhouse,
which has been so frequently mentioned, from where he stood, because
it is to the eastward of the church. After awhile he strolled out
and along the road, till he came in sight of the house on the border
of the forest. But there was no human being to be seen. Then,
apparently having taken a resolution, he went into the dilapidated
remains of the old convent, and ascended a stair to the room where
his sole companion, the lay brother, was ill in bed. He gave the
sick man a potion, placed a cup with drink by his side, smoothed his
pillow, and replaced a crucifix at the bed-foot before the patient's
eyes; and then, with a word of consolation, descended again to the
road, and after a long look towards the forest, slowly moved off the
nearest border of it.

It was between eight and nine when Father Fabiano, moving slowly and
irresolutely, thus sauntered off in the direction of the forest; but
it was nearly time for him to sound the "Angelus" at midday before
he returned.

Perhaps it was the fear that he might be late for this duty,--a task
which devolved on him, the lay brother being ill,--that made his
steps, as he returned, very different from those with which he had
set forth. He came back hurrying, with a haggard, wild terror in his
eyes, shaking in every limb, and with great drops of perspiration
standing on his brow. One would have said that all this evident
perturbation could not be caused only by the fear of being late to
ring the "Angelus." His first care, however, was to pay another
visit to his patient.

"Ah! Padre, you are going to have your turn again. It is early this
year. All this wet weather. Why, your hand is shaking worse than
mine!" said the sick man, as the old monk handed him his draught.
And it was true enough that not only Father Fabiano's hands were
shaking, but he was, indeed, trembling all over; and any one but a
sick man, lying as the fevered lay-brother was lying, could not have
failed to see that it was from mental agitation, rather than from
the shivering of incipient ague, that he was suffering.

"You think of getting well yourself, brother Simone. I have not got
the fever yet," said the monk, making an effort to control himself
and speak in his ordinary manner.

"May the saints grant that your reverence do not fall ill before I
am able to get up, or I don't know what we should do."

"It is years, brother Simone, that make my hand shake, more than
ague this time, years, and many a former touch of the fever. I am
not ill this time yet. And now I must go and ring the 'Angelus.'"

And the old monk did go, and the "Angelus" was duly rung. But
Brother Simone, as he lay upon his fevered bed, was very well able
to tell that the rope was pulled by a very uncertain and unsteady
hand. "Poor old fellow! he's going fast! I wonder whether there's
any chance of their moving me when he's gone?" thought Brother
Simone to himself.

But Father Fabiano, for his own part, judged that prayer and penance
were more needed for the healing of his present disorder, than
either bark or quinine. And when he had rung the bell, he betook
himself again to the altar of St. Apollinare, and with cowl drawn
over his head, and frequent prostrations till his forehead touched
the marble flags of the altar-step, spent before it most of the
remaining hours of that day. Nevertheless, it was true that, be the
cause what it might, the aged friar was ill, not in mind only, but
also in the body. And before the hour of evensong came,--his
coadjutor, Fra Simone, the lay-brother, being by that time so much
better as to be able to crawl out,--Father Fabiano was fain to
stretch himself on the pallet in his cell. And Fra Simone took it
quite as a matter of course in the ordinary order of things, that
the father was laid up in his turn with an attack of fever and ague.

It was much about the same time that Father Fabiano had set out on
that walk to the forest, from which he had returned in such a state
of agitation, that old Quinto Lalli, the prima donna's travelling
companion, was made acquainted with the escapade of his adopted
daughter. Though she bore his name, the fact was that the old man
was in no way related to the famous singer. But they had lived
together in the relationship first of teacher and pupil, and then of
father and daughter, by mutual adoption ever since the first
beginning of the singer's public career; and they mutually
represented to each other the only family ties which either of them
knew or recognized in the world. The old man had been several hours
in bed, when Bianca had returned from the ball, at about five in the
morning of that Ash Wednesday. And it was not till he came from his
room, between eight and nine, that he heard from Gigia, Bianca's
maid, that her mistress had not gone to bed, but had only changed
her dress, and taken a cup of coffee before going out with the
Marchese Ludovico more than an hour ago in a bagarino.

There was nothing sufficiently strange to the former habits of his
adopted daughter in such an escapade, or so unlike to many another
frolic of the brilliant Diva in former days, as to cause any very
great surprise to the old singing-master--for such had been the
original vocation of Signor Lalli. Yet he seemed on this occasion to
be not a little annoyed at what she had done.

"And a very great fool she is for her pains," cried the old man,
with an oath; "it is just the last thing she ought to have done--the
very last. I really thought she had more sense!"

"I am sure, Signor Quinto, she has not had one bit of pleasure all
this Carnival. A nun couldn't have lived a quieter life, nor more
shut up than she has. With the exception of the old gentleman and
the Marchese Ludovico, she has never seen a soul!"

The old gentleman thus alluded to, it may be necessary to explain,
was the Marchese Lamberto. "And where's the use of never seeing a
single soul, if she throws all that she has gained by it away in
this manner?"

"Why, Santa Virgine, Signor Quinto! Where's the harm? Isn't the
Signor Ludovico the old one's own nephew?" expostulated Gigia
shrilly.

"The old one, as you call him, is not a bit the more likely to like
it for that. It is just the very last thing she should have done. I
do wonder she should not have more sense," grumbled Quinto.

"Misericordia! why what a piece of work about nothing! The old
gentleman will never know anything about it, you may be very sure.
He is safe enough in bed and asleep after his late hours, you may
swear. Besides, it's both best and honestest to begin as you mean to
go on, and accustom him to what he's got to expect," said Gigia,
fighting loyally for her side.

"All very well in good time. But it would be as well for Bianca to
make sure first what she has got to expect."

"Why, you don't suppose, Signor Quinto, nor yet that old Marchese
don't suppose, I should think, that he's going to marry a woman like
my mistress, to keep her caged up like a bird that's never to sing,
except for him?"

"I tell you, Gigia, and you would do well to tell her, and make her
understand, that she is not Marchesa di Castelmare yet, and is not
likely to be, if this morning's work were to come to the ears of the
Marchese. It is just the very worst thing she could have done; and I
should have thought she must know that. I had rather that she should
have gone with any other man in the town."

"I am sure," said Gigia, with a virtuous toss of the head, "she
would not wish to go with any one of them."

"And she would wish to go with the Marchese Ludovico! There's all
the mischief. Just what I am afraid of. I tell you, Gigia, that if
the Marchese Lamberto hears of her going off in this manner with his
nephew, the game is all up. He would never forgive it."

"You will excuse me, Signor Quinto," said Gigia, with a demure air
of speaking modestly on a subject which she perfectly well
understood--"You will excuse me, if I tell you that I know a great
deal better than that. There's men, Signor Quinto, who are in love
because they like it; and there's others who are in love whether
they like it or no, because they can't help themselves!"

"And you fancy the Marchese Lamberto is one of those who can't help
himself, eh?" grumbled Quinto discontentedly.

"If I ever saw a man who was so limed that he couldn't help himself,
it's that poor creature of a Marchese! He's caught safe enough, you
may take my word for that, Signor Quinto. He's caught, and can't
budge, I tell you--hand nor foot, body nor soul! Lord bless you, I
know 'em. Why, do you think he'd ever have come near my mistress a
second time if he could have helped himself? He's not like your
young 'uns, who come to amuse themselves. Likely enough, he'd give
half of all he's worth this day never to have set eyes on her; but,
as for giving her up, he could as soon give himself up!"

"Humph!" grunted the old singer, with a shrug, and a sound that was
half a sneer and half a chuckle. "I suppose he don't above half like
the price he has to pay for his plaything! But that don't make it
wise in Bianca to drive him to the wall more than need be. Limed and
caught as he is, he's one that may give her some trouble yet. For my
part, I wish she had not gone on this fool's errand this morning.
Now, I will go and get my breakfast. I shall be back in half-an-
hour. I expect Signor Ercole Stadione here this morning."

Signor Ercole Stadione was the impresario of the Ravenna theatre.

"And if he comes before you are back, Signor Quinto?" asked Gigia.

"If he should come before I am back, let the boy call me from the
cafe. And, Gigia, whenever he comes, you can let him understand, you
know, that your mistress is in her own room,--resting after the
ball, you know. He's hand and glove with the Marchese."

"I wasn't born yesterday, Signor Quinto, though you seem to think
so," returned Gigia, as the old man began to descend the stairs.

Signor Quinto went to the cafe, and consumed his little cup of black
coffee, with its abominable potion of so-called "rhum" in it, and
the morsel of dry bread, which constituted his accustomed breakfast;
and then, as he was returning to his lodging, encountered the
"impresario" in the street.

"Well met, Signor Lalli!" cried little Signor Ercole, cheerily. "I
was on my way to your house to settle our little matters. I have not
seen you, I think, since Sunday night. The bustle of these last days
of the Carnival! How divinely she sang that night! If Bellini could
have heard her, it would have been the happiest day of his life."

"I am glad that you were contented, Signor Ercole."

"Contented! The whole city was enraptured. There never was such a
success. You have got that little memorandum of articles--?"

"No. I've got the paper signed at Milan; but not--"

"Stay, let me see. True, true. I remember now. It remained with the
Marchese. We shall want it, you know, just to put all in order. We
can call at the Palazzo Castelmare on our way, and ask the Marchese
for it?"

"Will he be up at this hour, after last night's ball?" asked Quinto.

"He? The Marchese? One sees you are a stranger in Ravenna, my dear
sir. I don't suppose the Marchese has ever been in bed after eight
o'clock the last quarter of a century. He is an early man, the
Marchese,--an example to us all in that, as in all else."

"Very well; then we can call for the paper on our way to my lodging;
it is not much out of the way."

So they walked together to the Palazzo Castelmare, talking of the
brilliant success of the past theatrical season, and of the eminent
qualities and virtues of the Marchese Lamberto; and when they
reached the door the impresario desired the servant who answered the
bell to tell the Marchese that he, Signor Ercole, wished to speak
with him, but would not detain him a moment.

The Marchese, the man said, was not up yet. He, the servant, had
been to his door at the usual hour, but had received no answer to
his knock; so that it was evident that his master was still
sleeping. He had been very late the night before,--far later than
was usual with him,--and no doubt he would ring his bell as soon as
he waked.

"The fact is," said Signor Ercole, as he and Quinto Lalli turned
away from the door, "that the Marchese has not been well of late. He
very often does me the honour of conversing with me,--I may say
indeed of consulting me on subjects of art;--and I grieve to say
that I have of late observed a change in him. He is not like the
same man."

"Getting old, I suppose, like the rest of us," said Quinto.

"Like some of us," corrected Signor Ercole; "but, Lord bless you!
the Marchese is a young man--a young man, so to speak,--he's not
above fifty, and a very young man of his years; at least he was so a
month or two ago. But changed he is. Everybody has seen it. Let us
hope that it is merely some temporary indisposition. Ravenna can't
afford to lose the Marchese."

"I suppose we had better put off settling our little bit of business
till another time?" said Quinto. "Shall we say to-morrow, at the
same hour? And I will get that paper from the Marchese in the
meantime," returned Signor Ercole.

"That will suit me perfectly well; to-morrow, then, at my lodgings
at ten, shall we say?"

"At ten; I will not fail to wait upon you, Signor Lalli, at that
hour. In the meantime I beg you to present my most distinguished
homage to the divina Cantatrice," said the little impresario, taking
off his hat and holding it at arm's length above his head, as he
made a very magnificent bow.

"Servitore suo, stimatissimo Signor Ercole! A dimane!" replied old
Quinto, as he returned the impresario's salutation, with a slighter
and less provincial bow.

"A dimane alle dieci!" rejoined the impresario; and so the two men
parted.

"Not a bad bit of luck," thought the old singing master to himself,
as he sauntered towards his lodging, "that the Marchese should be in
bed this morning. It gives a chance that he may never hear of this
mad scappata with the Signor Ludovico. Lose the Marchese Lamberto!
No, per Bacco! there are other people, beside the good folks of the
city of Ravenna, who can't afford to lose the Marchese Lamberto just
yet!"



CHAPTER VII

An Attorney-at-law in the Papal States


At a little after twelve o'clock on that same Ash Wednesday morning,
a servant in the Castelmare livery brought a verbal message to the
"studio" of Signor Giovacchino Fortini, "procurators,"--attorney-at-
law, as we should say,--requesting that gentleman to step as far as
the Palazzo Castelmare, as the Marchese would be glad to speak with
him.

The message was not one calculated to excite any surprise either in
the servant who carried it, or in Signor Fortini himself. Signor
Giovacchino was, and had been for many years, the confidential
lawyer of the Castelmare family. And the various business connected
with large landed possessions made frequent conferences necessary
between the lawyer and such a client as the Marchese, who, among his
other activities, had always been active in the management and care
of his estates.

Signor Giovacchino Fortini was very decidedly the first man of his
profession in Ravenna, as indeed might be expected of the person who
had been honoured for more than one generation by the confidence of
the Castelmare family. For the lawyer was a much older man than the
Marchese, and had been the confidential adviser of his father. And
old Giovacchino Fortini's father and grandfather had sat in the same
"studio" before him, and had held the same position towards previous
generations of the Castelmare family.

For three generations also the Fortini, grandfather, father, and
son, had been lawyers to the Chapter of Ravenna; a fact which
vouched the very high standing and consideration they held in the
city, and at the same time explained the circumstances under which
it had come to pass that the "studio" they had occupied for so many
years, seemed more like some public building than the private
offices of a provincial attorney.

In fact the "Studio Fortini" was a portion of an ancient building
attached to the Cathedral, in which some of the less dignified
members of the Chapter had their residences. The building in
question encircled a small cloistered court, the soil of which was
on a lower level than that of the street outside it; and the
residences, to which a series of little doors around this cloister
gave access, looked as if they must have been miserably damp and
unwholesome. But the "Studio Fortini" was not situated in any part
of this damp lower floor. In the corner of the cloister nearest to
the Cathedral, there was a wide and picturesque old stone staircase,
which led to an upper cloister, as sunny and pleasant looking as the
lower one was the reverse. There, near the head of the stair, was a
round arched deeply sunk stone doorway, closed by a black door,
bearing a bright brass plate on it, conveying the information,
altogether superfluous to every man, woman, and child in Ravenna,
that there was situated the "Studio Fortini."

This black door was never quite closed during the day. It admitted
anybody who chose to push it into a small ante-room, on one side of
which might be seen through a glass door a long low vaulted room, or
gallery rather, running over some half dozen of the inhabited cells
below. And along the whole length of it on either side, up to the
height of the small round arched windows placed high up in the wall,
were ranges of shelves occupied by many hundreds of volumes, all of
the same size, and all bound alike in parchment, with two red bands
of Russian leather running across the backs of them, and all
lettered and dated in black ink, of gradually shaded degrees of
fadedness. The place looked like the archive-room of some public
establishment, which kept its archives in very unusually good order.

All these were the documents and pleadings in all the lawsuits and
other legal transactions of all the clients of the three generations
of the Fortini. And it would not have been too much to say, that
Signor Giovacchino Fortini would have deemed the destruction of this
mass of papers as a misfortune to be paralleled only by that of the
Alexandrian library.

On the opposite side to the long gallery the anteroom gave access to
a large and lofty vaulted chamber, about one-sixth part of the space
of which--that is, a third of the floor and a half of the height--
was partitioned off by a slight modern wall and ceiling. Two young
clerks occupied the larger unenclosed portion of the large hall,--
for such its size entitled it to be called,--and Signor Fortini's
senior and confidential clerk sat on the top of the ceiling, which
enclosed the smaller portion. A small wooden stair gave access to
this lofty position, which was admirably adapted for keeping an eye
on the youngsters on the floor below. Under the same ceiling, in the
snug little room thus divided off, sat Signor Fortini himself. And a
very snug and bright-looking little room it was, with a pretty
stone-mullioned three-lighted casement window opening to the south;
and in the wall at right angles to it another window, offering
accommodation of a much more unusual and peculiar kind. It opened,
in fact, into the transept of the cathedral, and had been intended
to enable the occupier or occupiers of the apartment, now inhabited
by the lawyer, to enjoy the benefit of attending mass without the
trouble of descending into the church for that purpose. If Signor
Giovacchino Fortini did not often use it for that purpose, it, at
all events, had the effect of imparting an ecclesiastical air to his
habitat, which seemed to have a certain propriety in the case of a
gentleman whose business connections with the hierarchy were so
close, and unquestionably added to the savour of unimpeachable
respectability which appertained to Signor Fortini and all belonging
to him.

Signor Fortini was a tall, thin, adust old man, with a large, well-
developed forehead, a keen, bright hazel eye, and bristling, iron-
grey hair, which had once been black, and a beard to match, which
seemed as if the barber entrusted with the care of it were always
two or three days in arrear with his work. By some incomprehensible
combination of circumstances it seemed as if Signor Fortini's face
were never seen fresh shaven. His sharp chin and lanthorn jaws
appeared to be perennially clothed with a two days' old crop of
grisly stubble,--two days' growth,--neither more nor less!

Long years ago he had buried a childless wife, who was said to have
been a wonderful beauty, and to have been in many ways a trouble
greater than Signor Fortini knew how to manage, and a trial that
made his life a burthen to him. Those old troubles were now,
however, long since past and gone; and Signor Fortini lived only for
his law and his artistic and antiquarian collections. He was like
many of his peers in the provincial cities of the Papal dominions--a
great antiquary and virtuoso. Antiquarianism is a "safe" pursuit
under a government the nature of which makes and finds very many
intellectual occupations unsafe. And this may account for the fact,
that very many competent historical antiquaries and collectors are
found in the Pope's territories among such men as Signor Fortini.

The son and grandson of thriving lawyers, who had for nearly an
hundred years managed the affairs of the Chapter and the estates of
the principal landed proprietors of the neighbourhood, was not
likely to be otherwise than well off; and it was generally
understood that Signor Fortini was a wealthy man. He loudly
protested on all occasions that this was a most mistaken notion; but
there never occurred an opportunity of adding to his very remarkable
collection of drawings of the old masters, or his unrivalled series
of mediaeval seals, or his all but perfect library of the Municipal
Statutes of the mediaeval Communes of Italy, which found Signor
Fortini unprepared to outbid most competitors.

There were very few among his clients whom Signor Fortini would not
have expected to call on him at his "studio," instead of summoning
him to wait on them. But the Marchese di Castelmare was one of these
few,--perhaps as much, or more, on the score of old friendship as on
that of rank and social importance.

The old lawyer was not more importantly occupied when he received
the Marchese's message, than by intently examining a bronze medal
through a magnifying-glass; and he sent back word that he would be
with the Marchese immediately. The fact was he did not like the look
of this summons at all. He, too, had observed the unmistakable
change in his old friend; and jumped to the conclusion that what he
was wanted for was to make, or to be consulted about making, the
Marchese's will.

"To think of his breaking up so suddenly, in such a way as this. No
stamina! Why, he must be twenty years my junior; and I don't feel a
day older than I did ten years ago, not a day. He has led a steady
life too; and seemed as likely a man to last as one would wish to
look at. I suppose everything will go to the nephew,--legacies to
servants, and something, I should not wonder, to the town hospital,-
-not that I think he can have saved much, if any thing. I should
like that little cabinet Guido and I don't suppose Signor Ludovico
would care a rush about it."

With these thoughts in his mind Signor Fortini presented himself at
the door of the Castelmare palace within ten minutes of the time
when he had received the summons of the Marchese, and was
immediately ushered into the library.

A bright ray of sunshine was streaming in at the large window, and
flooding half the room with its comfortable warmth and cheerful
light. But the Marchese, though he held a scaldino (a little
earthenware pot filled with burning braise) in his hand, and was
apparently shivering with cold, sat in his large library-chair,
drawn into the darkest corner of the room, cowering over this
scaldino, which be held between his knees. He jumped up from his
seat, however, to receive his visitor with an air, one would have
said, of having been startled by his entrance.

"It is kind of you to come to me so quickly, Signor Giovacchino," he
said; and then turning angrily to the servant, who was leaving the
room, added in a cross and irritable voice, very unlike his usual
manner, "Why are not those persiane shut? Close them directly, and
then begone--quick!"

The man, with a startled look, did as he was bid; and the heavy
wooden jalousies thus shut reduced the room to comparative darkness.

"I am afraid I find you very far from well, Signor Marchese. Would
not a little sun be pleasant this bright morning? the air is quite
fresh despite the sunshine."

"I don't like the sun indoors! I don't know how my rascals came to
leave the persiane open."

"I thought you seemed cold, Signor Marchese," said the lawyer,
kindly.

"So I am cold--very cold," he said, and his teeth chattered as he
said it; "but the light hurts my eyes."

"It very often does so when one is not well."

"Not well! I'm well enough, man alive. But I think I must have
caught a little cold at the ball last night," rejoined the Marchese,
striving hard to speak in his usual manner.

The lawyer, whose eyes had by this time become accustomed to the
diminished light, looked hard at his old friend from beneath his
great shaggy black eye-brows, with a shrewdly examining glance, and
then slightly shook his head.

"Well, I daresay you'll be all right again in a day or two. But any
way, I am glad you sent for me all the same. These things have to be
done, you know. And a man does not die a bit the sooner for doing
them. For my part, I always advise my friends to have all such
matters settled while they are in health."

"What, in Heaven's name, are you talking about? I don't know what
you mean," said the Marchese, with an angry irritability that was
totally unlike his usual manner. I sent for the lawyer; and you come
and talk to me as if you wanted to play the doctor."

"I assure you, Signor Marchese, I have not the slightest desire to
play any part but my own. And that I am perfectly ready to enter on.
I am ready to take your instructions, and will draw up the
instrument to-morrow or the next day. Thank God there is no cause
for hurry. And that is one of the advantages of arranging all
testamentary dispositions while we are in health. My own will,
Signor Marchese, has been made these ten years."

"What is that to me? I may make my will ten years hence, and yet get
it done in quite as good time as you have, Signor Fortini. Pray
allow me to judge for myself, when I think it right to make my will.
I have usually been able to manage my own affairs." He spoke with a
degree of anger and petulance, jumping up from his chair, and taking
a turn to the window and back again, which seemed to conquer the
shivering fit from which he had been suffering.

"Manage your own affairs, Signor Marchese! Who would dream of
interfering with your management of them? But did you not send for
me to make your will?" said the lawyer, standing also.

"Send for you to make my will! No. devil told you I wanted to make
my will? I said nothing about making my will."

"I beg your pardon, Signor Marchese. Perhaps I jumped at a
conclusion over hastily. I thought it a wise thing to do, and so
imagined that you were going to do it;--that's all. Let us say no
more about it. What commands have you then to give me?"

The Marchese took another turn across the room before replying; and
the observant lawyer saw him, when his back was turned, pass his
hand across his brow, with the action of one ill at ease. Then
resuming his seat, and motioning the lawyer to take a chair, he
said--

"If you will take a chair, Signor Giovacchino, I will tell you the
business for which I have sent for you. I have thought it my duty--
family considerations--in fact, I've been thinking on the subject
for a long time--in short, Signor Fortini, I am about to be
married."

"Whew--w--w!" whistled the lawyer, without the least attempt at
concealing the extremity of his astonishment; and pushing back his
chair a couple of feet, as he raised his head to stare into his
companion's face.

"And pray, Signor, what is there to be astonished at in such an
intention?" said the Marchese, evidently wincing under the lawyer's
look.

"I beg your pardon, Signor Marchese, but--the fact is--one is always
astonished at what one does not expect, you know. You may depend on
it, I am not one bit more astonished than every human being in
Ravenna will be," said the lawyer, looking hard at him.

"I am not aware, Signor Fortini, that I have to answer to any one
save myself for the wisdom of my resolution," said the Marchese,
with a dignity more like his usual manner than he had yet spoken.

"Certainly not, Signor Marchese. Certainly not. But the exception is
an important one. You will have to answer for the wisdom of your
resolution to yourself," rejoined Fortini, drily.

"That, Signor Fortini, is my affair. As I told you, I have
considered the matter well; and I have made up my mind."

"May I ask, Signor Marchese, whether your intention has been
communicated to your nephew?" asked the lawyer.

"As yet I have announced it to no one save yourself. As soon as the
necessary arrangements with regard to matters of property have been
determined on, it will be the fitting time to do so."

"Before any word can be said on that head, of course, it is
necessary that your lordship should mention, what you have not yet
confided to me,--the name of the lady with whom you are about to
ally yourself."

"Of course; and it is for the purpose of doing so that I have
requested your presence here this morning, Signor Fortini. Before
naming the lady, I will merely remark to you, that a man at my time
of life may be expected to know his own mind, and has a right to
please himself. And bearing these remarks in mind, you will
understand that I do not wish to hear any observations on the
subject of the choice I have made. My choice is made; and that is
sufficient."

The Marchese looked up into the lawyer's face, and paused for some
reply to these preliminary observations before proceeding to tell
his secret; but the lawyer maintained a look and attitude of silent
expectation.

"It is my intention," proceeded the Marchese, "to marry the Signora
Bianca Lalli;--the lady whose conduct, as well as her talent, has
won the good opinion of the entire city."

The old lawyer flung down on the table, with a clatter, a paper-
knife which he had taken into his hand while speaking, and rising
abruptly from his chair, took one or two turns across the room
before he answered a word. Then coming in front of the Marchese, and
still continuing to stand, he said,

"You have warned me, Signor Marchese, not to make any remarks on the
communication you have just made to me. There is one, however, which
perforce I must make. It is that I must decline to take any
instructions, or to act in any way, for the forwarding of such a
purpose."

"There are other attorneys in Ravenna, Signor Fortini."

"Plenty, Signor Marchese; plenty who will be abundantly ready to do
your bidding. But Giovacchino Fortini will not. Good heaven! I
should expect to have my dear and honoured old friend and patron,
your father, coming out of his grave to upbraid me. Signor Marchese,
you know right well--as well as I do myself--that at this time of
day, I don't care two straws, as a mere matter of gain, whether I
continue to be honoured with the transaction of your legal affairs
or not. But I do care on other grounds. And I do implore you to
believe that I am speaking to you more as a friend than as a
lawyer;--that I am speaking to you as the whole city would speak,
and will speak when it hears of this--this incredible--this
monstrous notion,--when I entreat you to think yet further on this
most disastrous purpose."

Of course when a man speaks as Signor Fortini spoke to the Marchese,
he does it not without some hope that his words may produce an
effect on the person he addresses. But the lawyer had not much
expectation that in the present case what he said would be listened
to. He spoke more for the discharge of his own conscience, and
because the feelings he expressed were strong within him, than for
any other reason. And he fully expected that he should be answered
with words of anger and uncompromising rejection of his
interference.

It was not without considerable surprise, therefore, that he heard
the Marchese's moderate answer to the strong opposition he had
offered to his intention. "Well, Signor Fortini, I cannot doubt that
what you have said has been, at all events, dictated by a strong
regard for my welfare, as you understand it. I have, as I told you,
made up my mind upon the subject. Nevertheless, counsel cannot but
be useful, and it is well not to be precipitate. I will, therefore,
so far accept your advice as to promise you that I will give myself
time to deliberate yet further on the step. In the meantime you will
note that my first communication to you on the subject was made on
this first day of Lent; so that when I again seek your assistance in
the matter, you will know that I have at least not acted in a hurry,
but have given myself due time for mature reflection."

"I am delighted, Signor Marchese, to have obtained from you at least
thus much. It is at all events something gained. And I shall still
hope, that further reflection may lead you to change your purpose.
Hoping that, I shall, you may depend upon it, breathe no word of
what you have said to me to any living soul. But you must understand
that, without such hope, I should have deemed it my duty to speak on
the subject with the Marchese Ludovico."

"How so, Signor Fortini? A lawyer--"

"Very true, Signor Marchese. A lawyer, as you would observe, is
addressed by his client in confidence, and the confidence should be
sacred. But you must remember that I have the honour to act in this,
as I and my father have done on all other occasions for now three
generations, not only for your lordship, but for the whole of the
family. I am the legal adviser of the Marchese Ludovico, as I was
his father's, and as I am yours. It is my duty, therefore, as I
understand it, to look upon myself as bound to consider the welfare
and interests of the entire family; and I need not remark to you how
cruelly those of the Marchese Ludovico would be compromised by such
an event as we were contemplating just now."

"With regard to speaking to my nephew on the subject, Signor
Fortini, I can have no objection to your doing so, if you think it
your duty. He will, of course, be informed of my intention by
myself. Do not forget, however, that my first communication to you
on this subject was on the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday."

"Forget it, Signor Marchese! I am not likely to forget it for a long
time to come, I assure you," said the lawyer, not a little
surprised.

"I mention it because I am anxious that you should not accuse me of
acting with precipitancy in this matter; that when I shall renew my
application to you, you may remember that I have had due and
sufficient time for reflection. Addio, Signor Giovacchino," said the
Marchese, reverting to the more friendly form of address; "addio, ed
a rivederci fra poco!"

"Servo suo, Lustrissimo Signor Marchese. a rivederci!"



VIII

Lost in the Forest


Signor Fortini went straight home to his pleasant little snuggery
under the wing,--it might almost be said, under the roof,--of the
Cathedral, and sat down in his easy chair to resume the occupation
that had been interrupted by the summons from the Marchese. He took
up the medal he had been examining, and the magnifying glass, in a
manner that implied a sort of ostentatious protest to himself that
the calm and even tenour of his own life and occupations was not to
be disturbed from its course by all the follies and extravagances of
the world around him.

But "mentem mortalia tangunt!" The glass was soon laid aside: the
medal remained idly in his hand, and his mind would recur to the
things he had just seen and heard.

That an old bachelor should be caught at last by a pretty face, and
make a fool of himself in his mature age, was no unprecedented
phenomenon. That a man, who had never in any way made a fool of
himself at the proper age for such an operation, should, after all,
do so when those who did so in their salad days have become wise,
was not unheard of. Nevertheless, Signor Fortini, who, in the course
of his seventy years, had had a tolerably wide experience of
mankind, was astonished that the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare
should have been tempted to act as he proposed to act.

"The very last man," said Signor Fortini musingly to himself, "that
I could have suspected of such a thing! The man who has the highest
reputation in the city for sound judgment and unexceptionable
conduct, to turn out the greatest fool! An old ass! How little be
dreams of what he is bringing upon himself. Let alone the terrible
fall, the disgrace,--in every way, disgrace and contempt and
ridicule! It seems impossible, even now, that he should be in
earnest. He must be mad! And, davvero, his manner was at times so
strange, that I could almost believe he really is not quite in his
right mind. Very strange his manner was,--very! And very ill he
looked, too. Everybody has been saying that be looked ill,--that he
looked old,--that there must be something wrong with him. Wrong with
a vengeance! So this was the cause of it all: the Marchese Lamberto
is in love! Bah!--Bah!!--Bah!!!--(with crescendo expression of
disgust). Poor devil! Well, I was in love once, or fancied myself
so. But then. I was twenty-five years old. Un altro paio di maniche!
And I very soon found out my mistake. But he, at his time of life!
And such a woman! Well, the Emperor Justinian married Theodora. So,
I suppose we Ravennati have authority for madness in that kind. And
that poor good fellow, the Marchese Ludovico, too! It is too bad.
And all because such a creature as that is cunning enough to know
how to drive a hard bargain for the painted face she has to sell.
But that is the sort of woman who can make that sort of conquest. A
good woman now, who would have made him an honoured and good wife,
would never have made such a blind, abject slave of him. He is
bewitched! He is mad! and ought not to be allowed to carry out so
insane a project! Perhaps it may still be possible to induce him to
hear reason. It was very odd, that way, that just at last he
promised me he would think of it again before he finally decided.
Very odd. Just as if a man has not finally decided in such a matter
before he sends to his lawyer! It is all very--very strange. And I
have a good mind to speak to Signor Ludovico at once. I think it
would be the right thing to do,--I do think that would be the most
proper thing to do. The old fool ought to be treated as one non
compos!"

And then the old lawyer, after spending nearly an hour in such
musings, got up and went to his house,--not two minutes' walk from
his "studio"--to his solitary but comfortable two-o'clock dinner.

By the time he had finished his repast, he had made up his mind that
he would at once confer with the Marchese Ludovico on the subject of
his uncle's disastrous project. It was by that time nearly half-past
three; and Signor Fortini walked out towards the Circolo, having
little doubt that he should find Ludovico there at that hour.

But on his way thither he met the man he was in search of in the
street. The young Marchese was walking at a hurried pace, and
appeared to be scared, troubled, and heated. Nothing could be more
unlike his usual easy, lounging, poco-curante bearing. The lawyer
saw at once that something was the matter; and thought that, in all
probability, the Marchese Lamberto had been already forestalling
him, by speaking to his nephew himself on the subject of his
projected marriage.

"Oh, Signor Ludovico," said Fortini, as he met him, "I was on my
way, to the Circolo, on purpose to see if I could meet with you
there."

"Why, what is it? Have you any news to tell me?" said the young man
in a hurried manner, that the lawyer thought odd.

"Yes. I wished to speak to you on rather an important matter. Have
you seen the Marchese Lamberto this morning?"

"No. I have been out of the town. I am but this moment come back,"
replied Ludovico, evidently anxiously.

"I should be glad to speak to you for a few minutes before you go to
the Palazzo Castelmare. If you are going to the Circolo, I would
walk with you, and we could speak there," said Fortini.

"I'll be there in less than ten minutes. But I want first to run
just as far as La Lalli's lodging in the Strada di Porta Sisi, only
to ask a question," said Ludovico.

"La Lalli again! The devil fly away with her! It was about her that
I wanted to speak to you," said the lawyer.

"What about her? Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?" asked
Ludovico, hurriedly and anxiously.

"I seen her! No. Where she is? In her bed most likely, after dancing
all last night, I should think!"

"Well, I must run and just ascertain whether she is at home!" said
Ludovico, again trying to escape. But the old lawyer, partly put a
little bit out of temper by the young man's evident wish to get rid
of him, partly angered by finding the nephew thus running after the
same mischief that was threatening to ruin his uncle, and partly
thinking that it was desirable that the news he had to tell should
be told before Ludovico should come to speech with his uncle, was
determined not to let him escape till he had said what he had to
say.

"Very well, Signor. I can say what I have to say in the street as
well as anywhere else. Though I confess I expected a somewhat more
ready reception of information which concerns you nearly, Signor
Marchese, and which I am prompted to tell you by my interest in your
welfare. Listen! Your uncle sent for me this morning for the purpose
of announcing to me his intention of marrying this Bianca Lalli!"

"So I have been told this very morning," said Ludovico.

"I thought you said that you had not seen your uncle this morning!"
returned the lawyer.

"No more I have; but are there not two persons from whom such an
intention may be learned?" said Ludovico, with a slight approach to
a sneer.

"The lady, you mean?" said Fortini.

"Exactly so--the lady!" rejoined Ludovico.

"The lady herself told you that the Marchese Lamberto had proposed
marriage to her?" persisted the lawyer.

"The lady herself told me so," replied the Marchese.

"But I thought you said that you had only just now returned to the
city?" objected the lawyer again.

"Really, Signor Fortini, one would think that I was being examined
before a police-magistrate! However, since my tongue has let the cat
out of the bag, you may take the creature, and make the most of her!
I did receive the intelligence in question from the lady concerned,
and I have just returned to the city. She communicated the fact to
me during a little excursion we made together to the Pineta this
morning, after the ball. Now you know all about it," said Ludovico,
still in a hurry to get away.

"Not quite!" rejoined Fortini, quite imperturbably. "If you went to
the Pineta with her--(did anybody ever hear of such a mad thing?)--
and returned this morning, how can you want to go now to her house
to ask whether she is there?"

"Because, you very clever inquisitor, though I went to the Pineta
with her, I did not say that I had come back with her."

"The deuce you did not! Did another gentleman undertake the duty of
escorting the lady back to town? It is all exceedingly pleasant for
the Marchese Lamberto, upon my word!--oh, exceedingly!--and really a
foretaste to him of the joys to come, quite frankly offered to him
on the part of the lady!" sneered the old lawyer.

"Pshaw! how she may have come back, or with whom, I don't know, and
can't guess; and that is just what I am anxious to find out," said
Ludovico, in provoked impatience.

"I don't understand. Where did you part with the lady?" persisted
the lawyer, interested rather by the evident uneasiness of the
Marchese Ludovico, than by any care how and in what company Bianca
might have found her way back to the city.

"Well, that's just the curious part of the matter. If you want to
know how the thing happened, since you know so much already, walk
with me to the Strada di Porta Sisi, and I will tell you how it
happened. At the ball we spoke of the Pineta,--she had never seen
it,--asked me to show it to her. In short, we agreed to start on
leaving the ball, instead of going to bed. I got a bagarino, and
drove her to the farmhouse by the edge of the wood, just behind St.
Apollinare; left the bagarino there, and strolled into the wood. It
was there that she told me of my uncle's purpose. And I was not a
little taken aback, as you may suppose. However, that is matter for
talk by-and-by. We strolled about a good while, then sat down. She
told me a good deal of the history of her life. We must have been
talking--I don't know how long; but a long time. Then she said she
was so sleepy, she must have a little sleep; she could keep her eyes
open no longer. Natural enough! She had been dancing all night--had
never closed her eyes for a minute since. The bank we were sitting
on was the most delicious place for a siesta that can be conceived.
In two minutes she was fast asleep. She slept on and on till I was
tired of waiting. No doubt I should have slept too, had not the
intelligence she had given me been of a sort to keep me waking, for
one while at least. Having my mind full of this, and not being able
to sleep, I strayed away from her, and returned in a few minutes, as
I think, to the place where I had left her, but could not find her.
I could not be sure about the place. One bit of the forest is so
much like another,--just the same thing over and over again,--that I
could not feel quite sure of the spot. I still think I went back to
the right place; but there she was not. Then I searched the wood all
round, far and near, for, I should think, a couple of hours or more.
I called aloud, again and again, all to no purpose. And what on
earth has become of her I cannot imagine."

"And why you need trouble your head about it, I don't see. I wished
the devil might fly away with her just now! And if the devil has
taken the hint and done so, I confess it seems to me about the best
thing that could happen! Why on earth you, of all people in the
world, Signor Ludovico, should be so anxious to recover the lady, I
confess I cannot understand. Would it not be the best thing in the
world for you if she were never heard of again?"

"Oh, per amore di Dio, Signor Giovacchino, don't talk in that way.
Never heard of again! I shall be really uneasy if I don't hear of
her again in a very few minutes. It is so extraordinary. What can
have become of her?"

"Become of her! Why, she waited, of course: got tired of waiting for
you, and so strolled back to the town. That sort of lady does not
much like waiting, I fancy."

"That sort of lady does not much like walking so far as from the
Pineta here, I fancy. Besides, I should have overtaken her on the
road."

"In any case what is there to be uneasy about. No harm can have
happened to her. No such luck, per Bacco!"

"Harm! No; no harm can have happened to her, beyond losing herself
in the forest. What I am afraid of is that she has strayed and not
been able to find her way. And God knows how far she may wander.
When I tell you that in wandering away from the place where I left
her, for not above a quarter of an hour, I lost my way, and that
when I found, as I supposed, the place where we had been, I could
not be sure whether it was the same spot or not; you may suppose how
easy it is to lose oneself. And I don't suppose the poor girl would
be able to walk very far. If she has not returned, I must get help
and go back to the forest and search till I find her."

"It's far more likely that you will find that she has returned home.
I wish, for my part, that she had never set foot within a dozen
miles of Ravenna. Just think what it would be! But I trust--I trust
we may yet be able to induce your uncle to listen to reason."

"I'll tell you what, Signor Fortini. I should not be surprised if it
should be found more possible to make the other party hear reason."

"What, the lady!"

"Yes, the lady--if we set about the matter in the right way."

"Well, Signor Ludovico, it may be that you may understand such
matters and such people better than I can pretend to do. It is not
improbable. But my conceptions of the power of persuasion have never
risen yet to a belief in the possibility of persuading a dog who has
got a lump of butter in his mouth to relinquish it."

"Umph! you are not particularly gallant, Signor Giovacchino. We
shall see. But all that must be matter for future conversation. Here
we are at her door. Let us see if anything has been heard of her."
Ludovico, leaving his companion for an instant in the street, sprang
up the stairs to make inquiry; and in the next minute returned
looking very much vexed and annoyed, with the information that
nothing had been seen or heard of the Diva since she left the house
in his company at an early hour that morning.



CHAPTER IX

"Passa la Bella Donna e par che dorma"--Tasso


"What's to be done now? I absolutely must find her," said Ludovico,
looking, as he felt, exceedingly puzzled and annoyed.

"Well, yes. Considering the nature of the information she gave you
this morning, and bearing in mind that her existence in the flesh
promises to be the means of leaving you without the price of a crust
of bread in the world, and the further fact she was last seen
starting on a tete-a-tete expedition with you at six o'clock in the
morning, I admit that it is desirable that you should find her,"
said the lawyer, with somewhat grim pleasantry.

"For heaven's sake, Signor Giovacchino, don't talk in that sort of
way, even in jest," replied the young man, looking round at the
lawyer with an uneasy eye. "After all, nothing can have happened to
her, you know, worse than losing herself in the Pineta."

"Pooh! happen to her. What should happen to her? Either you did not
go back to the place where you left her; or, likely enough, after
strolling a little away from it, and not finding you, she sat down,
and two to one, fell asleep again. I would wager that she is, at
this moment, fast asleep under the shadow of a pine-tree, making up
for last night."

"But what had I better do? If she is still either sleeping or waking
in the forest, I must find her."

"Let us just step as far as the gate, and make some inquiry there.
If she returned to the city she must have come to the Porta Nuova.
And she could hardly have entered the town without drawing the
attention of the men at the gate. Just let us make inquiry there in
the first place."

So they went together to the Porta Nuova, and nothing more was said
between them during the short walk. But it seemed as if the manifest
uneasiness of Ludovico had infected his companion. Yet it was
evident that thoughts of a different nature were busy in their
minds. The Marchese Ludovico pressed on faster than the old lawyer
could keep up with him, and was very unmistakably anxious about the
object of his quest, and the tidings which he should be able to hear
at the gate.

Signor Fortini had apparently got some other and newly-conceived
thought in his mind. He looked two or three times shrewdly and
furtively into the face of the young Marchese; and closely
compressed his thin lips together, and drew into a knot the shaggy
eye-brows over his clear and thoughtful eyes. Some notion had been
suggested to his mind which very plainly he did not like.

At the gate nothing had been seen of the object of their search. The
octroi officers perfectly well remembered seeing the Marchese
Ludovico, who was well known to them by sight, drive through the
gate very early that morning in a bagarino with a lady. One man had
recognised the lady as the prima donna at the opera. And they were
very sure that she had not returned to the city since, at least by
that gate.

But one of the officers volunteered the information that another
young lady had that morning passed out of the city on foot a little
before the time at which the bagarino had passed with the Marchese
and the prima donna. And the men, after some consultation together,
were sure that neither had that young lady returned by the gate they
guarded.

Ludovico looked at the lawyer, and the lawyer looked at Ludovico;
but neither of them could suggest anything in explanation of so
strange a circumstance.

"I saw nothing of any such person either in the Pineta or on the
road," said Ludovico. "Who could it have been?"

The old lawyer only shrugged his shoulders in reply

"There is a young lady," resumed Ludovico, after some minutes of
thought, "a friend of mine--a young artist engaged in making copies
from the mosaics in our churches. I know that it was her purpose
shortly to begin some work of this kind at St. Apollinare in Classe.
It may be that she had selected this morning for the purpose of
going out to look at her task,--though I almost think that I should
have been informed of her intention."

"The plot seems to thicken with a vengeance," said the lawyer, with
an impatient shrug, and a slight sneer of ill-humour, provoked by
the multiplicity of his young client's lady friends. "I daresay," he
added, "the young ladies are not playing hide-and-seek in the Pineta
all by themselves."

"But what had I better do?" said the young Marchese, looking with
increased anxiety into the lawyer's face; "the fact is--you see,
Signor Giovacchino, this new idea, this possibility that Paolina--
that is the young artist's name--may be--may have been in the
forest--in short, I feel more uneasy than before till I can learn
what has become of both of them."

"Do you mean," said the lawyer, with a sneer in his voice, but at
the same time looking into his companion's face with a shrewd
expression of investigation in his eye,--"do you mean that the two
ladies may possibly have fallen in with each other, and may in such
case not improbably have fallen out with each other? You know best,
Signor Marchese, the likelihood of any trouble arising out of such a
meeting."

"For God's sake don't speak in such a tone, Signor Giovacchino. I
tell you I am seriously uneasy. Should they have met under such
circumstances--God only knows--What would you advise me to do,
Signor Giovacchino?" said the Marchese, looking into the lawyer's
face with increasing and now evidently painful anxiety.

"It is ill giving advice without knowing all the circumstances of a
case, Signor Marchese," returned Fortini, somewhat drily, looking
hard at the young man as he spoke, and putting a meaning emphasis on
the word "all."

"You do know all the circumstances as far as I know them myself. The
thing happened exactly as I told you," replied Ludovico.

"You left her sleeping on a bank in the forest, and have never seen
her since?" said the lawyer, thoughtfully.

"Exactly so! I returned to the spot where I had left her--at least
as far as I could tell it was the same spot--and she was no longer
there," replied Ludovico.

"But you were not sure that you did return to the same spot? You
could not recognise it again with certainty?"

"So it seemed to me when I was there. I think it must have been the
same place. But when I did not find her, I could not feel sure of
it. Every spot in the Pineta is so like all other spots. One pine-
tree is just like another; and the grassy openings, and the little
thickets of underwood, are all the same over and over again. I felt
that I could not be sure that the place was the same."

"Was there no fallen tree, no track of road, no specialty of weed or
flower, that the spot might be identified by?"

"None I think--none that I am aware of or can remember. There was a
little rising of the ground,--a sort of bank, and the grass was
sprinkled all over with wild flowers. There were violets close at
hand, I know, because I remember the scent of them! But when I came
to try, it seem'd to me that I found all these things in a dozen
other places."

"Nevertheless, you know at what point you entered the Pineta; it
cannot be very difficult to have the whole wood, within such a
distance as it is at all likely that she should have strayed to,
thoroughly searched. But the best men for the purpose would be some
of the foresters in the employ of the farmers of the forest. I dare
say that we might find--what is that coming along the road yonder?"
said the lawyer interrupting himself.

The two gentlemen had been standing during the above short
conversation just on the outside of the gate, and looking down the
stretch of long straight road towards St. Apollinare and the pine
forest.

"It is a knot of men coming along the road. They are likely enough
some of the very fellows we want. In that case we might get them to
go back with us without loss of time."

"With us?" said the lawyer, who had not bargained when he left his
home, for any such expedition. "Well, I don't mind helping you,
Signor Marchese, in your search," he added, after a moment's
consideration; "but I am not going to walk to the Pineta this
afternoon; and I should think you must have had enough of it for to-
day. But I will tell you what I can do. We will send one of these
fellows to my house to order my servant to come here with my
calessino as quick as he can; and if these men are the people we
want--What are they doing? They are carrying something! Why surely--
Signor Marchese!" said the old lawyer, looking into his companion's
face, while a strange expression of understanding, mixed with a
blank look of dismay and alarm, stole over his own features.

"What is it?--What have they got?--Why, heavens and earth! it is--
Signor Fortini, is it not a dead body they are carrying? My God!"

The young man griped his companion's arm hard, as he spoke, and the
action enabled the lawyer to remark that he was shaking all over.

In another minute the men whom they had seen coming along the road
were close to the gate. They were six in number; and they were
bearing--somewhat, between them. They advanced beneath the covered
gateway, and there, as it is necessary to do in the case of
everything brought into the town, they set their burthen down on the
flag-stones, at the feet of the officers of the gate, and of the
Marchese and the lawyer.

Their burthen was a door lifted from its hinges, and supported by
three slender stakes drawn green from a hedgerow. And on the door
there lay, covered with a sheet, what was evidently a dead body.

Ludovico, with his eyes starting from his head, and horror in every
feature of his face, still clutching one hand of the old lawyer in
his, stretched forward with one advanced stride towards the
extemporized bier, and with his other hand lifted the sheet.

A shriek of horror burst from him. "Ah! Paolina mia!" he cried
aloud; and then with a deep groan, as of one in physical pain, he
fell into Signor Fortini's arms, and sunk in an insensible state of
sick faintness on the flag-stone pavement beneath the old gateway.




BOOK II

Four Months before that Ash Wednesday Morning



CHAPTER I

How the good News came to Ravenna


Such were the events of that last night of carnival, and of the Ash
Wednesday that followed it;--an Ash Wednesday remembered many a year
afterwards in Ravenna.

The old lawyer, Fortini, standing a pace behind the Marchese
Ludovico, when the latter lifted up the sheet from the face of the
dead, saw only that it was the face of a woman. Paolina Foscarelli
he had never seen; and Bianca Lalli he had seen only once or twice
on the stage; the lawyer not being much of a frequenter of the
theatre. There could be little doubt that the body lying there
beneath the gateway, with the officials standing with awe-stricken
faces around it, together with the six peasants who had brought it
thither, was that of one or other of those two young women.

Of course there were plenty of persons at hand who were able to set
at rest all doubt as to the identity of the murdered woman,--for
such it was pretty clear she must be considered to be. And of course
all interests in the little provincial city were for many days to
come absorbed in the terrible interest belonging to the
investigation of the foul deed which had been done.

But in order to set before the reader the whole of this strange
story intelligibly, and to give him the same means of estimating the
probabilities of the questions involved in it, and of reaching a
solution of the mysterious circumstances which the authorities, who
were called upon to investigate them, were in possession of, it will
be expedient to go back to a period some four months previous to
that memorable Ash Wednesday.

It was a bitterly cold night in Ravenna, towards the latter end of
November, some four months before that Ash Wednesday on which the
events that have been narrated occurred. Untravelled English people,
who have heard much of "the sweet south," of the sunny skies of
Italy, and of its balmy atmosphere, do not readily imagine that such
cold is ever to be found in that favoured clime. But the fact is
that cold several degrees below the freezing point is by no means
rare in the sub-Alpine and sub-Apennine districts of northern Italy.

And Ravenna is a specially cold place. At Florence, the winter,
though short, is often sharp enough; and the climate of the old
Tuscan city is considered a somewhat severe one for Italy. But the
district which lies to the north-eastward, on the low coast of the
upper part of the stormy Adriatic, is much colder. There is nothing,
neither hill nor forest, between the Friulian Alps and Ravenna, to
prevent the north-eastern winds, bringing with them a Siberian
temperature, from sweeping the low shelterless plain on which the
ancient capital of the Exarchs is situated.

They were so sweeping that plain, and howling fiercely through the
deserted streets of the old city, on the November evening in
question.

Nevertheless there were several persons loitering around the door of
that ancient hostelry, the "Albergo della Spada," in the Via del
Monte, then as now, and for many a generation past, the principal
inn of Ravenna. They were wrapped in huge cloaks, most of them with
hoods to them, which gave the wearers a strange sort of monkish
appearance. And they from time to time blew upon their fingers, in
the intervals of using their mouths for the purpose of grumbling at
the cold. But they none of them resorted to tramping up and down, or
stamping with their feet, or threshing themselves with their arms,
or had recourse to movement of any kind to get a little warmth into
their bodies, as Englishmen may be seen to do under similar
circumstances. However cold it may be an Italian never does anything
of this sort. It must be supposed, that to him cold is a less
detestable evil than muscular exertion of any kind.

There were some half-dozen men standing about the door; and though
they were doing nothing, it was not to be supposed that they stood
there in the bitter cold for their own amusement. The fact was, they
were waiting for one of the great events of the day at Ravenna,--the
arrival of the diligenza from Bologna. It was past six o'clock in
the evening; and it could not now be long before the expected
vehicle would arrive.

It is a distance of some sixty miles from Bologna to Ravenna; the
diligence started at five in the morning, and was due at the latter
city at five in the evening. But nobody expected that it would reach
its destination at that hour. It had never done so within the memory
of man, even in the fine days of summer, and now, when the roads
were rough with ridges of frozen mud! It was now, however, nearly
half-past six--yes, there went the half-hour clanging from the
cracked-voiced old bell in the top of the round brick tower, which
stands on one side of the cathedral, and by its likeness to a
minaret reminds one of the Byzantine parentage of its builders.

Half-past six! The loiterers about the inn door remark to each
other, that unless "something" has happened old Cecco Zoppo can't be
far off now.

The arrival of the Bologna diligence, the main means of
communication between remote out-of-the-way Ravenna and the rest of
the world, was always a matter of interest in the old-world little
city, where matters of interest were so few. And on a pleasant
evening in spring or summer the attendance of expectant loungers was
wont to be far larger than it was on that bitter November night, and
to include a large number of amateurs; whereas the half-dozen now
waiting were all either officially or otherwise directly interested
in the arrival. Indeed, there was a very special interest attached
to the coming of the expected vehicle on that November night; and
nothing but the extreme severity of the weather would have prevented
a very distinguished assemblage from being on the spot to hear the
first news that was expected to be brought by one of the travellers.

"Eccolo! I heard the bells, underneath the gate-way. Per Bacco, it
is time! I'm well-nigh frozen alive," said Pippo, the ostler.

"If they don't keep him an hour at the gate," rejoined a decidedly
more ragged and poverty-stricken individual, who held recognized
office as the ostler's assistant.

"Not such a night as this! Those gentlemen there at the gate can
feel the cold for themselves, if they can't feel nothing else,"
rejoined the ostler, who was a frondeur and disaffected to the
government, in consequence of a drunken grandson having been turned
out of the place of third assistant scullion in the kitchen of the
Cardinal Legate. "There's the bells again! They've let him off
pretty quick. I thought as much," added the old man, with a chuckle.

"Wasn't Signor Ercole's woman here with a lanthorn just now?" said
another of the bystanders, a young man, who, though wrapped to the
eyes in the universal all-levelling cloak, belonged evidently to a
superior class of society to the previous speakers.

"Si, Signor Conte, she is there in the kitchen. Per Dio! she would
have had no fingers to hold the light for her master, if she had
stayed out here," replied the ostler. And then the rattle of wheels
became distinct, and in the next instant the feeble light of a
couple of lamps became visible at the far end of the street, as the
coach turned out of the Piazza Maggiore into the Via del Monte, and
struggled forwards towards the knot at the inn door; it came at a
miserable little trot, but with an accompaniment of tremendous whip-
cracking, that awoke echoes in the silent streets far and near, and
imparted an impression of breathless speed to the imagination of the
bystanders, who, being Italians, accepted the symbol in despite of
their certain knowledge that the reality of the thing symbolised was
not there. Like the immortal Marchioness, Dick Swiveller's friend,
in the Old Curiosity Shop, the Italians, when the realities of
circumstances are unfavourable, can always manage to gild them a
little by "making believe very strong."

"Now then, Signora Marta, bring out your light," called the deputy
ostler in at the inn door.

The individual addressed as Signor Conte became evidently excited,
and prepared himself to be the first to present himself at the door
of the coach as it drew up opposite the inn. The ostler stepped out
into the street with his stable lanthorn. Signora Marta, shivering,
with a huge shawl over her head, took up her position, lanthorn in
hand, behind the Signor Conte, and the ramshackle old coach,
rattling over the uneven round cobble-stones of the execrable
pavement with a crash of noise that seemed to threaten that every
jolt would be its last, came to a standstill at the inn door.

The Signor Conte Leandro Lombardoni--that was the name of the young
man hitherto called Il Signor Conte--opened the door with his own
hand, and, putting his head eagerly into the interior, cried,

"Are you there, Signor Ercole? Well! What news? Have you succeeded?
Let me give you a hand."

"Grazie, Signor Leandro, grazie," replied a high-pitched voice of
singularly shrill quality from within the vehicle, "I don't know
whether I can move. Misericordia! che viaggio! What a journey I have
had. I am nearly dead. My blood is frozen in my veins. I have no use
of my limbs. I shall never recover it; never!"

And then very slowly a huge bundle of cloaks and rags and furs,
nearly circular in form and about five feet in diameter, began to
move towards the door of the carriage, and gradually, by the help of
Signor Leandro and Signora Marta, to struggle through it and get
itself down on the pavement.

"And this I do and suffer for thee, Ravenna!" said the bundle in the
same shrill tenor, making an attempt, as it spoke, to raise two
little projecting fins towards the cold, unsympathising stars.

"But have you succeeded, Signor Ercole?" asked the other again,
anxiously.

"I have succeeded in sacrificing myself for my country," replied the
shrill voice with chattering teeth; "for I know I shall never get
over it. I am frozen. It is a very painful form of martyrdom."

"But you can at least say one word, Signor Ercole? You can say yes
or no to the question, whether you have succeeded in our object?"
urged the Conte Leandro.

Signor Ercole Stadione, however, who was, as the reader is aware, no
less important a personage than the impresario of the principal
theatre of Ravenna, knew too well all the importance that belonged
to the news he had to tell to part with his secret so easily.
"Signor Conte," he quavered out, "I tell you I am frozen! A man
cannot speak on any subject in such a condition. I know nothing. My
intellectual faculties have not their ordinary lucidity. I must
endeavour to reach my home. Marta, hold the lamp here."

"And I who have waited here for your arrival ever since the venti-
quattro! Per Dio! Do you think I ain't cold too? And the Marchese is
expecting you. Of course, you will go to him at once?"

"I don't know that I shall ever recover myself sufficiently to do
so. It is useless for the city to expect more from a man than he can
accomplish. When I have got thawed, I will endeavour to do my duty.
Good night, Signor Conte!" said the little impresario, preparing to
follow his servant with the lanthorn, as well as the enormous
quantity of wraps around him would allow him to do so.

"Come now, Signor Ercole, you won't be so ill-natured. You know how
much interest I take in the matter. Think how long I have waited
here for you, and nobody else has cared enough to do that. Come now,
be good-natured, and tell a fellow. Just one word. Look here now,"
added the Conte Leandro, seeing that he was on the point of losing
the gratification for the sake of which he had undergone the penance
of standing sentinel in the cold for the last hour, and that his
only hope was to bring forward les grands moyens,--"see now, the
only thing to bring you round is a glass of hot punch. Now, while
you go home and get your things off, I will go to the cafe and get
you a good glass of punch, hot and strong--smoking hot! and have it
brought to your house, all hot, you know, in a covered jug. But
before I go; you will just say the one word: Have you been
successful? Come now. Just one word."

Signor Ercole Stadione, the impresario, would much have preferred
not saying that one word just then. He knew perfectly well that the
grand object of his questioner was to be the first to carry the
great news to the Circolo--the club where all the young nobles of
the town were in the habit of congregating; and to make the most of
the sort of reputation to be gained by being the first in Ravenna to
have accurate information on the matter in question. He knew also
that within a quarter-of-an-hour after the news should be told to
Signor Leandro Lombardoni it would be known to all Ravenna. Further,
he was perfectly aware that, frozen or not frozen, he must wait that
evening on the Marchese, of whom Signor Leandro had spoken--the
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare, in order to communicate to him the
news which Signor Leandro was so anxious to hear; that not to do so
would be as much as his standing and position in Ravenna were worth.
And he would have preferred that the Marchese should not have heard
what he had to tell before telling it to him himself; which he
thought likely enough to happen, if he let the cat out of the bag to
Signor Leandro. But the offer of the punch was irresistible. The
poor little impresario knew how little possibility there was of
finding any such pleasant stimulant in the cold, cheerless, wifeless
little quartiere which he and Marta called their home. His teeth
were chattering with cold; and the hot punch carried the day.

"Troppo buono, Signor Conte! Truly a good glass of hot ponche would
be the saving of me! It is very kindly thought of. Well, then;
listen in your ear. But you won't say a word about it till to-morrow
morning. It is all right. The thing is done. The writings signed.
Have I done well, eh? Have I deserved well of the city, eh? But you
won't say a word!"

"Bravo, Signor Ercole! Bravo, bravissimo! Not a word. Not a word. I
run to order the punch. Good night. Not a word to a living soul!"

And the Conte Leandro ran off to give a hasty order at the cafe in
the Piazza, on his way to the Circolo to spread his important news
all over the town.



CHAPTER II

The Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare


Signor Leandro Lombardoni felt himself to be abundantly repaid for
his hour of waiting in the cold street, and for the bajocchi
expended on the glass of punch, by the position he occupied at the
Circolo all that evening. He was the centre of every group anxious
to gain the earliest information respecting a matter of the highest
interest to all the society of Ravenna. And the matter belonged to a
class of subjects respecting which the Conte Leandro was especially
desirous of being thought to be thoroughly well-informed, and to
have interest in the highest quarters.

The fact was, that Signor Ercole Stadione, the Ravenna impresario,
had undertaken a journey to Milan, in the hope of accomplishing a
negotiation in which the whole of the smaller provincial city had
felt itself deeply interested. He had gone thither for the purpose
of engaging the celebrated prima donna, Bianca Lalli, to sing at
Ravenna during the coming Carnival. The pretension was a very
ambitious one on the part of the impresario--or, as it may be more
properly said, on the part of the city--for the step was by no means
the result of his own independent and unaided enterprise. Such
matters were not done in that way in the good old times in the
smaller cities of Italy. The matter had been much debated among the
leading patrons of the musical drama in the little town. The chances
of success had been canvassed. The financial question had been
considered. Certain sacrifices had been determined on. And it had
been settled what terms the impresario should be empowered to offer.

It had been fully felt and recognised that the hope of engaging the
famous Bianca Lalli to sing at remote little Ravenna, during a
carnival, was a singularly ambitious one. But there had been
circumstances which had led those who had conceived the bold idea to
hope that it would not prove to be so impossible as it might at
first sight appear. There had been whispers of certain difficulties-
-untoward circumstances at Milan. Ill-natured things had been said
of the "divina Lalli." Doubtless she had been more sinned against
than sinning. But to put the matter crudely--which, of course, no
Italian who had to speak of it, was ever so ill-bred as to do--it
would seem that the great singer had placed herself, or had been
placed, in such relations with somebody or other bearing a great
name in the Lombard capital, that the paternal Austrian government,
at the instance of that somebody's family, had seen good to hint, in
some gentle, but unmistakable manner, that it might, on the whole,
be better that the divine Lalli should bless some other city with
her presence during the ensuing season. And then came the
consideration, that in all probability most of the great cities of
the peninsula had, by that time, made their arrangements for the
coming Carnival. Not impossible, too, that the "diva" herself might
be not disinclined to allow a certain period of such comparative
obscurity as an engagement at Ravenna would bring with it, to pass
after her exit from Milan under such circumstances, before re-
appearing on other boards where she would be equally in the eyes of
all Europe. But this ground of hope, though it may have been felt,
was never so much as alluded to in words, in Ravenna. In short,
Ravenna had determined to make the bold attempt. And Don Signor
Ercole Stadione had returned from the arduous enterprise to announce
that it had been crowned with complete success.

None but those who have had some opportunity of becoming acquainted
with the social habits and manners of the smaller cities of Italy--
and that as they were some twenty years ago, and not as they are
now--can imagine the degree in which a matter of the kind in
question could be felt there to be a subject of general public
interest. From the Cardinal Legate, who governed the province, down
to the little boys who hung about the cafe doors, in the hope of
picking up a half-eaten roll, there was not a human being in the
city who did not feel that he had some part of the glory resulting
from the fact that "La Lalli" was to sing at Ravenna during the
Carnival. The contadini--the peasants outside the gates--even though
they were only just outside it, cared nothing at all about the
matter: another specialty of the social peculiarities of the
peninsula.

The Cardinal Legate, restrained by the professional decorum of his
cloth, said nothing save among his quite safe intimates; but,
perhaps, like the sailor's parrot, he only thought the more.

As for the jeunesse doree of the Circolo, to whom Signor Leandro
recounted his great tidings with all the self-importance to which
the exclusive possession of news of such interest so well entitled
him, it is impossible to do justice to the enthusiasm which the news
excited among them.

All sorts of pleasing anticipations were indulged in. They were all
jealous of each other by anticipation. Already, in the gravest
spirit of business, a scheme for taking off her horses at the city
gates and harnessing their noble selves to the carriage of the
expected guest was discussed.

The reputation enjoyed by the great singer Bianca Lalli at that time
was very high throughout Italy. But, perhaps,--any one of her rival
goddesses would have said undoubtedly,--it was a reputation not
wholly and exclusively due to her strictly vocal charms. She was, in
truth, a woman of more than ordinary beauty; and was universally
declared to exercise a charm on all who came within reach of her
influence beyond that which even extraordinary beauty has always the
privilege of exercising. All kinds of stories were told of her
boundless power of fascination. In crude language, again,--such as
her own countrymen never used concerning her,--the reputation of "la
diva Lalli" was tout soit peu, a reputation de scandale. And it will
be readily imagined that the enthusiasm in her favour of the young
frequenters of the Circolo at Ravenna was none the less vehement on
this account.

It must, however, be added that she undoubtedly was a very admirable
singer. Had this not been the case, the Marchese Lamberto di
Castelmare would not have interested himself so much as he had done
in the plans and negotiations for bringing her to Ravenna. The
Marchese was not a man to be much influenced by the prima donna's
reputation for beauty and fascination. But he was "fanatico per la
musica." He was the acknowledged leader in all matters musical in
Ravenna; the most influential patron of the opera in the city; and
all-powerful in the regulation of all theatrical affairs.

The Marchese Lamberto held a rather special position in the social
world in Ravenna. His fortune was large; and the nobility of his
family ancient. But it was not these circumstances only, or even
mainly, that caused him to hold the place he did in the estimation
of his fellow-citizens. He was a bachelor, now about fifty years
old; and during some thirty of those years he had always been before
the public in one manner or another, and always had in every
capacity won golden opinions from all men. Though abundantly rich
enough to have gone occasionally to Rome, or even to have resided
there entirely, if he had chosen to do so, he had, on the contrary,
preferred to pass his whole life in his native city. And Ravenna was
flattered by this, to begin with. Then his residence in the
provincial city had been in many respects a really useful one, not
only to that section of the body politic which is called, par
excellence, society, but to the public in general. He had held
various municipal offices,  and had discharged the functions
belonging to them with credit and applause. He was treasurer to a
hospital, and a generous contributor to its funds. He was the
founder of an artistic society for the education of young artists
and the encouragement of their seniors. He was the principal
director of a board of "publica beneficenza." He was the manager,
and what we should call the trustee for the property of more than
one nunnery. He was intimate with the Cardinal Legate, and a
frequent and honoured guest at the palace. Of course in matters of
orthodoxy and well-affected sentiments towards the Church and its
government he was all that the agents of that government could
desire. It has already been said that he was at the head of all
matters musical and theatrical in Ravenna. And besides all this, he
gave every year three grand balls in Carnival; and his house was at
all times open every Sunday and Wednesday evening to the elite of
the society of the city.

Gradually it had come to be understood, rather by tacit agreement
among the society which frequented these reunions than in obedience
to any desire expressed by the Marchese on the subject, that on the
Sunday evening ladies were expected; and on those days a sister-in-
law of the Marchese, the widow of a younger brother, was always
there to do the honours of the Palazzo Castelmare. The Wednesday
evening parties had come to be meetings of gentlemen only. And on
these occasions one marked element of the society consisted of all
that the city possessed in the way of professors of natural science.
For the Marchese was, in a mild way, fond of such pursuits, and had
a special liking for anatomical inquiries and experiments.

In one respect only could the world fail to be wholly and perfectly
contented with the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. At the age of
fifty he was still a bachelor! Not that the continuance of the noble
line of Castelmare was thereby compromised. The sister-in-law
already mentioned had a son, a young man of two-and-twenty, at the
time in question, who was the heir to the wealth and honours of the
house, and who, it was to be hoped, would also inherit all that
accumulated treasure of public esteem and respect which his uncle
had been so uninterruptedly laying up. Neither could a social
objection to the Marchese's bachelorhood be raised on the score of
any such laxity of moral conduct as the world is wont to expect, and
to tolerate with more or less of indulgence, in persons so free from
special ties. Had the Marchese been an archbishop himself, instead
of being merely the intimate friend of one, it could not have seemed
in Ravenna more out of the question to mention his respected name in
connection with any scandal or inuendo of the kind. There was not a
mother in Ravenna who would not have been proud to see her daughter
honoured by any such intercourse with the Marchese as might be
natural between a father and his child. Proud indeed the most noble
of those matrons would have been could she have supposed that any
such intercourse tended towards sentiments of a more tender nature.
But all hopes of this kind had been long given up in Ravenna. It was
quite understood that the Marchese was not a marrying man.

Not that even now, in his fiftieth year, he might not well have
entered the lists with many a younger man as a candidate for the
favour of the sex. He was a man of a remarkably fine presence, tall,
well made, and with a natural dignity and graceful bearing in all
his movements, which were very impressive. He had never given in to
the modern fashion of wearing either beard or moustache. And the
contours of his face were too good and even noble to have gained
anything by being so hidden. The large, strong, rather square jaw
and chin, and smooth placid cheeks were strongly expressive of quiet
decision and dignified force of will. The mouth, almost always the
tell-tale feature of the face, seemed in his case rather calculated
to puzzle any one who would have speculated on the meanings shadowed
forth by the lines of it. It was certainly, with its large rows of
unexceptionably brilliant teeth, a very handsome mouth. And it was
often not devoid of much sweetness. Nobody had ever imagined that
they detected any evil expression among its meanings. But whereas a
physiognomist looking at that generally faithful expositor of the
moral man, when it was at rest, would have been inclined to say,
that it was a mouth indicative of much capacity for deep and strong
passion, a further study of it in its varied movements would have
led him to the conclusion that no strong or violent passions had
ever been there to leave their traces among its lines. The whole
face was so essentially calm, unruffled, and placidly dignified.

The loftly noble forehead, the strongly marked brow, the well-opened
calm grey eye, all told the same tale of a mind within well-
balanced, thoroughly at peace with itself, and thoroughly contented
with its outward manifestations, and with every particular of its
position.

Clearly the Marchese di Castelmare was a remarkably handsome man.
And yet there was something about him,--and always had been even as
a young man, which seemed to be in natural accordance with the fact
that he had never seemed to seek female society, save as an
amphytrion receiving all Ravenna within his hospitable doors. There
was a kind of austerity about his bearing;--a something difficult to
define, which would have prevented any girl from fancying that he
was at all likely to want to make love to her; a something which
made it as impossible that the refined courtesy of his address
should have called a pleased blush to any girl's cheek, or made her
pulse move one beat the faster, as that she should have been so
affected by the imposition of the hands of the bishop who confirmed
her!

Such as the Marchese was, any committee in the world would have
chosen him its president, any jury in the world would have named him
its foreman, any board in the world have selected him as its
chairman, any deputation in the world would have put him forward as
its spokesman; any sovereign in the world might have appointed him
grand master of the ceremonies; but never at any period of his life
would the suffrages of the ball-room have pitched upon him to be the
leader of the cotillon.

Perhaps it was that his life had been always too full to spare any
space for such lighter matters. He had been left the head of his
family when quite a young man, and had at once, in a great degree,
stepped into the place he had ever since occupied in the social
world of his native city. And what with his music, which was with
him really a passion, and what with his dabblings in science, and
what with the multifarious business he had always made for himself
by real and useful attention to the affairs pertaining to all the
functions he had filled, his life had really been a fully occupied
one.

Any man, woman, or child in Ravenna would have said, if such an
unpleasant idea had crossed their minds, that what Ravenna would do
without him it was frightful to think. He was very popular, as well
as profoundly respected by all classes of his fellow-citizens.
Though certainly a very proud man, his pride was of a nature that
gave offence to nobody. He was not only proud of being Marchese di
Castelmare; he was very proud of the esteem, the affection and
respect of his fellow-citizens. And perhaps this was, next to his
love of music, what most resembled a passion in his nature, and what
most ministered to his enjoyment of life.

It was to this phoenix of a Marchese that Signor Ercole Stadione,
the impresario, having comforted himself with the Conte Leandro's
punch, and got somewhat thawed, and having changed his mountain of
travelling wraps for a costume proper for presenting himself in such
a presence, repaired to report the result of his journey to Milan.



CHAPTER III

The Impresario's Report


It has been said that Signor Ercole Stadione, when he was first
introduced to the reader under circumstances somewhat unfavourable
to that dignity of appearance and deportment on which he specially
prided himself, presented the appearance of a round mass some five
feet in diameter. And it may be thence concluded, that when reduced
to the proportions familiar to the citizens of Ravenna, his utmost
longitudinal dimensions did not exceed that measure. The impresario
was in truth a very small man, weighing perhaps seven stone with his
boots. But Signor Ercole held, and very frequently expressed, an
opinion that dignity and nobility of appearance depended wholly on
bearing, and in no wise on mere corporeal altitude. Men were
measured in his country (Rome), he said, from the eyebrow upwards.
And though Rome is not exactly the place, of all others, where one
might expect to find such an estimate of human value prevailing,--
unless, indeed, smallness of that which a man has above his brow be
deemed the desirable thing,--it was undeniable that little Signor
Ercole carried a mass of forehead which might have been the share of
a much taller man.

Nor were the pretensions put forward by the impresario on this score
altogether vain. He was no fool;--a shrewd as well as a dapper
little man, active and clever at his business, and well liked both
by the artists and by the public, for which he catered, despite of
being one of the vainest of mortals. Vanity makes some men very
odious to their fellows;--in others it is perfectly inoffensive; and
though damaging to a claim to respect, is perfectly compatible with
a considerable amount of liking for the victim of it.

A very dapper little man was Signor Ercole, as he stepped forth,
about eight o'clock, entirely refitted, to wait upon the Marchese at
the Palazzo Castelmare. He was dressed in complete black, somewhat
threadbare, but scrupulously brushed. He had a large frill at the
bosom of his shirt, and more frills around the wristbands of it; one
or two rings of immense size and weight on his small fingers; boots
with heels two inches high, and a rather long frock-coat buttoned
closely round his little body. Signor Ercole had never been known to
wear a swallow-tailed coat on any occasion. And spiteful people told
each other, that his motive for never quitting the greater shelter
of the frock was to be found in his fear of exhibiting to the
unkindly glances of the world a pair of knock-knees of rare
perfection.

When his toilet was completed, he threw over all a handsome black
cloth cloak turned up with a broad border of velvet, which he draped
around his person with the air of an Apollo, throwing the corner of
the garment round the lower part of his face and over his shoulder,
in a manner wholly unattainable by any man born on the northern side
of the Alps; and kindly telling Marta that he would take the key,
and that she had better not sit up for him in the cold, stepped
forth on his errand.

"Ben tornato, Signor Ercole! I thank you for coming to me," said the
Marchese, rising from his seat at his library-table, which was
covered with papers and books, to receive the impresario.

Despite the extreme cold, this owner of a large fortune, and of one
of the finest palaces in Ravenna, was not sitting in an easy-chair
by the fire, as an Englishman might be expected to be found at such
an hour. The Italian's day is not divided into two portions as
clearly as an Englishman's day is divided by his dinner hour into
the time for business or out-door exercise, and the time for
relaxation, for a book or other amusement. He is quite as likely to
apply himself to any business or work of any kind after dinner as
before. Still less has he the Englishman's notion of making himself
comfortable in his home.

There was a miserable morsel of wood fire in the room in which the
Marchese sat; but it was at the far end of it. And in many a well-
to-do Italian home there would have been none at all. In order not
to be absolutely frozen, he sat in a large cloak, and had beside
him, or in his hands, a little earthen-ware pot filled with burning
braize--a scaldino, as it is called,--the use of which is common to
the noble in his palace, and the beggar in the street.

He pointed to a chair near the table, and as he spoke, paid his
visitor the ordinary courtesy of offering him his scaldino.

"My duty, my mere duty, Eccellenza," said Signor Ercole, letting his
cloak fall gracefully from his shoulders, and declining the
proffered pot of braize with an action that might have suited an
Emperor. "Of course my first care and object on arriving was to wait
on your Excellency. I arrived with barely a breath of life remaining
in my body. What a journey! What a journey! But if I had been frozen
quite I could not have forgotten that my first duty was to report
what I have accomplished to your Excellency."

"Thanks, good Signor Ercole, thanks; you know the interest I take in
all that concerns the honour of our theatre, and the pleasures of
our citizens; and I may truly add, in all that touches your
interest, my good Signor Ercole."

"Troppo buono! Eccellenza! Troppo buono davvero!" said the little
man, half rising from his chair, to execute a bow in return for the
Marchese's speech, while his cloak fell around his legs.

"I suppose that in such weather as this the diligence was behind its
time--E naturale--but I have already heard, in a general way, that
you have been successful. I congratulate you on it, Signor Ercole,
with all my heart!"

"I trusted that I should have been the first to tell your Excellency
the news. I am conscious that it was due to you, Signor Marchese, to
be the first to hear the result of my negotiation. But che vuole?
There was the Conte Leandro waiting for the coach, and standing at
the door as I got out of it, more dead than alive! And there was no
way of getting rid of him. I was forced to tell him, in a word, that
our hopes were crowned with success. He faithfully promised to keep
the fact secret. But, doubtless, all the town knows it by this time!
Che vuole?"

"E naturale! e naturale!" returned the Marchese, with a graceful
wave of his hand; "naturally they are all anxious to know the result
of our impresario's labours. And I was not left in ignorance. My
nephew ran in from the Circolo to tell me; he had just heard it from
Signor Leandro. But I thought that I should have a visit from
yourself, Signor Ercole, before long."

"E come, e come, Signor Marchese; could your Excellency imagine that
I could so fail in my duty as to have omitted waiting on your
lordship! Had it not been that I was half killed by this awful
weather, I should have placed myself at your Excellency's orders an
hour ago. Oh, Signor Marchese, such a journey from Bologna hither! I
know what is my duty to the city; I know what is expected of me.
But--Eccellenza, there are benefactors to their country, who have
statues raised to them, that have suffered less in the gaining of
them, than I have this day."

"Povero, Signor Ercole! But who knows? Perhaps we may see the day
when Ravenna will reward your exertions with a monument. Why not? It
must be a statue, life size, nothing less, with `Ercole Stadione, La
Patria riconoscente,' on the base," said the Marchese, with an
irony, the fine flavour of which did not in the least pierce, as it
was not intended to pierce, the plate armour of the little
impresario's vanity.

"Oh, Eccellenza!" said the poor little man, with the most perfect
good faith in the propriety, as well as the seriousness, of his
patron's proposition.

"And now, then," said the Marchese, "let us hear all about it. She
accepts our terms?"

"The scrittura has been signed before a notary, Eccellenza."

"Bravo! she sings--?"

"The whole repertorio, Signor Marchese! What is there she could not
sing?"

"And three representations a week?"

"Three representations a week. My instructions were formal on that
point, as your Excellency knows."

"Good! quite right! And now what is she, this diva? What is she
like? We know that Signor Ercole Stadione is as good a judge of the
merits of the lady as of the singer?" said the Marchese, with a
smile. "I don't ask you about her singing," he added. "We have all
heard all that can be said about that."

"Well, Signor Marchese, if I am to speak my own poor opinion, I take
the Signora Lalli to be decidedly the most beautiful woman it was
ever my good fortune to see," said Signor Ercole, with a voice and
manner of profound conviction.

"Paris himself, if called on to be umpire once again, could require
no more conclusive testimony, my good Signor Ercole. But that is not
exactly what I mean. Her mere beauty is a matter that does not
interest me very keenly. What I want to know, is what sort of a
scenic presence has she? Can she take the stage? I do not ask if she
is captivating in a drawing-room; but has she the face and figure
needed to be effective in the theatre? I need not tell you, my
friend, that these are two different things, and do not always go
together," said the Marchese, whose interest in the matter was, as
he said, wholly theatrical; first, that he and the society of
Ravenna should enjoy some fine singing during the coming Carnival;
and, secondly that the Lalli should produce such an enthusiasm as
should lead all the theatrical world to think and say that a great
stroke had been achieved, and a very public-spirited thing done in
bringing about the engagement. He was anxious that the step, which
he had had a large share in taking, should result in a great and
universally admitted success.

"Eccellenza! I have no doubt that your lordship will be satisfied in
these respects. Most true it is, as your Excellency so judiciously
remarks, that we require something more than merely a beautiful
face, or even than a fine figure. And I have never had the good
fortune to see `La Lalli' on the boards. But as far as my poor
judgment goes, she is admirably gifted with all the requisites for
achieving the result we desire. Then there is the testimony of all
Milan! And I succeeded in speaking with an old friend who had seen
her the year before last at Naples, and whose report I can trust.
The opinion seems to be universal that few artists have ever
possessed the gift of fascinating an audience to the degree that she
does. Your Excellency may take my word for it, she is a very clever
woman. My own interviews with her sufficed to convince me of that
fact. And I need not tell your Excellency, that little as some of
the empty-headed young gentlemen in the stalls may suspect it,
talent,--not only the special talent of song but general talent,--
has much to do with the power of fascination that a gifted actress
exercises."

"Most true, mio bravo Signor Ercole; you speak like an oracle; and
if she left on you the impression that she is a clever woman, I have
no doubt in the world that she is so."

There was no irony in the Marchese's mind when he said this; and the
little impresario, highly gratified again, half rose from his chair
to bow in return for the compliment.

"As for the specialties of her face and person," continued the
impresario, "they appeared to me highly favourable. Very tall,--
perhaps your lordship or I might say too tall. But--on the stage the
prejudice is in favour of a degree of tallness that we might not
admire off it. Gestures, bearing, and the movement of the person
equally capable of expressing majestic dignity, or heart-subduing
pathos. A most graceful walk. In short, a persona tutta simpatica.
As for the head--magnificent hair,--blonde, which for choice I would
always prefer--the true Titian sun-tinged auburn,--a telling eye,
finely formed nose, and mouth of inexpressible sweetness!"

"Per Bacco, Signor Ercole, a Phoenix indeed! A Diva davvero!" said
the Marchese.

"Eccellenza, she'll do," said the little man nodding his head with
its top-heavy forehead three or four times emphatically. "If she do
not make such a sensation in Ravenna as we have not known here for a
long time, say that Ercole Stadione knows nothing of his
profession."

"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Marchese, gleefully rubbing his hands.
"And now, my good friend, I won't keep you from the bed and the rest
you so well deserve any longer. You may depend on it that your zeal
in this matter won't be overlooked or forgotten."

"Troppo buono, Eccellenza! But there was one word I wished to say to
your lordship," continued little Signor Ercole, dropping his voice
to a lower key, and speaking with some hesitation,--one little word
that I thought it might be useful, or--or--desirable to mention--"

"Yes, speak on, my dear Signor Ercole, I am all attention. What is
it? No drawback I hope!"

"Only this, Signor Marchese," said the little man casting a glance
round the room, dropping his voice still more, and bringing his head
nearer to the ear of the Marchese; "only this:--you see if there had
been nothing-disagreeable,--nothing untoward, as I may say--your
lordship understands, we should never have had La Lalli at Ravenna.
There has been a--sort of difficulty--your lordship understands--
spiteful things have been said--calumny--all calumny no doubt-the
constant attendant of merit, alas! we all know. But--in short--here
in Ravenna--it would not be--desirable,--your Excellency understands
and appreciates what I would say a thousand times better than I can
say it. It would be in every point of view better, as your
Excellency sees, that no idle chatter of this kind should be set
about here. It would be inexpedient for more reasons than one."

"Quite so; quite so. Your ideas on the subject are happily
judicious, Signor Ercole. What have we to do with misunderstandings
that may have arisen at Milan? Of course, it is not our business to
have ever heard anything of the kind. And I'll tell you what I'll
do, and that at once, before there is time for any mischief to be
done. I will just give my nephew a hint. He can be trusted. He is
discreet. And it will be easy for him to put down at once and
discountenance any talk of the kind, or any rumour that might find
its way among our youngsters."

"The very thing, Eccellenza! The Marchese Ludovico will understand
the thing at once. And half a word from him would give the key-note,
as I may say, to the tone of talk about the lady. Ravenna must not
be thought to be contenting herself with that which Milan rejects,"
said Signor Ercole, with the air of a patriot.

"I should think not, indeed! And, doubtless, Milan would have been
but too glad to retain La Lalli, had it not been for some
unimportant contretemps. Ludovico shall put the matter in its right
light."

As he spoke, the Marchese rang a little hand-bell which stood on his
library table; and on a servant entering from the anteroom, he told
him just to step across to the Circolo, and request the Marchese
Ludovico to be so good as to come to him for five minutes.

In very little more than that time the man returned, saying that the
Marchese Ludovico was not at the Circolo. He had been there for a
few minutes at the beginning of the evening, but had gone away
without saying whither he was going.

The Marchese knitted his brows when this message was given to him;
and after a minute's thoughtful silence, shook his head in a manner
that showed him to be not a little displeased. From a look of
intelligence that might have been observed in Signor Ercole's eyes,
it might have been judged that he understood that the Marchese was
more annoyed than on account of the momentary frustration of his
immediate purpose, and that he was aware of the nature of his
annoyance. But he did not venture to say any word on the subject;
and the Marchese took leave of him, merely saying that he would not
forget to act on Signor Ercole's caution when he should see his
nephew the next morning.



CHAPTER IV

Paolina Foscarelli


The young Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare had in the early part of
the evening lounged into the Circolo, as was the habit of most of
those of his class, seniors as well as juniors; but he had, as had
been correctly reported to his uncle, very shortly left it without
saying a word to any one as to how he intended to dispose of his
evening. The Marchese Ludovico flattered himself, as people are apt
to flatter themselves in similar cases, that his absence would be
little noted, and that his reticence would suffice to leave all
Ravenna in ignorance as to the errand on which he was bound when he
left the Circolo. So far was this from being the case, however, that
there was not one, at all events among the younger men, whom he left
behind him, who did not know perfectly well where he was gone; and
that his uncle, when by the unforeseen accident that has been
related he was made aware of his absence from the club, was at no
loss to guess what he had done with himself.

But in order that the reader may have a like advantage, it will be
necessary to mention very briefly, some circumstances which occurred
previously to the period referred to in the former chapters.

Some months before the time of Signor Ercole Stadione's journey to
Milan, a wandering Englishman had arrived at Ravenna, and having
spent three or four days in examining with much interest the
wonderful wealth of Mosaics of the fourth, fifth, and sixth
centuries, still preserved in the churches of the ancient capital of
the Exarchs, had continued his route to Venice.

There, in the gallery of the Academia, his attention had been
attracted by a female student, who was engaged in copying a canvas
of Tintoretto. As it so happened that the traveller was a competent
judge of such matters, he was struck by the goodness of the work,
especially when considered in connection with the appearance of the
artist. She was evidently very young,--a slim, slender girl, whose
girlish figure looked all the more willow-like from the simple
plainness, and what seemed to the Englishman the insufficiency, of
her clothing. For the weather, though not so severe as when it had
half frozen Signor Ercole Stadione, was already very cold,--cold
enough to have depopulated the gallery of its usual crowd of copying
artists. At some distance from the young girl's easel, sitting in a
corner lighted up by a stray ray of sunshine, there was an old woman
busily knitting,--probably the girl's mother, or protectress. And
besides those two, and the Englishman, and a lounging attendant
wrapped in his cloak, there was no other soul in the gallery.

Yet the young student busily plied her task; nor was she surprised
into looking up by the stopping of the stranger behind her chair. He
did not see her face, therefore; and it would be consequently unfair
to imagine that any portion of the interest he could not help
feeling in her was to be attributed to the ordinary charm of a
pretty face, whereas it was really due partly to the artistic merit
of her copy, partly to her bravery in sticking to her work despite
the severity of the season, and partly to her youth and very
apparent poverty.

Suddenly, as he watched the progress of her work slowly growing
beneath the rapid movements of her slender, blue-cold fingers, the
idea came into his mind that here might be a favourable opportunity
of obtaining what he had much wished to procure when he had been at
Ravenna,--some drawings of several of the most remarkable of the
Mosaics in the churches of San Vitale and St. Apollinare in Classe.
He was quite satisfied from what he saw that the young artist was
competent to execute the drawings he required. The conscientious
determination, which alone could have made her continue her work
under such circumstances, was a guarantee to him that she would do
her best. It was not probable that the expectations of the girl
before him as to remuneration would go beyond such sum as he was
willing to pay. And lastly--though truly not least in that
Englishman's mind--it might be that such a proposal would be a very
acceptable boon to a poor and meritorious artist. So managing to
speak to the attendant, when he was at a far part of the gallery, he
learned from him that the girl's name was Paolina Foscarelli; that
the old woman was, the officer believed, her aunt; that her name was
Orsola Steno; and that they lived together at No. 8 in the Campo San
Donato.

That same evening the stranger desired his servitore di piazza to
make inquiries about Signora Orsola Steno, and her niece, who copied
in the gallery; and the next morning he was told that, if he would
call upon the Director of the Gallery, that gentleman would be happy
to reply to any inquiries about the Signorina Paolina Foscarelli.

The Englishman waited on the Director forthwith, and from him
learned that such a commission as he had thought of giving to the
young copyist could not be better bestowed in any point of view. The
Director spoke highly of her artistic capabilities, and more highly
still of her character and worth. She had been left an orphan,
wholly unprovided for, several years ago. Her father had gained his
living by copying in the gallery. The old woman, Orsola Steno, with
whom she lived, was no relation to her, but had been the dear friend
of her mother, and had taken the orphan to live with her out of pure
charity. They were very poor,--very poor, indeed. But Paolina was
beginning to do something. She had already sold one or two copies of
small pictures. The larger work, on which she was engaged, she had
undertaken by the advice of the Director, in the hope of disposing
of it when the following summer should bring with it the usual
incoming tide of travellers.

The result was that the stranger, taking with him a little note from
the Director, went again to the gallery the next day, and finding
Signorina Paolina at her post as usual, then and there made his
proposition to her.

He was glad, when in doing so he spoke face to face with the girl,
that the matter had been settled in his mind before he had seen her.
For he was pleased to be sure that his judgment had not been warped
in the matter by the irresistible prejudice in favour of a beautiful
girl. And had he seen Paolina first, he could have had no such
assurance. In truth, the poor Venetian painter's orphan child was
very beautiful. It is little to the purpose to attempt a detailed
description of her beauty; for such descriptions rarely, if ever,
succeed in conveying to the imagination of a reader any accurate
presentation of the picture, which the writer has in his mind's eye.
She was dark. Hair, brows, eyes, and complexion, were all dark; and
the contour of the face was of the long or oval type of
conformation--very delicate--transparently delicate--more so, the
Englishman thought, not without a pull at his heart-strings, than
was quite compatible with a due daily supply of nourishment. Still
she did not look unhealthy. At seventeen a good deal of pinching may
be undergone without destroying the elastic vigour of youth.

But the chief and most striking charm of the beautiful face was
unquestionably imparted to it from the moral and intellectual nature
within. There was a calm and quiet dignity in the expression of the
pure and noble brow, which may often have been seen in women of
similar character, and of some twenty-five years of age. But it is
rare to find such at seventeen. Doubtless the having been left alone
in the world at so tender an age, had done much towards producing
the expression in question. It was added to, moreover, by the
singular grace of the girl's figure and mode of standing there
before the stranger, as she had risen from her easel on his
presenting her with the Director's note.

She was rather above the middle height, and very slender;--more so,
the Englishman thought again, than she ought to have been. She was
very poorly and even insufficiently clad. But the little bit of
quite plain linen around her slim throat was spotlessly clean; and
her poor and totally unornamented chocolate-coloured stuff dress was
in decently tidy condition, and was worn with that nameless and
inexplicable grace which causes it to be said of similarly gifted
women that they may wear anything.

And the stranger was delighted, too, with her manner in accepting
his proposition. Though she made no attempt to conceal, and, indeed,
eagerly expressed her sense of the value to her of the proposal that
was made to her, there was a modest, and at the same time self-
respecting, dignity about her acceptance of it, which was to his
mind an earnest of the highly conscientious manner in which the task
would be carried out.

It was therefore settled at once that Paolina, together with her
friend and protectress, the Signora Orsola Steno, should proceed to
Ravenna as soon as she could conveniently do so. A list of the works
of which she was required to make copies was given to her. It
included, besides the whole of the very interesting Mosaics in San
Vitale, and several of the curious Mosaic portraits of the early
bishops of the city in the church of St. Apollinare in Classe, two
remarkable full-length figures from the ancient baptistery, the
representation of the Saviour as the "Good Shepherd" in the
celebrated mausoleum of the Empress Galla Placidia, and the
portraits of the Apostles in the private chapel of the Cardinal. Of
all these works, exact copies were to be executed on a scale of one
sixth the size of the originals; and it was calculated that the work
would require at least fifteen months to do it in. A sufficient sum
of money was paid in advance to enable Signora Orsola Steno and her
ward to move to Ravenna, and to begin their residence there; and
satisfactory arrangements were made for subsequent quarterly
payments of two-thirds of the price to be paid for the completed
copies.

Besides all this, the English patron provided the young artist with
a letter of introduction, which he doubted not would make smooth all
difficulties which might lie in the way of her obtaining the
permissions and facilities necessary for the execution of her task.
This letter was addressed to the "Illustrissimo Signor il Signor
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare." The English traveller had brought
from Rome a letter of introduction to the Marchese, and had received
from him, during his short stay at Ravenna, all that courteous
attention and friendly interest in his artistic researches which
Englishmen are always sure to meet with in the smaller cities of
Italy, even in yet larger measure than in the larger capitals, where
strangers of all sorts are more abundant.

Thus equipped and provided, Paolina Foscarelli, accompanied by
Signora Orsola Steno, had arrived in Ravenna in the March of the
same year, in the November of which Signor Ercole Stadione had made
his journey to Milan.



CHAPTER V

Rivalry


The first care of the two Venetian women, on arriving in their new
place of abode, which seemed to them almost as much a foreign
country as Pekin might seem to an Englishman, was, of course, to
present their letter of introduction to the powerful and illustrious
protector to whom they were recommended. But there had, thereupon,
arisen a difference of opinion between the older and the younger
lady. Old Orsola Steno, acting on the wisdom which certain
observations of life picked up in her sixty years of passage through
it had probably taught her, was strongly of opinion that the
important letter should be presented to the Marchese by Paolina in
person,--or if not that, by both of them together. But Paolina
strongly objected to this mode of proceeding; and urged her friend
to take upon herself the duty of waiting on the Marchese. Orsola
contested the point as strongly as she could. But as it was very
rarely that Paolina had ever opposed her in any thing, she was the
less prepared to resist opposition on the present occasion. And as
Paolina was in this matter obstinate, old Orsola yielded; and set
forth by herself to walk to the Palazzo Castelmare. Nobody had ever
any difficulty in obtaining access to the popular Marchese; and the
Signora Orsola Steno was at once ushered into his library,--
presented her letter, and was received with all courtesy and
kindness.

To receive recommendations of all sorts, to be asked to render all
kinds of services, was nothing new or uncommon to the Marchese. He
ran over the Englishman's letter rapidly.

"Va bene! va bene! At your service, Signora! I shall be most happy
to give you all the assistance in my power. I remember very well
that Signor Vilobe (Willoughby was the Englishman's name) was
desirous of procuring copies of some of our mosaics. I am very happy
he has found so competent a person to execute them."

Signora Orsola made a feeble attempt to point out that she was not
herself the artist who was to make the copies in question; but what
with her awe of the grand seigneur to whom she was speaking, and
what with the strangeness of her Venetian tones to her hearer's ear,
and what with the Marchese's hurry, her explanation failed to reach
his comprehension.

"Yes! You and your companion will need to find a suitable lodging,
the first thing. We must see to it for you. But the fact is, Signora
Foscarelli, that I am more than usually busy this morning. I am
expecting some gentlemen here on business every minute. If you will
excuse me, therefore, I will entrust the commission of finding a
proper quartiere for you to my nephew. He will be more likely than I
am to know where what you require is likely to be found. He shall
call upon you this morning. Where are you? At the locanda de' Tre
Re! Very good. Of course you don't want to remain in an inn longer
than can be helped. I will tell my nephew to go to you this
morning."

So Signora Steno returned to the "Tre Re;" a little alarmed at the
thought that she had passed herself off for another person and a
somewhat different one, but charmed with the courtesy and kindness
of the Marchese. And in less than an hour the strangers from Venice
heard two voices below in the entrance of the locanda inquiring for
two Venetian ladies who had recently arrived in Ravenna.

Two voices!--for it had so happened that when the servant, whom the
Marchese Lamberto had sent to his nephew to request him to undertake
this little commission for him, found the Marchese Ludovico at the
door of the Circolo, the Signore Conte Leandro Lombardoni was
lounging there with him.

"Bah! what a bore? My uncle is always making himself the maestro di
casa, the manager, the protector, the servant of all the world. Tell
the Marchese I'll go directly," he said to the servant; then added
to his companion, "Come, Leandro, don't desert me! Let's go together
and see what these Venetian women want."

"I ought to go to the Contessa Giulia at two. She'll be waiting for
me, and will be furious if I disappoint her. Never mind, what must
be, must be! I Tre Re! Ugh, what a distance; why, it is at the other
end of the town?"

"Never mind, come along; it will do you good to walk half a mile for
once and away," returned Ludovico, who knew perfectly well how much
to believe about the Contessa Giulia's despair at his friend's non-
appearance.

Thus the two young men went together to the locanda de' Tre Re to
execute the commission entrusted to his nephew by the Marchese
Lamberto.

"Yes," said a slatternly girl, who came forth from some back region
at the call of the two young men, and who stared at them with an
offensive mixture of surprise and understanding interest, when they
inquired for the ladies recently arrived from Venice. "Yes, they
were upstairs, on the right hand, in No. 13." So they climbed the
stairs, knocked at No. 13, were told to passare by the voice of
Signora Orsola, and in the next instant were in the room with the
two strangers.

The first glance at the occupants of the chamber produced a shock of
surprise, which manifested itself in so sudden a change of manner
and bearing in the two young men, that it would have been ludicrous
to any looker-on. The two hats came down from the two heads with a
spring-like suddenness and quickness; and both the young men bowed
lowly.

"Ladies," said Ludovico, addressing himself mainly to the elder, but
turning also towards the younger as he spoke, while the Conte
Leandro stared unmitigatedly at Paolina; "we come to you, sent by my
uncle the Marchese di Castelmare, and charged by him to assist you
in finding a convenient quartiere for your residence in Ravenna.
Permit me to say on my own behalf," he added, turning more entirely
towards Paolina, "that I hope it may not be a short one!"

"If the Signorina would make her stay among us as long as we would
wish it, she would never leave Ravenna any more," said the Conte
Leandro, with a glance from his sharp little eyes, and a bow of his
fat person, that were meant to be quite killing.

"It is this young lady, I conclude, who has undertaken to copy some
of our mosaics for the Englishman, who writes to my uncle, then?"
said Ludovico with a good-humoured and bright smile.

"That is it, Signor--though she is but such a slip of a thing to
look at. I was afraid the Signor Marchese had taken it into his head
that I was Paolina Foscarelli. Lord love you! I could not make, nor
yet copy a picture, if it were to save my life!"

"My uncle will be equally happy to have it in his power to oblige
either lady," rejoined Ludovico.

"I am sure the Marchese is too good," said Signora Steno; "we remain
here till the Signorina Foscarelli has finished the job she has
undertaken, and no longer, nor no shorter. And some place we must
find to live in the while. And if your lordship could tell us where
we would be likely to find a couple of bedrooms, a bit of a sitting-
room, and the use of a kitchen, it would be very kind."

"There will be no difficulty about that, I think, Signora," said the
Marchese Ludovico; "I will go at once and inquire! I think I know
where what we want may be had. If you will permit me, I will return
to you here in less than half an hour."

"Troppo garbato, Signor Marchese!" said Orsola.

"If the Signorina will permit me," said Leandro, "I think I know of
just such a little quartierino as would suit her, snug, quiet, and
parfettamente libero."

To this offer, Paolina felt herself constrained to reply by a silent
little bow. His former speech had received no reply whatsoever.

"I think I had better do what my uncle has told me to do, Leandro,"
said the Marchese Ludovico, drily.

And Paolina felt sufficiently grateful to him for the amount of
snubbing contained in his accent to say the first words she had
spoken since they entered the room. "We shall be exceedingly obliged
to you, Signore, if you will do so. Any quartiere which the Marchese
Lamberto di Castelmare could recommend to us," she added, with a
significant emphasis on the words, "would be sure to suit us."

"But perhaps the Marchese Lamberto may not know half as much about
such matters as I do, bella Signorina. People forget so many things
by the time they come to the age of the Marchese," said the Conte
Leandro, with a leering smile, which was meant to establish a
confidential understanding between him and Paolina. But the young
girl's only answer was to turn in her chair a little more away from
him towards the window.

"I think we had better leave the ladies, and see if we can find for
them what they require. I should prefer doing myself what my uncle
has entrusted to me," said Ludovico, with a frown on his brow.

"Very good--do so. You say you shall be back here in half an hour;
if these ladies will permit me I will remain with them till you come
back, and then we can all go and look at the quartiere you have
found together," said the Conte Leandro.

Poor Paolina, though perfectly determined not to acquiesce in this
arrangement, was quite at a loss what to say or do to prevent it
from being carried out.

"But you forget your engagement to the Contessa Giulia," said
Ludovico; "surely you had better make haste to keep it."

He had no belief whatever in any such engagement, and had a very
faint hope that any care for consistency would avail to induce his
friend the Conte Leandro to affect the necessity of keeping it. But
he also was perfectly determined not to leave him in the room with
the strangers, though almost as much at a loss as Paolina how to
prevent it.

"Oh, hang the Contessa Giulia! In any case, it is too late to go to
her now, and I am sure I shall like much better to stay here," said
Leandro.

"Very likely. But you forget that it may not be equally agreeable to
these ladies that you should remain here, and they just arrived from
a journey too," said the Marchese Ludovico, who was inwardly cursing
his folly in having brought his friend with him on this errand,
which he unquestionably would not have done had he had the remotest
idea what manner of ladies they were that his uncle had deputed him
to attend on.

"By-the-by, Leandro," he said, suddenly, as he was moving towards
the door, "you must come with me--after all; for now I remember that
the rooms I had in my mind were let a short time since, and the best
thing we can do will be to go and look at those you spoke of."

"Oh! I will tell you where they are--" said Leandro.

"No, no! that won't do at all; come--come along. I won't go there
without you. Come!" said the Marchese.

And this was said in a manner that had the effect of making Leandro
take leave of the ladies, with many hopes that they might meet again
ere long.

Very soon after the two young men were in the street together,
Ludovico protested that he must call at the Circolo before attending
to the business they were on; and when he got there he pretended to
be obliged to run home for a minute to the Palazzo Castelmare, which
was hard by, saying that he would return and rejoin the Conte
Leandro in less than five minutes. And very heartily did that
deceived gentleman abuse his friend, when he had waited an hour, and
found that he did not return at all. Then, poor gentleman! he knew
that he had been bamboozled,--cruelly treated, as he said himself.
And he perfectly well understood his dear friend's object, too!

"Such an intolerable, abominable coxcomb as that Ludovico is! As if
he fancied that nobody was to have a chance of speaking to that
pretty girl but himself. As if he thought that he had the ghost of a
chance with a woman, if I thought it worth while to cut him out!"
grumbled the gallant, gay Leandro to himself.

The Marchese Ludovico, meanwhile, the instant he had succeeded in
freeing himself from his companion, darted off in search of an
apartment, which he thought would just suit his fair clients;
hurried back to them, at the inn; and had them installed in their
new quarters by that evening.

"I am sure I do not know how to thank you enough for all your
kindness, Signor Marchese. I do not know what we should have done
without it," said the Signora Orsola.

"For all your kindness!" repeated Paolina, with a look and an
emphasis which, while it expressed her gratitude, left him at no
loss to understand what part of all he had done for them had chiefly
seemed to the pretty Paolina to merit her special thanks.

And these were the facts and the circumstances that had brought
about a state of matters which left the Marchese Lamberto and the
gossips of the Circolo in no doubt where the young Marchese Ludovico
had gone to pass his evening, when his uncle sent for him to the
club for the purpose which the reader wots of, and failed to find
him there.



CHAPTER VI

The Beginning of Trouble


Nearly eight months had elapsed between that day when the Signora
Orsola and the Signorina Paolina were installed in their new lodging
and the day when the Marchese Ludovico was sitting in the more than
modest little room over a miserable morsel of fire, with the two
Venetians, when his uncle sent for him to give him the hint about
any inconvenient gossip that might be whispered concerning the
Signora Bianca Lalli, in accordance with the suggestion of the
impresario.

The Marchese Lamberto had made the personal acquaintance of the
young artist, who had been recommended to his protection very
shortly after the day on which he had deputed his nephew to find a
lodging for her; and he had instantly become aware that he had made
a mistake in so doing;--that he would certainly have deemed it
better to take that care upon himself rather than have confided it
to the young Marchese, if he had had the least idea what sort of
person the Venetian artist was. Nevertheless, be had been very
strongly impressed with the propriety of Paolina's manner and
bearing, and after one or two more interviews, with the thorough
modesty of her mind, and purity and dignity of her character. And
the Marchese was a man well competent to form a sound judgment of
such matters.

He had no reason to think that the young man, his nephew, was as
prudent, as steady, as little liable to the influence of female
beauty, as cold, if you will, as he himself had been at the same
age. On the contrary, the character, which the Marchese Ludovico had
made for himself in Ravenna, was a rather diametrically opposite
one. But he was strongly of opinion that in any enterprise of an
illegitimate nature which his nephew might attempt with the young
artist, he would have his trouble only for his pains. And, of
course, any enterprise of any other nature was wholly out of the
question.

Still, as the months went on he would have been far better contented
that his nephew should have been less often at the home of the two
Venetians. There were circumstances which made such visits
especially inexpedient at the present time. He knew that the young
man was there much oftener than he judged to be in any way
desirable; and the young man was there much oftener than his uncle
knew. The Marchese Lamberto was still very much persuaded that
Paolina had not been led by his nephew into any false step of a
seriously blamable nature. But this was by no means any reason with
the Marchese for approving of his nephew's conduct. The intercourse
was altogether objectionable. Talk was engendered,--talk of an
undesirable description; and this was excessively disagreeable to
the Marchese, who had views for his nephew which might be seriously
compromised by it. A liaison of the kind, let the real nature of it
be what it would, was in any case discreditable to his nephew and
heir, and damaging more or less to the position which he wished to
see the young man occupy in the town. It was especially so, as has
been said, at the present conjuncture.

Then, of course, it could not be otherwise than injurious to the
girl. She had, in some sort, been recommended to his care. And it
disturbed him much, that the conduct of his nephew should be the
means of damaging her reputation.

Yet the Marchese, being a man of sense, knew very well that it would
not have done any good to attempt to exercise any such authority
over the young man as to forbid him to visit the lodging of the
Venetians. In the first place, such a step would, according to the
notions and ways of looking at things of the society in which he
lived, have placed him himself in a very ridiculous light;--a danger
which was not to be contemplated for an instant! And, besides, the
Marchese was very well aware that even if such an attempt did not
cause his nephew to assume a position of open rebellion, it would
only have the effect of making him do secretly and still more
objectionably what he did, as it was, comparatively openly.

Comparatively, it must be said; for Ludovico was very much more
frequently at the little house in the Strada di S. Eufemia than his
uncle wotted of.

Not much more frequently, however, than was very well known by most
of his contemporaries and fellow-habitues of the Circolo,--by pretty
well the whole of the "society" of Ravenna, that is to say. And in
the earlier part of the time in question,--of the eight months, that
is, from the March in which the young artist came to Ravenna, to the
November in which Signor Ercole Stadione had made his journey to
Milan there had been plenty of joking and raillery about Ludovico's
enthralment by the "bella Veneziana," and many attempts to compete
with him for so very attractive and desirable a "buona fortuna." But
all this had only been at the beginning of the time. Ludovico had
taken the matter in a tone and in a humour, that had soon put an end
to all such joking and to all such attempts. It was in all ways easy
for him to do this. He was popular, and much liked among the young
men, in the first place. His social position, as the heir of one of
the first families of the province whether for wealth or nobility of
race, and of a man of such social standing as his uncle, made it a
very undesirable thing to quarrel with him. And even without any of
such vantage-ground of position, Ludovico di Castelmare was a man,
whose path it would have been dangerous to cross in such a matter as
this, and who was very well capable of affording to any woman, in
whom he was interested, a very efficient protection against any such
offence as the most enterprising of the jeunesse doree of Ravenna
might have been disposed to offer her.

The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had made the utmost of the chance that
had rendered him the earliest acquaintance of the beautiful Venetian
in Ravenna, with the exception of Ludovico himself. He had
chattered, and boasted after the manner of his kind. He had
succeeded in finding out the lodging, which Ludovico had taken so
much pains to conceal from him, and had endeavoured to establish
himself on the footing of a visiting acquaintance in the Strada Sta.
Eufemia. But it had come to pass, that a degree of intimacy had very
quickly grown up between Paolina and Ludovico, which permitted her
to let him understand that, he would render her an acceptable
service by once again ridding her of the Conte Leandro, as he had
done on that first day of their acquaintance. And the result was
that, one evening, the gallant Conte, on knocking at the door of the
house in the Strada di S. Eufemia, had it opened to him by his
friend Ludovico,--and further, that he never came back there any
more, or was heard again to make any allusion whatever to his
Venetian acquaintances.

But what was no longer said jestingly before Ludovico's face was
none the less said enviously, sneeringly, or knowingly behind his
back. It was perfectly well understood by all the young men in
Ravenna that he was desperately in love with the beautiful Venetian
artist. As to the terms on which he stood with her there were
differences of opinion. But by far the more accredited notion was
that the affair was quite a normal and ordinary one; and that the
charming Paolina was the young Marchese's mistress.

Would he give her up, when the marriage, which, as was well known to
all Ravenna, his uncle had been arranging for him with the young
Contessa Violante di Marliani, and which was expected to come off
shortly, should be consummated? That was the more interesting point
for speculation. Would he, as really seemed not impossible, be mad
enough to carry on with the Venetian girl to such an extent as to
give umbrage to the family of the Contessa, and perhaps even
endanger the match? This also was debated among his young peers of
the Circolo, while he was passing the hour in the Strada di Sta.
Eufemia.

His uncle was far from being aware how far matters had gone with his
nephew in this matter. But he knew enough to make him uneasy about
it, and to lead him to endeavour to push on the match with the
Contessa Violante by every means in his power: for the marriage with
the Lady Violante was, in every point of view, a desirable one. The
Cardinal Legate of Ravenna was a Marliani, and the young lady in
question was his great-niece--the granddaughter of his only brother.
She had lost both her parents at an early age, and now lived at
Ravenna with a great-aunt,--the younger sister of the Cardinal,
under his protection and wing, as it were. The family was not a rich
one, but the Cardinal had worn the purple many years. He had held
very lucrative offices in the Apostolic Court previously, and had
doubtless amassed very considerable wealth, and the Lady Violante
was his only heiress. Besides that, of course the position of her
great-uncle as Legate rendered her all that was desirable as a match
for the noblest of the province--not to mention other grander
possibilities in the background. The reigning Pontiff was a very
aged man. The Cardinal di Marliani was thought to stand very well at
Rome. Who knew what might happen? It would have been too monstrous
if the hope of such a marriage as this were to be endangered by a
silly fancy for the pretty face and slim figure of a little artist.

The Marchese Lamberto had felt his position to be a difficult one.
He really did not know what line it would be wisest to take.
Ludovico had spoken among his associates at the Circolo in a manner
which had effectually silenced all light allusion to the ladies in
the Strada di Santa Eufemia. He could not speak exactly in the same
tone to his uncle; but the hints that the Marchese Lamberto had from
time to time thrown out to the effect that, under the circumstances
of the case, he did not approve of his nephew's intimacy with the
Signorina, Paolina Foscarelli, had been received in a manner by the
younger man which had warned the elder that some caution was
required in the task of guiding his nephew in this matter. He had
never had much cause to be dissatisfied with his nephew's conduct,
or with his behaviour towards himself: but some years before the
present time, he had been made aware that the Marchese Ludovico was
one of those whom it is easier to lead than to drive; and that any
attempt at a little too much driving would be likely to lead to
kicking, and perhaps to an entire breaking of reins and traces.

And, being a man of sense, he had acted on the hints thus given him
with considerable success. The Marchese Ludovico had submitted on
most occasions to be led with all desirable docility. But now, in
this matter, wherein judicious leading was more than ever before in
his life necessary to him, he seemed to decline to be led at all.

How could the perplexed Marchese do otherwise than frown when he was
told that his nephew was not at the Circolo at that hour of the
evening, knowing very well where such absence showed him to be? Yet
he probably would have done, or attempted to do, some thing else,--
or, at all events, the frown would have been a yet heavier and
blacker one,--could he not only have guessed where his nephew was at
that moment, but have also heard what was passing in the little
salottino of the Strada di S. Eufemia.

Some account of the conversation there may perhaps serve the purpose
of saving all necessity for a detailed account of the intercourse
which had taken place between Ludovico and Paolina during the last
eight months. The story of it will be sufficiently understood from a
peep at its result.



CHAPTER VII

The Teaching of a Great Love


Paolina had been working all day in the church of San Vitale. She
had very nearly completed the copies she was to make there; and they
were the most important in extent of all she had engaged to execute.
It had been necessary to erect a scaffolding for the purpose of
bringing the artist sufficiently near to her subject; and the
permission to have this done had been obtained by the all-powerful
interest of the Marchese Lamberto. Many an hour had Ludovico passed
on that scaffolding by the artist's side as she plied her slow and
laborious task; and many a "Paul" had the old sacristan pocketed
with a grin of understanding, as he had opened the door of the
church to the young Marchese, the object of whose visit he had long
since learned to understand.

And Paolina herself? Did she approve of these visits made thus in
the perfect seclusion of that old church at the hours when its doors
were shut to the public? Did she like the hours so spent in tete-a-
tete conversation with the handsome young Marchese? She, who had so
readily found the means to make the entreprenant Conte Leandro keep
his distance, and had succeeded in disembarrassing herself of him
altogether,--could she find no possible means for avoiding the
assiduities of the Marchese Ludovico; could she not at least have
induced old Orsola to accompany her in the church of San Vitale, as
she had accompanied her in the gallery at Venice?

Perhaps old Orsola did not like climbing up a ladder to a
scaffolding. Perhaps she had the superstitious dislike to an empty,
and lonely church not uncommon to uneducated Italians. The fact was
at all events that, even after Ludovico had, upon more than one
occasion, brought the rushing blood into the dark face of Paolina by
surprising her at her work on the scaffolding near the vaults of the
church, old Orsola never made her appearance there. She was always
at her place on one side of the fire during the visits of the
Marchese to the quartiere in the Strada di Santa Eufemia in the
evening; but it was equally true that she almost always went to
sleep.

It is so natural and so desirable that the old should sleep under
such circumstances and on such occasions! It is so evidently for the
benefit of all the parties concerned, that the tendency may be
reckoned among the instances of beneficent adaptation with which the
whole order of Nature is filled!

It can hardly be doubted,--Ludovico could hardly be blamed for the
persuasion--that Paolina did like his visits. It may be pretty
safely assumed that those blushes, which greeted the appearance of
his head above the planks as he climbed to the scaffolding, were not
painful blushes. How early in those eight months it came to pass
that her heart leaped at the click of the huge old key in the lock,
as the sacristan admitted Ludovico by a turn of it which, as she had
well learned, heralded his coming, it might be hard to say. Paolina
herself could not probably have told this to her own heart. But that
such had come to be the case long before the evening when the
Marchese Lamberto sought his nephew at the Circolo, and could not
find him, can hardly be doubted.

Thus much having been admitted, it seems as if there might be reason
to fear that Paolina may appear worthy of censure to those of her
own sex, to whom her story is here commended, to a degree which
truth, and an acquaintance with times, places, and national manners,
would not quite justify. But in these matters of national
appreciation, of fitness and unfitness, and of propriety and
impropriety, the nuances are so fine and subtle, that it is somewhat
difficult, in trying to explain them, to say just what one means
without seeming to say more than one means.

One thing is clear. Paolina was as thoroughly and essentially modest
and innocent a girl as ever breathed; but she was so "by the grace
of God,"--from natural idiosyncrasy and instinctive purity of heart,
that is to say, rather than from teaching of any kind, or from any
knowledge of good or evil. She was an orphan, the child of parents
who were "nobody," and she was left in the world to find her own way
in it as she could. So much the more, replies the prudent English
matron, ought she to have been extra careful lest the breath of
misconception should even for a passing moment sully her. It is the
sentiment of a people, who, "aristocratic" as they may be, do really
feel that that which is best and purest in the highest lady of the
land may be, and should be, also the heritage of lowliest. But such
is not practically the feeling in those social latitudes where
Paolina was born and bred.

The breath that tarnishes the clear mirror of a noble damsel's name,
says and teaches that social feeling, brings dishonour to a noble
race; and she has failed in her duty to her race. But who could be
injured by any light word spoken or light thought of such an one as
poor Paolina? She was an "artist." What treason to art, what lese-
majeste against the beautiful in every one of its manifestations, to
conceive that in that fact any reason was to be found why a less
nice conduct in such matters should be expected of her! And yet, for
reasons which it would take a volume to elucidate, so it is, that in
the countries where art is deemed to be most at home, and where it
is in the largest degree the occupation of large sections of the
people, it is deemed that a less strict rule with reference to the
matters under consideration is laid on them than on others. What if
a young female artist "perfectly free from ties," as would be urged,
and whose conduct in such a matter could hurt nobody,--what if such
an one chose to form a tie not recognized by the Church? The Church
herself would look very leniently on the venial fault. And though
Paolina was such as she has been described, it was impossible but
that such notions, not specially set forth or taught, but pervading
all the unconscious teaching of the world around her, should have
rendered her less sensitively anxious as to the possibility of
misconception lighting on her, than an equally good English girl
would have been. Could she have been indifferent to the danger that
slander should tarnish her good name? asks an Englishwoman. But the
whole world in which she lived would not have felt it to be slander.
It would have been too much in the ordinary course of things.

How Paolina felt in the matter, Ludovico was made to understand on
that evening which has been so often referred to; and the reader may
gather from the conversation that passed between them.

Paolina had worked hard all day. The mosaics in San Vitale were
nearly finished. Ludovico had been with her on her scaffolding
during the few hours of light of the short afternoon. He had become
sensible that the intercourse between him and Paolina had latterly
been growing to be less frank, unreserved, and easy than it had
been. He had once been quite sure that Paolina loved him with the
whole force of a thoroughly virgin heart. He had latterly begun
almost to think that he had been mistaken in her. She would turn
from him. She would fall into long silences. She was embarrassed in
speaking to him; and it had often happened lately that talk had
passed between them, which had seemed as if they were speaking at
cross-purposes--as if there were something not understood or
misunderstood between them.

And Ludovico had come to the house in the Strada di Sta. Eufemia
that evening, safely relying on the expectation that the Signora
Orsola would go fast asleep, and determined to bring matters to an
understanding between him and Paolina.

"You can hardly, I think, doubt, Paolina mia, that I love you
dearly, far more dearly than anything else on the face of the earth.
Do you not see and know that all my life is devoted to you? You do
not doubt, darling, do you?" said Ludovico, as he sat holding one of
her hands in his.

She sat silent for awhile, and with her face turned away from him,
though she made no attempt to take her hand from his.

"You do not doubt it, Paolina?" he asked again.

"If I did doubt it,--if I had doubted it, Ludovico, you could not
have taught me the lesson which you have taught me--the lesson which
you well know you have so thoroughly taught me, to love you. We
neither of us doubt of the love of the other. But--."

She still continued to sit with her face averted from him; and,
after another pause, finished her speech only by a little sad shake
of her head.

Now the truth was that Ludovico often did doubt very much whether
Paolina really loved him. He did not understand the position in
which they stood towards each other at all. Here was a little
utterly unpretending artist, dependent on no one but herself, owing
no duty to any one, to whom he had been making love for the last
eight months, as he had never in his life made love before, who
assured him that she loved him; how was it that she had not been his
mistress months and months ago? How to account for so strange a
phenomenon? He knew very well, that if the exact truth of his
position with regard to the little Venetian artist were known or
guessed at by any of the men with whom he lived, he would have
appeared to them an object of the utmost ridicule,--a dupe,--a fool
of the very first water. What on earth could he have been about all
the time?

And there were moments in which he was tempted to think the same of
himself; bitter moments of cynical world-wisdom, in which he scoffed
at himself for having been led to play the part he had played for
these last eight months. He would resolve at such moments to "speak
plainly" to Paolina; and, if such plain-speaking failed of the
effect it was intended to produce, to put her out of his mind and
never waste a minute or a thought upon her again.

But such plain-speaking had never got itself spoken,--had seemed,
when he was in presence of the intended object of it, utterly
impossible to be spoken. And as for the other alternative, he knew
at the bottom of his heart, that it was as much out of his power to
put it in practice, as it was to forget his own identity.

Something there was in the girl different from anything he had ever
known in any other specimen of the sex he had ever become acquainted
with. Something too there unmistakably was in his feeling towards
her very different from aught that he had ever felt before. What
spell had come over him? And what the deuce was the nature of her
power over him? And what the deuce was her own meaning, and feeling,
and the motives of her conduct?

It really was necessary, however, that they should in some way come
to understand each other. If he had been becoming for some time past
discontented with the state of matters between them, it was evident
that Paolina had been becoming ill at ease and unhappy also. In some
fashion or other some more or less plain speaking was evidently
needed.

And Paolina herself? What was her feeling on the subject? Whence did
her unmistakable malaise, distraught behaviour in Ludovico's
presence, paling cheeks, hours of reverie, when she should have been
busily at work--whence did all this come? What was really in her
mind when she told him that doubtless they both loved each other,
and then ended her words with a "but," and a sad shake of her
drooping little head?

She had found this man, her first acquaintance, in a strange land,
good-natured, pleasant, kind, useful, handsome, protecting and, at
the same time, deferential in his manner; and she had liked him. He
had delivered her from the Conte Leandro, and there had come into
her mind comparisons between the two men. He had been on her side in
that matter; they had wished the same thing, and had accomplished it
against a third person; there had been, as it were, a secret between
them on the subject; and hence had grown a bond of union. She had
advanced from liking to admiring. Thence to the consciousness that
she was admired. She had gone onwards through the usual phases of
surprising herself in the act of thinking of him at all sorts of
hours, and gradually discovering that he filled an immense portion
of her lonely life there in the strange city, till she came to the
stage of mingling the avowal "Gli voglio tanto bene" with her last
prayers to Mary Mother by her bedside at night, and meditating on
the words he had said and the looks be had looked, after she had
laid her head upon the pillow.

She had thus quietly walked onwards into the deep waters of a great
love, before any question had ever suggested itself to her as to
whither she was going, and whether there might not be danger of
perishing in those deep waters.

Now nothing is clearer or more undoubted by every good and well-
conditioned girl among ourselves, than the certainty that any man
who unmistakably seeks to win her love either means and hopes to
make her his wife, or is merely fooling her for his own abominably
selfish amusement, or is insulting her and endeavouring to injure
her in a manner that makes it at once her duty and her inclination
to spurn him from her with horror and loathing.

But here, again, as the lawyers say, "locus regit actum." That which
the English girl feels, under such circumstances, so naturally, that
she deems it an inseparable part of her nature that she should so
feel, she feels because of the teaching of the whole social
atmosphere in which she has lived. The Italian girl, in the position
of Paolina, does not feel it, because she has lived in a very
different social atmosphere.

It is quite certain that Paolina,--if the question, whether it was
in anywise on the cards that the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare had
conceived, or was likely to conceive, any project of marrying her,
Paolina Foscarelli, had suggested itself, or had been suggested, to
her at any time during those eight months,--would at once have
replied to her own heart or to any other person, that such an idea
was utterly preposterous and out of the question.

But he had been striving to convince her that he loved her by every
means in his power for months past, and had succeeded in so
convincing her. Was he merely playing with her? That idea never
entered into her head. As she, with sad and transparent frankness,
had told him, neither of them could doubt the love of the other.
What doubt could remain, then, as to the alternative? What doubt of
the atrocious nature of his designs and intentions towards her? No
doubt at all. Ought she not, therefore, with the intensest scorn of
what-do-you-take-me-for-sir indignation to have repelled the insult
offered to her?

Poor Paolina had no conception that any insult at all was offered to
her or intended. Ludovico was minded to offer to her that which it
was in his power to offer, for her to accept if it suited her, or to
decline if it suited her not. The species of tie that he offered her
was all he could offer her. It was one very frequently offered and
very frequently accepted in similar cases. Had the possibility that
she might one day accept such been suggested to her, it would have
produced no horror in her mind. She had no conviction during all
these eight months that she never could or would accept such a
position from any man. Why, then, did not matters proceed
harmoniously and smoothly between them? Why had not Paolina become
Ludovico's mistress before this time? What was the meaning of the
averted face, and of that broken off "but--" which she had found it
so difficult to follow with a completed sentence?

The meaning was, that Paolina's own heart, during those hours of
reverie filled with the meditation of her love,--during those
pourings forth of her confessions of love to her heavenly confidant
in her bedside prayers;--during her nightly review of the love-
passages of the day,--her own heart, as it became clearer to her,
had revealed to her, that she could not accede to any such proposal
as that which, she was well persuaded, the Marchese could alone
offer to her;--had revealed it to her, not in obedience to any moral
principle; not by any what-do-you-take-me-for process of indignant
virtue; but by an instinctive feeling irresistible and not to be
gainsayed, that the love she had to bestow must possess its object
wholly and entirely, or not at all. It was quite a matter of course
that Ludovico would marry some lady in his rank of life. She was not
ignorant of the position in which he stood with regard to the
Contessa Violante. And his openness to her on this subject is a
curious indication of the very wide difference between the mode in
which the whole subject would be looked at by both parties in the
world in which they lived, and in our own.

Philosophers, as the result of much learned observation and long
reasonings, come to the conclusion that monogamy is best suited, on
the whole, to the nature, the requirements, and progressive
improvement of mankind. A pure-hearted woman, who loves with a true
and great love, finds a shorter cut to the same conviction.

And the growing depth and earnestness of Paolina's love had arrived
at teaching her this with unmistakable clearness. She might pine,
might die--might compel her heart to turn to stone;--might seek the
refuge of a cloister, which is the southern equivalent for suicide;-
-but she could not--she felt she could not live and be content to
share her lover's love with another. It was not any sensation of the
nature of jealousy so much as an unconquerable feeling that not to
have all was to have nothing;--that she must have all and for ever;
that she and he must be one;--one flesh and one spirit.

Of course all this ought to be taught, and is taught to all
respectably educated young persons in more regular and didactic
fashion. But to poor little unschooled Paolina it was taught not
less authoritatively by the greatness and the purity of her own
love.



CHAPTER VIII

A Change in the Situation


"Neither of us can any more doubt the love of the other, Ludovico
mio!" Paolina had said in reply, to his pleading, "but--

"But what, tesoro mio? What `but' can come between us, if there is
no such doubt to come between us?" urged Ludovico, gently drawing
her towards him by the hand he still held locked in his own.

Again Paolina paused some minutes before replying, less apparently
from hesitation to speak what was in her mind, than because she was
applying her whole mind to the better understanding of her own
meaning.

"It is not, that I doubt whether you love me, Ludovico mio!" she
said at length, but still without turning towards him; "I know you
love me truly and well. But I sometimes think, that you do not love
me in the same way that I love you. I never knew before that there
could be different ways of loving. But now it seems to me,--and I
have thought so much, oh, so much of it,--that somehow you look less
to the whole, of everything,--how can I say what I mean?--less to
all our lives, and all our selves, in your love, than I do."

"What can you mean, Paolina? A different way of loving! I know but
of one way!" said Ludovico with a somewhat banal flourish.

"What would become of me, Ludovico mio," she said, now looking round
into his face, with a look in her deep true eyes, that made him feel
for the moment as though all the world were truly as nothing to him,
in comparison with her love;--"what would become of me, if you were
to cease to love me? I should wither away, and die. It is probably
what will happen to me!"

"Paolina!" he exclaimed, in a voice of strong reproach.

She put her hand upon his shoulder, as if to beg him to let her
complete what she wished to say, and continued,--

"But what would happen to you, if I were--it is impossible, but if I
were--to cease to love you? would not that show you, that there is a
difference between ways of loving?"

"No, cara mia, it would shew no such thing. Look now, Paolina! They
tell of lovers' perjuries. But I never said one word to you that I
did not believe to be true. Nor will I ever do so. Were you to be
taken from me, by your own heart, and your own act, or in any other
way, I do not believe that I should wither and die. But it does not
follow, that I should suffer less. I should live on, not because my
love is weaker, but because my body is stronger than yours. God
grant that such a lot may never befall me."

"It never can befall you, amor mio! but, Ludovico, you could not
only live, but you could love--some other woman;" she uttered the
words with a little gulp of emotion, and continued: "Do you imagine,
that if I lived to a thousand years, I could ever love any other
than you?"

"What right have you to say, Paolina, that I should ever, or could
ever love another but you?" said Ludovico, indignantly.

"Nay, Ludovico, must you not do so always? Are you not professing to
do so even now? Are you not promising your love to the Contessa
Violante? will she not have a better right to your love than I?"

Ludovico started, and drawing himself a little back from Paolina,
looked at her with reproachful surprise. It was not that he was
surprised at learning that she was aware of his engagement to the
Contessa. He had, as has been said, concealed nothing from her in
that respect. But he was vexed, and surprised at the feeling she
manifested on the subject.

"You surprise me, Paolina!" he said. "Would it have been better if I
had concealed all this from you? Many men,--most men perhaps, in
similar circumstances would have done so. But I cannot treat you in
that way. I have been, and would always be open and sincere to you
in all things. You know all about this match. You know that it is a
family arrangement managed by my uncle. You know, that if I wished
it ever so much, I can't avoid it. You know, or ought to know, that
it is not, and cannot be a matter of affection in any way. You know
that in the world such marriages are arranged and are known and
understood to be arranged, for reasons, and on ground with which
love has nothing to do. Does not all Ravenna know, including the
lady herself doubtless, that I am to marry her because she is the
great-niece of the Cardinal Legate? Can I be expected to love her,
because she is the Cardinal's niece? Surely, my Paolina, you are not
speaking or thinking of this matter, with your usual good sense!"

"I can't help it, Ludovico; I am, at all events speaking with my
whole heart!" she said in a tone of profound sadness. "If what you
say is true,--and do not imagine, dearest, that I have the smallest
doubt that all you say to me is entirely and perfectly true,--just
think of the lot of that povera Contessa Violante! Poverina! I dare
say she,--think of the wrong I should be doing her! Think how she
would hate me!" She shuddered as she spoke. "Nobody, I think, ever
hated me yet," she continued; "and it seems to me so horrible to be
hated. And more horrible still to know that I should be justly
hated! And then, tesoro mio!--Mio!--How could I ever say mio?
Never, never, never, mio!" she cried, bursting into passionate
tears. "No, never mine! The very word itself, which comes so
naturally to my lips, tells me, like a knell in my heart, that it
can never be!"

"But, Paolina, angiola mia," said Ludovico, who had heard her with a
look of consternation, "what has thus changed you? For it is a
change. You knew all these things before. What has occurred to put
such notions into your mind all of a sudden?"

"Not all of a sudden, Ludovico! The blessed Virgin knows for how
many sad and solitary hours I have been thinking, and thinking, and
thinking of all this! She knows how many nights I have passed in
tears to think of it. What has put it into my head, you say?
Ludovico, it is my love for you that has put it into my head! It is
my strong love that has opened my eyes, and made me see that I
cannot--cannot--I mean--that I cannot share your love with another!"

The words came forced from her with a great effort, and with a sob
that seemed as if it would choke her.

"Oh my Paolina, what words are these?" said he, his own voice
trembling with trouble and emotion.

"It is true, Ludovico! It is my true love that has opened my eyes. I
fear that I have done very wrong; and the blessed Saints know that I
shall have my punishment! I have done wrong in loving you, and
letting you love me! But I did not know it, I did not think, I did
not see where I was going! I ought to have known that love was not
for a poor girl like me! I ought to have known that evil and misery
would come. But till I loved you with my whole, whole heart,
Ludovico; and till I found out that I did, I did not know that--that
it would be so,--that I should feel as I feel now."

Ludovico got up from his seat, and began walking up and down the
floor of the little room, sighing deeply, and passing his hand again
and again across his forehead. Presently he sat down again, bringing
his chair so as to front her fully as he sat.

"Paolina," he said, looking sadly into her eyes with a deeper
meaning in his own than she had ever seen there; "your words have
made me very, very miserable! I never in all my life was so unhappy
I am now. You must listen now, my Paolina, to what I am going to
say; and you must think well before you answer me. You see, dearest,
that it is necessary that we should quite understand this matter,
and understand each other. Many men, if they had been told what you
have now told me, would begin to reproach a girl with not loving
them,--to say that it was clear she did not care for them. I will
not do so. I will not pretend to think that you do not love me. I
know that you do, as well as you know that I love you with my whole
heart. And with this knowledge in both our hearts, think what is the
meaning and the end of what you have been saying. You know that this
marriage is inevitable! And the consequence of it is to be that we
two are both to be broken-hearted,--to condemn ourselves to pass
loveless lives,--to give each other up,--see each other no more,--
make all the future a blank to both of us. Good God, Paolina! You
cannot mean that!"

"When you have married, Ludovico mio,--when I have said those dear
words for the last, last time, you will have plenty of things to
make you forget your poor Paolina! And for me, I shall be heart-
broken doing no wrong to any other, instead of heart-broken and
doing terrible wrong all the time! And, dearest, it would be worse
than heart-break. I could not--it is stronger than I am! It seems
like a new horrible thing shown to me, which I never saw or thought
of before! When it comes close to me I shudder at the thought--."

"At what thought, Paolina? At the thought of my being married to the
Contessa Violante?" asked Ludovico, looking steadfastly into her
eyes.

She bore his gaze without withdrawing her sad, still eyes for
awhile, thinking deeply before she answered.

"No, Ludovico; not at the thought of your being married to the
Contessa Violante! That is a thought which may break my heart. But
it does not make me shudder, as that other thought does;--the
thought of--of---of loving one, who--who--who owes his love to
another; the thought of taking by stealth whatever share of love may
be given to me stolen from the rightful owner. Never! never! never!
Would you then be mine,--all mine, for ever, and ever, and ever! Oh,
my love, my love! If you don't understand this, love has not opened
your eyes as it has mine. Do you think that I could endure the
thought of being married to another man? The bare notion is horror--
horror--HORROR! Would I not rather die this minute; ay, or die a
thousand times!"

Again Ludovico got up from his chair and paced the room, sometimes
stopping abruptly in apparently deep thought, and sometimes resuming
his walk with every appearance of despair in his face and gestures.
It is needless to say that Paolina had spoken the very inmost truth
that was in her heart in all its entirety; but she had also
succeeded in making him feel that it was so.

There is often a feeling in a man's mind on such occasions--a
feeling too closely allied to selfishness--which leads him to be
dissatisfied with what seems to him the unwillingness of a woman to
make sacrifices to her love. And often a woman, knowing this, and
calculating mostly falsely, is urged to yield by a desire of proving
that she does not deserve such a suspicion. But Ludovico had no such
thought in his mind. He knew that Paolina had not only spoken truly,
but had represented her mind accurately. It was not that she
"respected herself." The poor child had never received any lessons
which could teach her such respect. She had been perfectly ready to
accept the social position of Ludovico's mistress, until the power
of a great, true, and pure love had unsealed the eyes of her
understanding, of her imagination, and of her heart to the nature--
not of the social position of such a tie as that proposed to her--
but of the absolute imperious necessity of sharing such a love with
none. Putting all notion of principle, of duty, of the understood
expediency of conforming to laws divine, and human, out of the
question, such a love as Paolina felt demands this with a cogency of
insistence that cannot be set aside. And the man who hopes, or
flatters himself, or suffers himself to be persuaded that such a
love has been given to him upon any other terms, is--he may rely
upon it with the certainty due to an eternal law of nature--
deceived. The quality of the love which may have so been given to
him is of a different kind.

After awhile Ludovico came again and stopped directly in front of
the chair in which Paolina was sitting; but he remained standing,
and placing his two hands, one on either of her shoulders, and
looking down into her face with moist eyes, he said,--

"My love, my true and best--my only love! I cannot lose you,
Paolina; I cannot give you up. Truly--truly I had rather that any
other thing--any other evil that could happen, should happen to me.
We are, and we must be, all in all to each other, my Paolina, now
and ever. There is no alternative possibility to this. Love has
opened my eyes, too, my darling angel! Your love has opened my eyes;
I will know no other love,--no other woman--call none other wife but
you! Paolina, you will be mine?--my all? my only one?"

"Ludovico!" she exclaimed, looking up at him with an ecstasy of joy,
and yet with a great terror upon her face; "but what will happen--
what will happen to you? What will be done to me?"

"We must see, my heart's treasure! We must have patience; you must
trust to me. You do trust me, non e vero? I must put off this
marriage; then find means to break it. And, after all, what can my
uncle do? I am dependent on him while he lives; but I must succeed
to all he has when he dies. My promised wife! Are you mine--mine for
ever? Will you now put your dear little hand in mine, and promise
me, and have faith in me, and wait for me, and have patience till I
can see my way, and love me all the time, my own--my darling?"

"I am your own, Ludovico;--yours, any way: to live for you, if such
a lot may be mine; to die still yours, if it may not! Wait!
Patience! What shall tire my patience? So I know that you are loving
me--me only--all the time, I shall ask nothing more! But, oh, I am
so frightened! And then I shall be a cause of such mischief and
trouble to you. Would it not have been better for you if you had
never seen poor Paolina?"

"No, no, no, no! It would have been a thousand million times worse
for me! Be of good heart, my treasure; nothing can hurt you. We must
keep our secret for a while; and nothing will hurt me, if we manage
well. But I must think; my mind is in a confusion;--a joyful
confusion, dearest! But I must think it all over. If you see me less
often, be sure that it is because I am planning for our happiness.
And now, darling,--my own, my own, now really and for ever, my own--
one kiss to seal our contract! You won't refuse me that. I take you
thus in my arms, my Paolina; for the first time as your promised
husband. Good-night--good-night--my own! I trust I may be able to
think of what I am doing at the Palazzo tonight. Good-night, my
own!"

And thus the Marchese Ludovico returned that evening to the Palazzo
Castelmare, about an hour after Signor Ercole Stadione had quitted
it; pledged to find some means of breaking off the match with the
Contessa Violante Marliani, to which all Ravenna was looking
forward, and engaged to be married to the little obscure Venetian
orphan artist.



CHAPTER IX

Uncle and Nephew


Ludovico di Castelmare did not see his uncle that evening. He
returned to the Palazzo, thoughtful enough, direct from the house in
the Strada di Santa Eufemia, and there learned that the Impresario
had been with the Marchese; that he had brought the good news of his
success in having engaged "La Lalli" to sing at Ravenna during the
coming Carnival; and that he, Ludovico, had been sent for by his
uncle from the Circolo. What for, the servant could not tell him. He
could only say that the Marchese had seemed much put out at the
Signor Marchese Ludovico's absence, and that he had shortly
afterwards gone out to pass the remainder of the evening at the
palace of the Cardinal Legate.

Ludovico was by no means so anxious to see his uncle as to wait to
do so till he should return at night. He betook himself to his own
quartierino, locked the door, and sat down to think.

He had said no more than the truth to Paolina when he professed that
he had never spoken a word with the intention of deceiving her. Nor
had he been otherwise than entirely sincere in all that he had just
been saying to her. Nevertheless he felt, somewhat more strongly and
clearly, perhaps, than while he had been looking into Paolina's
eyes, that he had undertaken rather a tremendous task in declaring
that he would break off the projected marriage with the Lady
Violante, the great-niece of the Cardinal,--a match which both
families considered to be definitively arranged, and which was
expected and looked forward to by all Ravenna, and that for the
purpose and with the view of making so terrible a mesalliance as
that he contemplated. The Marchese Ludovico felt all the weight of
the inheritance of a great name and a still greater social position,
which devolved upon him from his uncle. It was bad enough to
contemplate the effect which would be produced, as regarded himself,
by the step he contemplated. But it was perfectly terrible to think
of the effect it would produce on the Marchese Lamberto. Ludovico
was proud, in his more easy-going way, of the position he occupied
as his uncle's nephew in the society of the city; but it was not to
him the breath of his nostrils as it was to his uncle.

He felt, as a weak man is apt to feel in similar positions of
difficulty, that the best and quickest, and, above all, the easiest,
way out of all embarrassment would be to run away from it--to quit
Ravenna, and give it up--it, and all its inhabitants for ever. He
could do this. He felt that Paolina would be worth such a sacrifice.
But how to accomplish such a step while his uncle lived?

As it was all he could do was to procrastinate, he thought of the
old Italian proverb, "Gain time, and you will pull through," and he
determined to profit by the wisdom of it. Even procrastination would
not be without difficulty. But something might be done in that way,-
-some time might be gained. And then there was always that never-
failing resource and consolation of those who, in the words of
Horace, limit their ambition to adapting themselves to circumstances
instead of adapting circumstances to them, something might turn up;
though, for the present, it was difficult to see what that something
could possibly be, unless it were the death of his uncle, a
perfectly robust and healthy man in the fiftieth year of his life.

Might possibly the something take the shape of a change or
mitigation of Paolina's resolve? No sooner did the idea cross his
mind than he felt ashamed of it, and his heart smote him for having
for a moment harboured a thought that involved falseness to his
promise to her. Nevertheless, it was not the last time that the
thought recurred.

The next morning he met his uncle.

"I had Stadione with me yesterday evening," said the Marchese, "and
I wanted to speak to you about something he said. I was sorry to be
told that you were not at the Circolo."

"I was sorry that Beppo did not find me. What was it? Signor Ercole
has succeeded in his mission, I hear."

"Yes; and it was on that matter I wanted to speak to you; but this
morning will do as well for that. It was not that that vexed me,
Ludovico. I won't ask you to tell me where you were, and I don't
want to play the inquisitor; but the fact is, I know very well
without asking. And, my dear nephew, I cannot but tell you that you
are acting unwisely,--imprudently even."

"What have I done that is wrong, sir? Is it not fitting that I
should show some attention to people, who came here recommended to
you, and whom you yourself first commissioned me to assist?" said
Ludovico.

"What is the good of answering in that way, Ludovico. Just as if we
both did not know better than that, and know too what we both mean?
Pay some attention! Pshaw! Do you think that I am quite a fool? As
if I did not know what you go there for, and what you have been
going there for these eight months past, since first I was blockhead
enough to throw that pretty girl in your way. Now, figliuolo mio, it
is my duty to tell you that that sort of thing won't do--just at
present. I don't want, as I said, to play the inquisitor, nor do I
wish to play the preacher. When you are married you must guide your
own conduct as you may think fit; but now every consideration of
propriety and prudence should teach you that you must not continue
to run after that young person in the sight of all the town in the
way you do. Here you are on the point of contracting a marriage,
which--"

"On the point, uncle? We are surely a long way from that yet?" said
Ludovico.

"A long way! I don't know what you mean by a long way; if we are not
further advanced, it is your own fault. We might bring the
negotiation to a conclusion at once. It might all be settled this
Carnival.

"This Carnival, uncle? Impossible! I must have a little time. There
are so many things to be thought of."

"What is there to be thought of, that has not been thought of
already? They are in no hurry; they look upon the matter as
arranged. But in decency, we cannot show any backwardness; it does
not look well.

"Well, uncle: at all events, let this Carnival pass over. Let me
have this last Carnival; then Lent is of no use: after that we will
see about it."

"Well, be it so. But, my dear boy, you know all the importance of
this marriage! You know how desirable it is in every point of view;
family, rank, station, influence, money,--though that happily we
have no need to seek; why, it was only last week,--this is a secret,
and must go no further, but I know I can trust to your discretion;--
only last week, that I got a letter from my old friend, Monsignore
Paterini at Rome, in which he speaks in almost open terms of the
chance, and even probability, that our Cardinal might--ahem!--find
the next conclave a particularly interesting one. You know how
Paterini stands at Rome, and that a hint from him is as good as a
volume from another; and just think of the possibilities that such a
contingency might open before you! I won't say any more; but do now
during this Carnival, show yourself a little more at the palace, and
pay a little attention, and let the world see that you occupy the
place with regard to the Contessa Violante, that you really do
occupy. Basta!"

"I will do the best I can, sir, to merit your approbation," said
Ludovico, feeling that he was expected to say something, and not
well knowing how to do it.

"And now about the matter I wanted to speak of last night. La Lalli
comes to us, you see, for the Carnival: it is a great triumph for
Ravenna. She is certainly the first singer in Italy, since England
with its brute power of money, robbed us of poor Sparderini. But
between you and me, figliuolo mio, we should never have got her, if
there had not been certain difficulties--certain scandals,--che so
io?--at Milan. All that is no business of ours, you know, tutt'
altro! But there has been talk;--stories have got about!--mere
calumny probably, as Signor Ercole very justly remarked,--but it is
very desirable that such things should not be the talk of the town
here. It is mauvais genre to chatter about such matters. You can
make it mauvais genre among the youngsters at Ravenna, if you
choose. Do so; you understand! That's all."

"Perfectly, uncle! Lasci fare a me! I'll see to it; though I confess
I do not quite understand why we need trouble ourselves about any
such gossip," said Ludovico, delighted to be able to fall in with
his uncle's wishes in something.

"Well, I should have thought that you might understand. In the first
place I don't want it to be said or imagined, either here or
elsewhere, that Ravenna has taken up with a singer, who could not
get an engagement elsewhere. Not that that is the case by any means.
But don't you see, if it is said that she was obliged to leave
Milan, it puts us in the position of a pis aller! And I don't like
that. In the next place, I don't want to have light talk about a
person whom I have had so large a share in bringing to the city.
These are things you ought to learn to think of, caro mio!" replied
the Marchese, a little annoyed at having to put his feelings on the
subject into such plain words.

"I'll take care that things shall be as you wish. When is she to
arrive?" asked Ludovico.

"About the end of the year--in a month's time or thereabouts.
Stadione did not mention whether the day of her coming had been
fixed. Her first appearance will be on the night of the Beffana, the
6th of January."

"Because they were talking at the Circolo of getting up some little
matter of welcome,--taking the horses from her carriage, and drawing
her in, or some thing of that kind, and a serenata of course.
Leandro is busy already with a poem for the occasion, you may
swear!"

"Bravo! bene! If only our good friend the Conte keeps his muse
within tolerable limits! It would not do to quite smother her in
verse on her first arrival; and, you know, our good Leandro has
rather a special gift that way. Well, get up any kind of
dimostrasione you like for the occasion,--it will all help to give
eclat to our opening. You can arrange all about the when, and the
where, etc., with Stadione. We are going to have a meeting of the
Belle Arte Committee here this morning. They'll be here directly!"
said the Marchese Lamberto, pulling out his watch.

"One word more, uncle, before I'm off," said Ludovico.

"What is it?--money, I suppose?" said the Marchese, again taking out
his watch.

"No, sir; not money this time,--unless, indeed, you insist on it,"
said the nephew, laughing.

"Not at all, not at all! I won't press it on you by any means!" said
the uncle in a similar tone; "but what were you going to say?"

"Why, with reference to what you were saying just now, about the
Signorina Foscarelli," replied Ludovico, in quite a different tone.
"I am always anxious to shape my conduct in accordance with your
advice, uncle. You see La Foscarelli has all but finished her work
at St. Vitale, you know: she is to do her copying in the Cardinal's
Palace next, for you have kindly arranged for her permission to do
so. Now, she can't very well go to the palace, for the first time,
alone, you know! If you had not expressed the opinions you have on
the subject, I should have gone with her, thinking no harm. But
perhaps--to the palace, you know;--it would be better, if you would
not mind it, to accompany her, for the first time, yourself."

"Very right, very properly thought of, my dear boy! Yes; I can go
with her--or I can send Burini, which will come to the same thing."

"No, uncle; not the same thing--to send a mere maestro di casa,--a
servant! It would not be nice for the poor girl; it would make all
the difference with the servants and people at the palace: if I
avoid going with her to please you, you will go with her yourself,
won't you?"

"Very well, very well; I'll go with her. If any man has more to do
of his own than all the rest of the city put together, there are
sure to be other folk's at fairs thrust on him also; it has been so
with me all my life. Well, I will find half an hour somehow."

"Thanks, uncle! Good-by, I wish you well through your meeting."

"We shall see each other at dinner?"

"Yes. A rivederla!"



CHAPTER X

The Contessa Violante


The Contessa Violante Marliani lived, as has been said, with her
great-aunt, a sister of the Cardinal. They occupied a small house
nearly contiguous to the palace, which was almost more their home
than their own dwelling. The Marchesa Lanfredi, the Cardinal's
sister, though a great-aunt, was not yet sixty years old. She had
been left a childless widow, very scantily provided for, early in
life, and had retired from Bologna, her husband's native place, to
live first at Foligno, of which city her brother had been bishop,
and afterwards at Ravenna, to which he had been subsequently
promoted. The Cardinal was six or seven years her senior. His elder
brother, the grandfather of the Lady Violante, had inherited the
family estates in the neighbourhood of Pesaro, and had died, leaving
them to his only son, Violante's father, when the latter was a very
young man.

This Conte Alberto Marliani had married for love, as it is called.
That is to say, that he had not married for any of the reasons for
which marriages among people of his rank and his country are usually
made; but had been attracted by a pretty gentle face seen in a Roman
ball-room. The pretty gentle face had remained always gentle; but
had soon ceased to be pretty.

The Contessa Marliani was inclined to devotion. The Conte was very
much disinclined to anything of the sort. He soon got tired of his
wife, repented of his marriage, and commenced an active system of
breaking her heart. It was not a very difficult task, for she was as
gentle in spirit as in face. He completed it when his only child
Violante was about nine years old. But he had also completed, much
about the same time, the entire dissipation of the never very large
Marliani property. And it so happened that, very shortly afterwards,
his own career was brought to a conclusion, which his relatives felt
to have overtaken him a few years too late! He was travelling from
Rome down to Pesaro to complete the sale of the last portion of the
estates, the proceeds of which had been anticipated, when he was
very opportunely drowned in attempting to cross the Tiber swollen by
flood.

The little Violante, thus left an almost destitute orphan, was
nevertheless a personage of some importance. She was the only
remaining scion of the family; and the position of her great-uncle
seemed to promise a renewed period of prosperity and fortune to the
old name. Violante was the Cardinal Legate's natural and sole heir.
The Cardinal was a very rich man; and in amassing wealth and
attaining honours, he had, like a true Italian, never thought the
less of the additions to, and provisions for, the fortunes and
splendour of the family name, which he was winning, because he was
himself a priest, and would leave no heirs of his name. The
peculiarities in the position of a sacerdotal aristocracy have
engrafted the passion of nepotism in the hearts, as well as the
practice of it in the manners, of the members of Rome's hierarchy.

Generally the family tie is a stronger one among the Italians than
among ourselves. In the upper classes, it is certainly so; and,
probably, among all classes. It may be thought strange, perhaps,
that this should be the case with a people whose lives are supposed
to be less pervaded by the sentiment of domesticity than our own.
The explanation may, however, perhaps be found in the greater and
more frequent disruption of family ties, which is caused by that
more active social movement, which pushes our younger sons away from
the parental stock in search of the means of founding families of
their own.

And one of the results of the Italian mode of living and feeling is
seen in the very common family ambition of Churchmen.

The little Violante then, as has been said, was a personage of some
importance, at least in the eyes of the Cardinal and his sister; and
when she was left an orphan, was at once taken to live with her
great-aunt, under the auspices of her Cardinal great-uncle. Both of
those remaining members of the family would have preferred that the
one remaining scion of the race should have been a boy; but--when
the young Contessa should be married, of course her name should be
thenceforward borne as part of that of the family; into which she
should marry,--as is so commonly the case in Italy, (many of the
oldest and most illustrious names in the peninsula having survived
to the present day solely by virtue of such arrangements); and the
Marliani be thus saved from extinction.

The young Contessa Violante, when she reached the age of young-
ladyhood, had not the "fatal gift of beauty." Some people think that
such a deprivation is the most unfortunate from which a woman can
suffer. Others maintain that the absence of beauty is, upon the
whole, no real misfortune. But however philosophers may settle this
question, it can hardly be doubted that no young girl devoid of
beauty, was ever yet persuaded that to be unattractive in
appearance, was otherwise than a very, very sore affliction and
misfortune. Nature often kindly mitigates the blow by making the
unlovely girl unconscious of her want of beauty. But this was not
the case with the young Contessa Violante Marliani.

Violante knew that she was not beautiful, or even pretty. Probably
in her own estimate of herself she exaggerated her plainness. She
was one of those persons who have not the gift of self-deception.
Neither was she elegant in person. And yet there was something about
her bearing, which would have prevented any one from imagining that
she was other than a high-born lady. There was strong evidence of
intellect in her face; and it was doubtless from within that came
that quiet dignity of bearing that marked her.

And it was a dignity compatible and combined with the most perfect
gentleness and almost humility of manner;--a dignity arising not
from the conscious ness of any high position or high qualities, but
from the consciousness of that sort of gentle passive strength,
which knows that no external circumstance, or difficulty, or
pressure will avail to make its owner step but a hair's breadth
aside from the path which conscience has marked as that of right and
duty.

Violante was tall and slender, but her figure was not graceful.
People did not say of her that she was slender; they said she was
thin. And that was incontestably true. She was very thin. But her
shoulders were high and square, and there was a sort of angularity
and harshness about all the lines of her person. Her head seemed
somewhat too large for her body; and the upper part of it seemed too
large for the lower portion. She had a large, square forehead, white
enough, but strongly marked with inequalities of surface, which,
however much they might have delighted a phrenologist, were not
conducive to girlish comeliness. Her hair was of the very light
reddish quality, which has not a single touch in it of that rich
sunny auburn, which makes so many heads charming, red though they
be. Her face was perfectly white, yet not clear of complexion. And
the pale grey eyes beneath their all but colourless brows completed
the impression of a general want of vigour and vitality.

A little before the end of that year in which the Ravenna impresario
performed his memorable journey to Milan with the results that have
been recorded, Violante di Marliani reached her twenty-third
birthday; a few months before that day the Marchese Ludovico had
reached his twenty-second. It was a difference on the wrong side,
but not so great as to form any serious objection to the proposed
match. But twenty-three is a rather mature age for an Italian noble
lady to reach unmarried. That such should have been the case with
the Signora Violante was by no means because no suitor for her hand
had ever presented himself. Several such aspirants had entered the
lists. For the Contessa Violante was the great-niece of her great
uncle. But some of these had appeared objectionable to the Cardinal
and his sister;--who also were not at all likely to forget all that
was due to the prospects arising from such a relationship, and all
that it implied; and all of them had been objectionable to the young
Contessa herself.

Violante's expectations, indeed, in that line, or in any other of
all the different ways in which happiness may come to mortals in
this world, was very small. For the first nine years of her life she
had lived the only companion of a very miserable mother. And all
that mother's misery had apparently come from the fact of her having
a husband. Those first years of the child's life had been very sad;
very monotonous, very depressing. Perhaps the effect of them did but
confirm the speciality of an idiosyncrasy, which would have been
much the same without them. But, at all events, when the child was
brought to the house of her great-aunt, it seemed as if her mind and
character had been too long and too uniformly toned to accord with
sadness, for happiness to have any power of taking hold of her.

The old Marchesa Lanfredi, who took the young Contessa under her
roof, and under her care, was not a bad sort of woman in the main;
but she was thoroughly and consistently worldly, and judged
everything from a worldly point of view. The Contessa Marliani was
an important little lady in her eyes; and was treated, by her with
an indulgence and consideration which she would have considered out
of place in the case of a child not born to such expectations and
such a destiny. She was not contented with her young relative; but
was more perplexed and puzzled by her than angered. And as Violante
grew towards womanhood, her great-aunt understood her less and less.

In the first place, she had a much stronger tendency towards
devotion than the Marchese Lanfredi thought either natural or
becoming in a young woman. Of course it was right and proper to pay
due attention to one's religious duties; there was no necessity to
tell her, a Cardinal Archbishop's sister, that, it was to be
supposed. But she had a strong objection to excess in such matters.
And to her mind Violante carried her devotional practices, and yet
more her devotional ideas, to excess. Of the latter, indeed, the old
Marchesa Lanfredi disapproved altogether. Young people had no ideas
upon the subject in her time;--and the world was certainly a better
world then than it had been since.

And then, worst of all, it gradually became evident to the
Marchesa's mind that there was a more or less direct connection in
the way of cause and effect between her niece's religious notions
and feelings and the strange readiness she had shown to find
objections to both of the two persons who had been judged by her
family to be admissible suitors for her hand. The Marchesa began to
entertain a strong apprehension that her niece had conceived the
idea of "entering into religion;" i.e. of becoming a nun.

It had been necessary at the time of Violante's first coming to live
with her aunt, to select a governess for her; and a lady had been
found fitted to teach her all that it was proper for a noble young
Italian lady to know. But when she became seventeen it was judged
expedient to change this lady for another. A different sort of
person was required. Custom and the habits of life and convenience
of the Marchesa made it expedient that a duenna should be provided
to attend on the young Contessa; but she was supposed no longer to
need an instructress.

The person selected for this trust was not perhaps altogether such
as might have been desired. By some fatality, arising probably from
some latent incompatibility between the institution itself and the
eternal order of things, it would seem as if the persons entrusted
with that responsible situation rarely did turn out to be exactly
the right people in the right place. Perhaps in the case of the
young Contessa Violante her great-aunt had sought to find some
attendant and companion for her who should have a tendency to
correct that too great proclivity to retirement from the world--to a
life in which religion was the chief interest and occupation, and to
a sad and unhopeful view of the world around and before her--which
she lamented in her niece. If so, the choice she made was not
followed by the results she hoped from it; and was attended by other
inconveniences.

The Signora Assunta Fagiani, the widow of a distinguished Bolognese
professor of jurisprudence, was certainly quite free from all those
dispositions which the Marchesa regretted in her niece. But she was
not altogether discreet or judicious in the method she adopted for
reconciling the young girl to the world, and to worldly views and
hopes and objects.

She very soon perceived that to Violante the consciousness of her
own want of personal attractions was, despite her yearning for a
life to be filled with thoughts and objects to which beauty could
contribute nothing, a source of bitter and ever-present
mortification. There was inconsistency, doubtless, in regret for the
deficiency of personal attraction in persons who, with perfect
sincerity, declared to themselves that to enter a convent was their
greatest object in life. But Violante was not aware that if the
beauty had been there the devotional aspirations would not have been
there! That, which causes more deeply implanted in her nature than
she knew of were impelling her to desire and to yearn for, the
imperfect teaching of the world around her had led her to imagine to
be unattainable save by the gifts of personal beauty. And, knowing
that if that were so there was no hope for her, her bruised heart
had sought the only refuge which seemed to be open to such
misfortune.

The Signora Fagiani's first attempt at finding a remedy for this
state of things consisted of a vigorous endeavour to persuade her
pupil that her own estimate of her personal appearance was
altogether a mistaken one. All the former experience of the old lady
led her to consider this an easy task. And she was much surprised to
find that her insinuations, assertions, and persuasions on this
subject were totally thrown away on her pupil. The precious gift of
personal vanity had been denied to poor Violante; and she saw
herself somewhat more unfavourably than others saw her.

Then the duenna changed her tactics; and strove to point out how
very little a pretty face signified to any girl in the position of
the Contessa di Marliani. To a poor girl, indeed, whose face was her
fortune, it was another matter. But the niece of the Cardinal
Legate! Bah! Did she imagine that she would lack suitors? She had
nothing to do but to make the most of the advantages in her hand,
and she would see herself surrounded by all the beaux, while the
prettiest girls in the room might go whistle for the smallest scrap
of attention, And then, when married, with rank, station, wealth at
her command, what would it signify?

And in urging all these considerations, the Signora Assunta Fagiani
spoke at least sincerely, and expended for the benefit of her pupil
the best wisdom that was in her.

Partly, however, she was working for her own purposes, as well as
for the advantage, as she understood it, of her charge. Of course,
as she judiciously considered, her position gave her, in a great
degree, the valuable patronage of the disposal of the Lady
Violante's hand in marriage. And, of course, this advantage of her
position was equally well understood by others; and among these by a
certain Duca di San Sisto, a Bolognese noble, whose sadly-
dilapidated fortunes much needed the aid that might be derived from
the coffers of the wealthy Cardinal Legate. The Duca di San Sisto
had interests at Rome also, which might be most importantly served
by the influence of the Cardinal Marliani. So that a marriage with
the Lady Violante seemed to be exactly the very thing for him. But
the cautious, and carefully-masked inquiries which the Duke had set
on foot, after the fashion in which such things are done in Italy,
had brought him the information that a marriage was almost as good
as arranged between the lady in question and the Marchese Ludovico
di Castelmare, an old acquaintance of the family. Were it not for
that impediment, the Duke thought that he might have good reason to
hope that his plan might succeed.

Now it so happened that the Signora Assunta Fagiani was an old
friend of the Duca di San Sisto; and when the widow of the professor
of jurisprudence was promoted to the important post she held in the
household of the Marchesa Lanfredi, that nobleman did not fail to
find means for securing the continuance of her friendship. It was
the object and purpose, therefore, of Signora Assunta Fagiani that
the Lady Violante should become in due time Duchessa di San Sisto,
and not Marchesa di Castelmare. But she understood her position
quite well enough to be aware that the end she had in view must be
approached cautiously and patiently.

Violante had, of course, been informed at the proper time that her
family destined her to become the wife of the young Marchese
Ludovico di Castelmare. Now, if Violante's temper and disposition
had been other than it was; had she been able to think of herself
differently from what she did; had it been possible for her, in a
word, to have supposed that the Marchese Ludovico loved her, he was
the man whom she could most readily have taught herself to love.
They had been, to a certain degree, acquaintances from an early
period of their childhood. He was the only young man she had ever
known with anything like the same degree of intimacy; and Ludovico,
as we know, was not devoid of qualities calculated to win a lady's
love.

But Violante knew right well that Ludovico did not love her, and
that there had never been any probability that he should do so; and,
had she any lingering doubt on the subject, the good Assunta took
very good care to dispel it. And there was a bitterness in this
knowledge which did much towards producing in Violante the state of
mind that has been described. She was not in love with Ludovico, but
she had liked him--he was the only man she had ever liked at all.
She knew that she was to be married to him if he could be persuaded
to marry her, and if she were sufficiently obedient to marry him.
She thought that no man could ever love her, and she knew very
certainly that this man did not. Her own hope and firmest purpose,
therefore, was, if such resistance to the higher authorities might
in any way be possible to her, to avoid a marriage with Ludovico di
Castelmare: if possible to her, she would fain escape from any
marriage at all. If this should be altogether impossible, then the
Duca di San Sisto, as well as anybody else. It was not that she had
any hope that the Duca di San Sisto would love her: but, at least,
it had not been proposed to him to love her, and found impossible by
him to do so. At least the unloving husband would not be the one man
whom she felt she might have loved had he deemed it worth his while
to ask her love.

Yet, with all this, Violante had not learned, as perhaps most women
in her place would have done, to bate Ludovico for having found it
impossible to love her,--for having condemned her to feel the spreta
injuria forma, which so few of the sex can ever forgive. Had she
ever reached the point of loving him it might, perhaps, have been
otherwise. As it was, she was too gentle, too humble, in her
estimate of her own worth and power of attraction to be angry with
him: and yet she was sufficiently interested in the matter to listen
not unwillingly to all the gossip that the Signora Assunta poured
into her ear about Ludovico, tending to show that he was unworthy of
pretending to her hand.

Assunta's object, of course, was to break the match with the
Marchese di Castelmare for the sake of bringing on one with the Duca
di San Sisto.

Violante's object, it has been said, was to avoid any marriage at
all--specially that immediately proposed to her; and the stories,
which from time to time Assunta brought her of the goings on of
Ludovico, had a double interest for Violante. In some sort, all such
intelligence was acceptable to her, as tending to make it unlikely
that her only escape from a loveless marriage with him would be by
her own resistance to the wishes of her family. Yet, at the same
time, it was bitter to her, and ministered an unwholesome aliment to
her morbid self-depreciation.



CHAPTER XI

The Cardinal's Reception, and the Marchese's Ball


On the first day of the New Year, according to long-established
custom, there was a grand reception in the evening at the palace of
the Cardinal Legate. It was to be, as always on that occasion, a
very grand affair. All the diamonds, and all the old state
carriages, and all the liveries in Ravenna were put in requisition.
Old coats, gorgeously bedizened with broad worsted lace of brilliant
colours, and preserved for many a year carefully, but not wholly
successfully, against time and moth, were taken by fours and fives
from, the cypress-wood chests in old family mansions, where they lay
in peace from year's end to year's end if no marriage or other great
family solemnity intervened to give them an extra turn of service,
and were used to turn dependants of all sorts into liveried servants
for the nonce; and nobody imagined or hoped that anybody else would
look upon this display as anything else than absolute and frank
ostentation. Nobody supposed that any human being would be led into
believing that this state indicated the ordinary mode of life of the
persons who exhibited it. Everybody in Italy has been for so many
generations so very much poorer than his forefathers were, that such
a state of things has long since been accepted by universal consent
as a normal one; and it is understood on all hands that these fitful
displays of the remnants of former grandeur, this vain revisiting of
the glimpses of the moon by the ghosts of long-departed glories,
shall be taken and allowed as protests on behalf of the bearers of
old noble names to the effect that their ancestors did really once
live in a style conformable to their ideas--that they perfectly know
how these things should be done, and would be found quite prepared
to resume their proper state, if only the good old days of
prosperity should come again.

And there is the good as well as the seamy side (not, alas, to the
old liveries! for they had been mostly turned and turned again too
often); but to the feelings and social manners which prompted such a
manifestation of them. At least, in such a condition of social
manners and feelings mere wealth was not installed on the throne of
Mammon in the eyes of all men. If one of the old coaches was more
pitiably rickety than the rest; if the ancient-fashioned coat of
some long-descended marchese was itself as threadbare as the old
family liveries; if some widowed contessa had crept out from the
last habitable corner of her dilapidated palazzo, where she was
known to live on a modicum of chicory-water, brought in a tumbler
from the nearest cafe, and a crust; not on any such account was
there the smallest tendency towards a derisive smile on the lip, or
in the mind of any man, at these pitiable attempts to keep up
appearances, which everybody considered it right to keep up. Not on
any such account was the stately courtesy of the Legate's reception
in the smallest degree modified. It was subject, indeed, to many
modifications; but these were wholly irrespective of any such
circumstances.

There is a peculiar sort of naivete about Italian ostentation, which
robs it of all its offensiveness. Nobody exhibits their finery or
grandeur for the sake of crushing another; nobody feels themselves
crushed by the exhibition of it. The old noble who turns out his
gala liveries and other bedizenments on a festal day, does it to
make up his part of the general show, which is for the gratification
of all classes, and is a gratification to them. But it is a curious
commentary of the past history of Italy that, as between city and
city, there is the feeling, the wish, and the ambition, to crush and
humble a rival community by superior magnificence.

Nobody expected much immediate gratification from attending the
Cardinal's reception. There was little to be done save to bow to the
host and to each other. Ices were handed round--none the less
because it was bitterly cold--and cakes and comfits. Old Contessa
Carini, who had a grandchild at home, and no money to buy bonbons
with, emptied half a plateful of them into her handkerchief,-.the
old servant who handed them helping her; and the Cardinal, who
happened to be standing by, smilingly telling her to give the little
one his benediction with them. The brave old Contessa still kept her
carriage, as it became a Carini to do; though she starved her poor
old shrivelled body to enable her to keep her half-starved horses.
And "society" gave her its applause for struggling so hard to do
that which it became her to do in the state of life to which it had
pleased God to call her; and no soul in the room dreamed of thinking
the less of her because of the sharp poverty that confessed itself
in her eagerness to make the most of the opportunity of the Legate's
hospitality.

The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had a bilious headache the following
morning in consequence of overcramming himself with cakes and
sweetmeats. One active-minded old gentleman originated the remark
that the cold was greater than had been known in Ravenna for the
last seven years; and this fact, repeated again and again by most of
the company to each other, supplied the material of conversation for
the first half-hour. Then somebody, alluded to the circumstance
that, whereas it had been said that La Lalli was to have arrived
before the end of the year, the fact was, that she had not yet come:
and thereupon the Marchese Lamberto had authoritatively declared
that the lady had been detained by an unforeseen circumstance of no
importance, and would infallibly reach Ravenna on the evening of the
3rd.

And thenceforward this interesting news formed the sole topic of
conversation till the carriages were ordered; and all the finery was
taken home again to be laid up in lavender till that day
twelvemonth.

There was to be, also according to annual custom, the first ball of
the Carnival at the Palazzo Castelmare on the following evening; but
for this the state trappings reserved for the Legate's reception on
the Capo d'Anno, were not required.

The balls given by the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare every
Carnival were the grand and principal gaieties of Ravenna. The whole
of the "society" were invited, and to be prevented from going by
illness or any other contretemps was a misfortune to be lamented
during all the rest of the year. At the Palazzo Castelmare people
really did expect to enjoy themselves. There was dancing for the
young, cards for the old, and eating and drinking for all. For the
Palazzo Castelmare was the only house in Ravenna at which suppers
were ever given. There three balls and three handsome suppers were
provided for all the society of Ravenna every year! And the first of
these always took place on the 2nd of January; the Capo d'Anno being
left for the state reception at the Legate's palace.

Well might little Signor Ercole Stadione say, what would become of
Ravenna if anything were to happen to the Marchese Lamberto!

All the people came much about the same time; and there was then
half an hour or so, before the dancing commenced, during which the
main object and amusement of the assemblage was to escape from
misfortune, which it was well known the Conte Leandro meditated
inflicting on the society. He was known to have written a poem for
the opening of the new year, which was then in his pocket, and which
he purposed reading aloud to the company, if he only could get a
chance! He was looking very pale, and more sodden and pasty about
the face than usual, from the effects of his excesses at the
Legate's the night before. But his friends had no hope that this
would save them from the poem, if he could in anywise obtain a
hearing.

"Take care, he is putting his hand in his coat-pocket! That's where
it is, you know; he'll have it out in half an instant, if we stop
talking! Oh, Contessina, you are always so ready! Do invent
something to stop him, for the love of heaven!" said a young man to
a bright-looking girl next him.

"Oh, Signor Leandro, since you are riconciliato con bel sesso," said
the Contessina, alluding to words which, to the great amusement of
all Ravenna, Leandro had written in the album of a lady who asked
the poet for his autograph,--"since you are reconciled to the fair
sex, will you be very kind and see if I have left my fan where I put
off my shawl in the ante-room?"

"Bravo, Contessina; now let us get to another part of the room,
before he gets back. Oh, Ludovico," he continued, addressing the
young Marchese Castelmare, whom they encountered as they were
crossing the room, "for the love of heaven, let us begin! Make the
musicians strike up, or we shall have Leandro in full swing in
another minute!"

"I assure you, Signor Ludovico, the danger is imminent!" said the
Contessina.

"When I saw him at work last night at the Cardinal's pastry, I
thought he must have made himself too ill to come here to-night,"
said the former speaker; "but I suppose poets can digest what would
kill you or me!"

"If Leandro begins to read, I vote we all are seized with an
invincible fit of sneezing," said another of the grown-up children.

"Well, we may as well begin at once; I will go and tell the Contessa
Violante that we are ready," said Ludovico, moving off.

It was a matter of course, that he should open the ball with the
Contessa Violante,--not only by reason of her social standing in the
city, but because of the position in which he was understood to
stand towards her.

Violante was sitting at the upper end of the room between her great-
aunt and the sister of the Marchese Lamberto, Ludovico's mother. She
was very handsomely dressed in plain white silk, but was looking
pale and dispirited. When Ludovico came up and offered his arm,
bowing low as he did so, she rose and accepted it without speaking.

"I had almost made up my mind," she said as soon as they had moved a
pace or two towards the middle of the large ball-room, "not to dance
at all to-night: I am not well."

"Oh, Signorina, how unfortunate! What a disappointment! But it would
be cruel to force you to dance, when it is against your
inclination," said Ludovico, with a very unsuccessful attempt to put
a tone of tenderness into his voice.

"I will not do so, after this dance," said Violante; "but I suppose
we must dance the first dance together!"

"I am sorry it should be a matter of such disagreeable duty to you,
Signora Violante," said Ludovico in a tone of pretended pique.

"It is equally disagreeable to me to dance with any other partner; I
am not well, as I have told you, Signor Ludovico; I have no business
to be here; I think my health becomes weaker from day to day. And
the blessed Saints only know when it may be possible to think of
carrying into effect the arrangements desired by our parents!"

"I am sure that mine would not wish to urge you on the subject to--
to decide more quickly than you would wish to. I can assure you,
Signora, nothing would be more contrary to my own feelings than to
do any such violence to yours. Indeed I may say--"

"Yes, yes! I think I understand all about it, Signor Ludovico. Might
it not be possible to find means of pleasing all parties in this
matter, if only all parties understood each other, Signor Ludovico?"

She dropped her voice almost to a whisper as she said these last
words, with a rapid furtive glance at his face.

"And now," she added, speaking in a louder tone, we had better give
our minds to the present scene of the farce, and perform the opening
quadrille, as is expected of us!"

"I am truly sorry, Signora, that you should be called upon to do
this sort of thing, when you are so unwell, as to make it even more
disagreeable than it might be to you otherwise. But believe me,"
continued he, speaking in a low voice, and with an emphasis that
indicated that his words had reference rather to what she had spoken
to him in a similar tone than to the words of his own which had
immediately preceded them,--"believe me that it is my wish to meet
your wishes in all respects."

There was a jesuitism in this speech, which did not recommend it or
its speaker to the Contessa Violante. She would have been far better
pleased by a more open reply to the confidence which she had half
offered. She only said in reply:

"I am disposed to think, that such is the case in the matter which
more nearly concerns us both, Signor Ludovico, than anything else.
But--although we knew just now that we had to dance together, it was
you who had to ask me, you know, and not I you. Very little active
power of influencing her own destiny is allowed to a girl; come, we
had better attend now to the business in hand!"

There was nothing more, except such ordinary words between each
other or the others dancing in the same set, as the dance itself led
to, spoken by the Contessa and Ludovico. The former declined all
other invitations to dance, and went home at the earliest moment she
could induce her aunt to do so.

There was much talk going on in all parts of the room as to the
announced coming of the great singer on the morrow. The young men
settled together the last details of their plans for the triumphal
entry of the "Diva;" and the ladies were by no means uninterested in
hearing all that their cavaliers had to tell them on this subject.
Much was said, too, about the qualities of La Lalli both as a singer
and as a woman. Everybody agreed that she was admirable in the first
respect; and there was not a man there, who had not some anecdote to
tell, which he had heard from the very best authority, tending to
set forth the rare perfection of her beauty, and the wonderful power
of fascination she exercised on all who came near her.

She was to arrive quite early on the morrow. It was understood that
she purposed passing the previous night,--that night in short, which
those who were discussing her were spending at the Castelmare ball,
at the little town of Bagnacavallo, a few miles only from Ravenna.
Such a scheme looked,--or would have looked in the eyes of any other
people than Italians,--rather ridiculously like the ways and
fashions of royal progresses, and state entries into cities. But the
Ravenna admirers of the coming "Diva" neither saw nor suspected the
slightest absurdity; and it is to be supposed that La Lalli knew all
the importance of first impressions, and that she did not choose to
show herself to her new worshippers for the first time under all the
disadvantages of arriving tired and dusty from a long journey.



CHAPTER XII

The Arrival of the "Diva"


On the morrow of the Marchese's ball was the great day of the
arrival of the divine songstress. And it was as lovely a day for the
gala doings, which had been arranged in honour of the occasion, as
could be desired. A brilliant sun in a cloudless sky made the
afternoon quite warm and genial, despite the general cold. An
Italian sun can do this. Where he shines not it may be freezing. As
soon as he has made his somewhat precipitous exit from the hard blue
sky, the temperature will suddenly fall some ten degrees or more.
But as long as he is in glory overhead, it is summer in the midst of
winter.

Three o'clock had been named as the hour at which the coming "Diva"
would reach the city gates. But the plans which the young habitues
of the Circolo had arranged for receiving her, had been in some
degree modified. The scheme of harnessing their noble selves to her
chariot-wheels had been abandoned; and instead of that it had been
understood that the Marchese Lamberto would himself go in his
carriage to meet her a few miles out of the city and bring her in.
The Marchese Ludovico and the young Barone Manutoli were to
accompany the Marchese Lamberto, and to assist in receiving the
lady; but were to return to the city in the carriage which she would
leave, on getting into that of the Marchese, or in any other way
that might seem good to them. The Marchese Lamberto and the lady
alone were to occupy his handsome family equipage. There was to be a
band of music in attendance, which would precede the carriage as it
entered the city; and some half-dozen young officers of a regiment
of Papal cavalry, which chanced to be then stationed at Ravenna,
intended to ride at each door of the carriage as it returned to the
city. Altogether it was to be a very brilliant affair. And all the
gay world of Ravenna was on the tiptoe of expectation and delight.

The Marchese Lamberto, indeed, looked upon his share in the pageant
as a great bore. He had had put off one or two more congenial
occupations for the purpose of doing on the occasion his part of
that which he deemed his duty to the city. Professor Tomosarchi the
great anatomist, who was at the head of the hospital, and curator of
the museum, was to have come to the Palazzo Castelmare that morning
to show the Marchese an interesting experiment connected with the
action of a new anodyne; and Signor Folchi, the pianist, was to have
been with him at one, to try over a little piece of the Marchese's
own composition. And both these appointments, either of which was
far more interesting to the Marchese Lamberto than driving out in
the cold to meet the stage goddess, had to be set aside.

Nevertheless, he had deemed it due to his own position, and to the
occasion, to grace this little triumphal entry with his presence. If
he had left it wholly in the hands of his nephew, and the other
young men, it might have been the means of starting the Signora
Lalli amiss on her Ravenna career in a manner he particularly wished
to avoid. After that little hint on the subject, which the
impresario had given him, he was specially desirous that anything
like an occasion for scandal should be avoided in all that concerned
the sojourn of the Signora Lalli in Ravenna. He, the Marchese
Lamberto, the intimate friend of the Cardinal, and the most pre-
eminently respectable man in Ravenna, had had a very large--
certainly the largest--share in bringing this woman to the city; and
he was anxious that the engagement should lead to no unpleasant
results of any kind.

It might be very possibly that the little matters at which the
impresario had hinted, were not altogether calumnious;--that the
lady might be one of those members of her profession who seek other
triumphs besides those of her own scenic kingdom, and the story of
whose lives in the different cities they visit is not confined to
the walls and to the records of the theatre. It might very well be
that a little caution and looking after was needed in the matter, It
would be as well, therefore, to take the thing in hand at once in a
manner that should put the lady on a right course from the
beginning;--all which could be excellently well accomplished by at
once taking her, as it were, into his own hands; and would, on the
other hand, be endangered by throwing her from the first into those
of the youngsters who purposed going out to meet her.

So the Marchese sacrificed himself; put off the anatomist and the
musician; spent the morning in arranging all the details of the
proposed cavalcade with the young men who were to compose it; and at
two o'clock got into his open carriage to drive out towards
Bagnacavallo. The young Barone Manutoli and Ludovico were in the
carriage with him. But it was understood, as has been said, that
they were to leave it when they met the heroine of the day, who was
to enter Ravenna with the perfectly safe and unattackable Marchese
alone in the carriage with her.

"I wonder whether she is as lovely as she is said to be?" said
Manutoli, as they drove out beyond the crumbling and ivy-grown brick
wall, which had helped to repel the attack of Odoacer the Goth; but
which had, some thirteen hundred years ago, failed to keep out the
mischief brought into the city by the comedian Empress Theodora,
whose beauty had promoted her from the stage to the throne.

Absit omen! And what, indeed, can there be common between Goths and
Greeks of the Lower Empire, who lived thirteen hundred years ago,
with the good Catholic subjects, and the quiet Catholic city of our
Holy Father the Pope, in the nineteenth century!

At all events, it may be taken as very certain that no omen of the
sort and no such thoughts were present to the minds or fancies of
any of those who were about to form the escort of the modern
actress.

"All who have ever seen her, speak in the most rapturous terms of
her great beauty," said Ludovico, in reply to his friend's remark.

"Don't be too sure about it, figliuoli mio, or it is likely enough
you may be disappointed," said the Marchese Lamberto. "People repeat
such things one after the other; there is a fashion in it. I have
always found that your stage beauty is as often as not no beauty, at
all off it; and then you know stage work and the foot-lights are
terribly quick users-up of beauty. And La Lalli is not at the
beginning of her career. But what have we to do with all that! che
diavolo! She is a great singer; she comes here to delight our ears,
not our eyes!"

"But time and work make havoc with the voice as well as with the
face and figure, Signor Marchese!" said Manutoli.

"Not to the same degree, Signor Barone, and not quite so rapidly,"
replied the Marchese, with the manner of one laying down the law on
a subject of which he is an acknowledged master. "Of course a voice
which has done much work, is not the same thing as a perfectly fresh
one? A chi lo dite? though, observe, you very often gain more in
knowledge, and in perfection of art, than you lose in freshness of
organ. But with proper care, voice, though a perishable thing, is
not so rapidly and fatally so, as mere beauty of face; that is sure
to go very soon. I have not troubled myself to inquire, as you may
imagine, much about the state of La Lalli's good looks. But I have
informed myself of the condition of her voice, as it was my duty to
do. And I think that in that respect, which is the only one we need
care about, the city will find that we have not done badly."

"For my part, I confess a romanzo comes very specially recommended
to my ears from a lovely mouth!" said Ludovico; "and I fully expect
to find La Lalli quite up to the mark in this respect. I shall be
disappointed if she is not."

"From all I have heard, we shall none of us be disappointed!" said
Manutoli.

"We shall see in a few minutes!" returned Ludovico, looking at his
watch.

"There's something in the road now, I think, as far as I can see!"
said Manutoli, who had stood up in the carriage, holding the rail of
the driver's seat with one hand. The road stretched long and flat,
in a perfectly straight line before them for a great distance.
"Yes," continued he, "there is certainly something coming along the
road;--a carriage by the quickness with which it nears us: now for
it!"

"Tell him to draw up, Ludovico; and he might as well turn round so
as to be ready to drive back. We will wait here till she comes; and
our friends on horseback may as well remain here too," said the
Marchese.

So the little party drew up, and all eyes were turned to the small
cloud of dust rapidly approaching them.

"Yes: it is a carriage, and no mistake; and coming along at a good
pace too!" said Manutoli.

"It is she, no doubt; she was to sleep at Bagnacavallo," returned
Ludovico.

"Signori!" said the Marchese, addressing the four, or five mounted
officers, "will you kindly put your horses across the road, so that
the lady's driver may see that he is to stop, and that there may be
no mistake."

And then an open carriage became clearly visible, and in the next
minute, it could be seen that it was occupied by two persons;--a
lady and another figure--an old man apparently--muffled in a huge
blue travelling-cloak.

Then in another instant the travelling-carriage, finding the road
blocked before it, had stopped, and in the next, the Marchese
Lamberto, hat in hand, was standing at the door of it, on the lady's
side;--the two young men standing immediately behind him, and the
horsemen crowded round, craning over the necks of their horses.

Oh! per Bacco! There is no mistake about it; she is startlingly
beautiful. Report had not said half enough. And, somehow or other,
it appeared as if a travelling-costume was specially becoming to
her. At least, it seemed so to the innocent youths who so first saw
her. Had there been any women present their minds would have at once
gone back from the splendid effect produced to all the details of
the artfully combined causes which had gone to the producing of it.
But there were no ladies present, save the "Diva" alone.

Such a Diva! She wore a little blue velvet hat, with a white feather
in it very coquettishly placed on a superb wealth of hair of the
richest auburn tint. She was very delicately fair, with just such an
amount of the loveliest carnation on her cheeks as might be produced
by the perfection of health and joyousness and youth; or might be, a
lady critic would have whispered, by some other equally effectual
means. She had large--very large--wide-opened, clear, and limpid
light-blue eyes, with that trick of an appealing look in them which
always seems to say to every manly heart, "You, alone of all the
harsh, cold, indifferent crowd around us, are he to whom I can look
for sympathy, comprehension, and fellow-feeling." And now these eyes
looked round from one to another of those around her with a look of
smiling, innocent surprise and inquiry that demanded an explanation
of the unprecedented circumstances with a childish freshness the
most engaging.

She wore a bright blue velvet pelisse, trimmed with ermine, which
admirably showed to the greatest advantage her magnificently shaped
bust, and round slender waist; and bent forward towards the
Marchese, as he stood at the carriage-door, with inimitable grace of
gesture, and a smile on her sweet lips that would have utterly
defeated and put to shame any St. Antony exposed to such temptation.

"Signora," said the Marchese, who looked very handsome, as he stood
with his hat in his hand, and bowed with stately courtesy, "Ravenna
welcomes you, and places itself at your feet in our persons. Permit
me to present to you these gentlemen, who have had the good fortune
to be selected among many aspirants to that honour, to assist me in
welcoming you to our city: the Barone Adolfo Manutoli; my nephew,
the Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare."

"E Lei dunque e il Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare?" said the lady,
in the sweetest possible of silvery tones, and with an air of humble
wonder at the greatness of the honour done her, mingled with
grateful appreciation of it, that was inimitably well done; and held
up two exquisitely-gloved slender little hands, as she spoke, half
joining them together in thankful astonishment, and half extending
them towards him with an almost caressing movement of appeal.

"Si, Signora; I am the man you have named; I am fortunate that my
name should have reached your ears; more fortunate still in having
had a part in making the arrangements that have brought you here;--
and most fortunate of all if I shall be so happy as to make your
sojourn among us agreeable."

"Signor Marehese! Lei e troppo garbato,--troppo buono; ma troppo
buono, davvero!" said the pretty creature; and the appealing eyes
looked into his with the semblance of a tear of emotion in them.

"Will you allow me the pleasure, Signora, of conducting you to the
city in my carriage?" said the Marchese, with a graceful wave of his
hand towards his handsome equipage. "I have thought it might
possibly be agreeable to you to place it and myself at your
disposition on this occasion."

"Ma come? It is too great an honour, davvero. But to make my first
appearance in your city under such auspices will go far towards
assuring me such a success at Ravenna, as it is my most earnest wish
to attain."

The Marchese put out his hand to assist her to alight, as he added,-
-

"Perhaps you will allow these gentlemen to return in your carriage,
Signora? They have no other here. I did not think it necessary to
bring a second carriage."

"Come loro commandano!--as their lordships please," said La Lalli
with a graceful bow; though the young men were of opinion, that her
eyes very plainly said, as she glanced towards them, that she would
have preferred that they should have returned in the same carriage
together.

She rose, as she spoke, and giving her hand to the Marchese, put one
foot on the carriage-step in the act of descending, and then paused
to say, as if she had forgotten it till that moment:

"Will you permit me, Signor Marchese, to present my father to you,
Signor Quinto Lalli? I never travel without his protection!"

The old man in the corner moved slightly, and made a sort of bow
with his head. He had remained quite still and passive in his cloak
and his corner all through the rest of the scene, taking it all
apparently as something very much in the common order of things.
Perhaps the piece that was being played had been played too often in
his presence to have any further interest for him.

While thus presenting her father, as she called him, to the
Marchese, the beautiful actress had remained for the moments
necessary for that purpose, with her matchless figure poised on the
one dainty foot, which she had stretched down to the step of the
carriage. The attitude certainly showed the svelte perfection of her
form to advantage; and from the unavoidable circumstances of the
position, it also showed one of the most beautifully formed feet
that ever was seen, together with the whole of the exquisite little
bottine that clothed it, a beautifully turned ankle, and perhaps as
much as two inches of the silk stocking above the boot.

The mere chance that caused the lady to bethink herself of
presenting her father just at that moment, was thus quite a piece of
good fortune for the young men on foot and on horseback, who were
standing around, which no other combination of circumstances could
have procured for them.

Then the Marchese handed her with graceful gallantry to his
carriage, took the place in the back of it by the side of her; and
the little cavalcade began its return to the city. At a small
distance from the walls, they found the band stationed, and thus
preceded by music, and passing through all the elite of the
population in the streets, the Marchese conducted her to the Palazzo
Castelmare, and handed her up the grand staircase to the great
saloon, where all the theatrical world of Ravenna, and many of the
more notable patrons of the theatre, were assembled to receive her.

Signor Ercole Stadione, the little impresario, was there of course,
and in high enjoyment of the triumph of the occasion, and of the
importance which his share in it reflected on him. He buzzed about
the large saloon from one group to another, raising himself on
tiptoe as he looked up into the faces of his noble friends and
patrons, and rubbing his hands together cheerily in the exuberance
of his satisfaction.

"You had the happiness of accompanying the illustrissimo Signor
Marchese to receive our honoured guest to-day, Signor Barone!" said
he to Manutoli, who was giving an account of his expedition, and of
the first appearance of the new "Diva," to a knot of young men
grouped around him; "mi rallegro! Mi rallegro! Ravenna could not
have had a more worthy representative than yourself, Signor Barone!
But is she not divine! What beauty! What a grace!"

"Why, Signor Ercole, one would think you had begotten her yourself.
She is a pretty creature certainly. What a smile she has!"

"Eh bene, Signori miei! Are you satisfied? Are you content? Have we
done well?" said the little man, buzzing off to another group. "Che
vi pare? Is she up to the mark, or is she not?"

"Bravo, Signor Ercole! We are all delighted with her!" said one.

"If she sings as she looks," cried another, "Ravenna has a prima
donna such as no other city in Italy has."

"Or in Europe, per Bacco!" added a third.

"What do you think of her, Signor Leandro? Did I say too much?"
asked the happy impresario, moving off to a console, against which
the poet was leaning in an abstracted attitude, while his eye, in a
fine frenzy rolling, managed nevertheless to look out for the
manifestation on the Diva's face of that impression which he doubted
not his figure and pose must make on her.

"What a bore she must find it having to talk to all those empty-
brained fellows that have got round her there, just like buzzing
blue-bottle flies round sugar-barrel! I wonder it does not occur to
the Marchese that it would be more to the purpose to present to her
some of the brighter intelligences of the city. She must think
Ravenna is a city of blockheads! And one can see, with half an eye,
that is the sort of woman who can appreciate intellect!"

"It will be for you, Signor Conte, to prove to her that our city is
not deficient in that respect. Sapristi? Would you desire a better
subject? What do you say to an ode, now, on the rising of a new
constellation on the shores of the Adriatic? Hein! Or an inpromptu
on seeing the divine Lalli enter Ravenna through the same arch under
which the Empress Theodora must have passed?"




"I had already thought of that," snapped the poet, sharply.

"Of course you had," said the obsequious little man. "An impromptu,
by all means! You could have it ready to present to her at the
theatre to-morrow."

"Unless the Marchese thinks fit to present me to the lady presently,
I shall decline to write anything at all," rejoined Signor Leandro,
thus unjustly determining, in his ill-humour, to punish all Ravenna
for the fault of one single individual.

The Diva was, in the meantime, winning golden opinions on all sides.
She had bright smiles, and pretty captivating looks, and courteous,
prettily-turned phrases for all. But amid all this she contrived
unfailingly all the time, by means of some exquisitely subtle nuance
of manner, to impress every person present with the unconsciously-
conceived feeling that there was something more between her and the
Marchese and his nephew than between her and anybody else in the
room; that she in some sort belonged to them, and was being
presented to the society under their auspices. She remained close by
the side of the Marchese. She would look with an appealing and
inquiring glance into his face at each fresh introduction that was
made to her, as if to ask his sanction and approval. She had some
little word from time to time either for his ear, or that of his
nephew, spoken in such a manner as to reach those of nobody else;
while, gracious to all, she delicately but markedly graduated the
scale of her graciousness towards those who were introduced to her,
according to the degree of intimacy which seemed to exist between
them and the Marchese. The result was that the Marchese, without
having been in the least conscious by what means and steps it had
been brought about, felt, by the time the gathering was at an end, a
sort of sense of proprietorship in the brilliant and lovely
artiste;--it was so evidently he who was presenting her to the city!
She herself so evidently felt that it would become her to rule her
conduct in all respects at Ravenna according to the Marchese's
wishes and ideas, and there was so sweet and so subtle a flattery in
the way in which she made this felt, that when, after all the crowd
had retired, and she was about to take leave of the Marchese to go
to the lodging that had been prepared for her, she ventured to take
his hand between both hers, while looking up into his face to thank
him, in a voice quivering with emotion, for his kindness to her,
there passed a something into the system of the Marchese from that
contact of the palms that he found it very difficult to rid himself
of.




BOOK III

"Sirenum Pocula"



CHAPTER I

"Diva Potens"


Quinto Lalli was the name by which the prima donna had presented the
old gentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the Marchese
Lamberto as her father. And Quinto Lalli was his real name; but he
was not really her father. Nor had she any legitimate claim to the
name of Lalli. She had never been known by any other, however,
during the whole of her theatrical career; and there were very few
persons in any of the many cities where the Lalli was famous, who
had any idea that the old man who always accompanied her was not her
father. Indeed, Bianca had so long been accustomed to call and to
consider him as such, that she often well nigh forgot herself that
he held no such relationship to her.

The real facts of the case were very simple, and had nothing
romantic about them. Old Lalli was a man of great musical gifts and
knowledge. He had been a singing-master in his day; an impresario
too for a short time; and sometimes a kind of broker, or middle-man
between singers in want of an engagement and managers seeking for
"available talent;" and a hunter-up of talent not yet available, but
which, it might be hoped, would one day become such.

It was in the pursuit of his avocations of this latter sort, that he
had one day, about fifteen years before the date of the
circumstances narrated in the last chapter, chanced to meet with a
little girl, then some twelve years old, on the hopes of whose
future success he had resolved to build his own fortunes. It was
time that he should find some foundation for them, if they were ever
to be built at all, which most of those who knew Signor Quinto Lalli
deemed not a little improbable; for he was of the sort of men who
never do make fortunes.

He was fifty years old when he had met with the little girl in
question, and had done nothing yet towards laying the foundations of
any sort of fortune. Unstable, improvident, unthrifty, fond of
pleasure, and not fond of work, nothing had succeeded with him.
Nevertheless, a cleverer man in his own line, or a shrewder judge of
the article he dealt in, than Quinto Lalli did not exist in all
Italy. And his judgment did not fail him when he fell in with little
Bianca degli Innocenti.

Persons unacquainted with Italian things and ways might suppose that
the above modification of the "particle noble" in Bianca's family
name was indicative of a very aristocratic origin. Italians,
however--and specially Tuscans--would draw a different conclusion
from the premises. The family "Degli Innocenti" is very frequently
met with in Tuscany; but the bearers of the name do not, for the
most part, take great heed of their family ties. The "Innocenti," in
a word, is the name of the foundling-hospital in Florence; and those
of whose origin nothing is known save that they have been brought up
by that charity, are often called after it, and known by no other
name. Little Bianca's father, or possibly her grandfather, must have
been some such Jem, Jack, or Bob "of the Foundlings," and left no
other patronymic to his race.

Quinto Lalli fell in with the child one day in the dirty and
miserable little town of Acquapendente, just on the Roman side of
the frontier line dividing the Papal territory from Tuscany, as he
was travelling from Florence to Rome. He was travelling by the
diligence, which always used to remain a good hour or more at
Acquapendente, for the transaction of passport and dogana work.
There, strolling, for want of something better to do, through the
dilapidated streets of the poverty-stricken little town,--which in
those days told the traveller most unmistakably how great was the
difference between prosperous Tuscany, which he had just left, and
the wretched Pope's-land which he was entering--Quinto Lalli heard a
child's voice, and instantly stopped and pricked up his ears.

Looking round, he saw a little creature, barely clad, happy amid the
surrounding squalor, sitting with its little bare feet and legs
dabbling in the sparkling water in the broken marble tank of a once
magnificent fountain. There she sate alone in the sunshine, and
carolled, with wide-opened throat, like any other nature-made
songster.

Quinto Lalli, with startled ear, listened attentively; got round to
where he could see the child's face; marked well, with knowing eye,
the little brown feet and legs bare to the knee; and then determined
to abandon the fare paid for the remainder of his diligence journey
to Rome.

The business for the sake of which he made that sacrifice was easily
and quickly done. A bargain is not difficult when that which is
coveted by one party is deemed a burden and encumbrance by the
other. And Quinto Lalli became the fortunate purchaser of the
article of which he had so judiciously appreciated the value.

Quinto had his little purchase well and carefully educated--educated
her himself in a great measure, as far as her voice was concerned--
and took care that every attention was paid, not only to her musical
culture, and to the preservation and enhancement of her beauty--
which, with great comfort as regarded the ultimate issue of his
speculation, he saw every year that passed over her develop more and
more--but also to her intellectual cultivation. For Lalli was a
clever man enough to know, that if a stupid singer with a fine voice
can charm so as to be worth a hundred, an intelligent singer with an
equally fine voice, can charm so as to be worth two hundred.

And the old singing-master was good and kind to his pupil: firstly,
because he had no unkindness in his nature, and secondly, because it
was in every way his interest to conciliate the girl. She had been
brought out at eighteen, and had now been nine years on the stage--
nine years of success, which ought to have enriched both teacher and
pupil.

They had very soon come to understand each other in matters of
interest. Lalli had begun by taking all her large earnings. But
Bianca very quickly let her protector understand that such an
arrangement did not meet her views at all. The ingratitude, when she
owed everything to him alone! No, Bianca had no intention to be
ungrateful--anzi! she looked upon Lalli as her father, and hoped she
always should do so; but she had no intention of being treated like
a child. So long as she could earn anything, her adopted father
should want for nothing. She asked nothing better than to continue
to live with him, and work for both of them.

And, in truth, her grateful kindness and fondness for the old man
whom she had so long looked on as a father was Bianca's strongest
point in the way of moral excellence. In all their nine years of
partnership she had worked for him as much as for herself. But her
nine years of success ought to have made both the old man and his
adopted daughter comfortably well off. And it had done nothing of
the kind.

They had laid by nothing. Old Quinto had all his life been
recklessly extravagant and thriftless; and his mode of education had
not made Bianca less so. If he was fond of dissipation and pleasure,
she was not less fond of them on her side. Careful as her education
had been, it was hardly to be expected that it should have been
eminently successful in forming a high standard of moral character.
The demands made by society upon its members in general in the clime
and time in question were not of a very exacting nature; and the
expectations of society in this respect from a person in Bianca's
position were more moderate still. Nor were the precepts, counsels,
example, or wisdom of her protector at all calculated to guide the
beautiful singer scatheless through the dangers and difficulties
incidental to her position.

In short, for nine years Bianca had worked hard--had earned a great
deal of money, and had spent it all (except what Lalli had spent for
her) in dissipation, the sharers in which had been chosen by the
beautiful actress--as kissing goes--by favour, and not with any view
to their ability to pay the cost.

And now La Lalli had reached her twenty-seventh year; and was very
nearly as poor as when she began her career. And certain small
warnings, unimportant as yet, and wholly unsuspected, save by
herself and old Quinto, had begun to suggest to her the expediency
of thinking a little for the future. She and Quinto Lalli had had a
very serious conversation on the subject just before the
commencement of that season at Milan, which, as has been hinted, had
ended somewhat disagreeably for the charming singer.

The real truth of the matter was that the difficulty in question had
arisen not from any tendency in the lady to behave in the Lombard
capital with more reprehensible levity than, it must unfortunately
be admitted, she had been very well known to have behaved in other
places and on other occasions; but from a change in her manners in a
diametrically opposite direction. It was a change of tactics, which
the strictest moralist must have admitted to involve an improvement
in moral conduct, that got the hardly treated Diva into trouble.

The Austrian Government, as we all know, is, or was, a paternal
government-a very paternal government. And the governor who ruled in
the Lombard capital was quite as much intent on playing the
"governor," in the modern young gentleman's sense of the word, as
good old paternal Franz himself in his own Vienna. But this paternal
government was not of the sort which ignores the well-authenticated
fact that "young men will be young men." On the contrary, it
proceeded always, especially as regarded its more distinguished
sons, on the largest recognition of this truth. Wild-oats must be
sown; the "governor" knew it, and the law allowed it. But they
should be so sown as to involve as little prejudicial an after-crop,
as may be--as little prejudicial especially to those distinguished
sons who cannot be expected to refrain from such natural sowing.

And enchanting Divas may assist in such sowing, and be tolerated in
so doing by a not too rigidly exacting paternal government--may be
held in so assisting not to step beyond the sphere of social
functions assigned to them by the natural order of things in a
manner too offensive to the mild morality of a paternal government,
as long as such joint wild-oat cultivation shall in nowise threaten
to interfere with the future tillage of less wild and more
profitable crops by those distinguished young scions of noble races,
to whose youthful aberrations a paternal government is thus wisely
indulgent.

So long, and no longer. Mark it well, enchanting Divas. Enchant if
you will; 'tis your function. But do not think to enchain? Enmesh a
young Marchese in the tangles of Neaera's hair. A paternal governor
puts his fingers before his eyes; and lets a smile be seen on his
lips beneath them. But do not seek to bind him by less easily broken
ties. A vigilant and moral governor frowns on the instant; and a
paternal government well knows how to protect its distinguished sons
by very summary and effectual process.

But when for a poor Diva there comes also the time when that
pleasant wild-oat sowing seems no longer a promising pursuit, what
does the paternal wisdom decree as to her future? Why, she must reap
as she has sown--or helped to sow. See ye to it, Divas. Such
providence is beyond our function.

And thus it had come to pass that the trouble had arisen which had
resulted in inducing the Diva Bianca to turn her back on ungrateful
Milan, and her face towards welcoming Ravenna. In that conference
between Bianca and her old friend and counsellor, which has been
mentioned, it had been fully brought home to the Diva's conviction
that for her the pleasant time of wild-oat sowing had come to an
end. "Would that the year were always May." But old Quinto Lalli
knew that it wasn't. And it had been concluded between him and his
adopted daughter that it was high time for Bianca to take life au
serieux;--to understand thoroughly that noctes coenaeque deum, with
champagne suppers and love among the roses, must be, if not
necessarily abandoned, yet steadily contemplated as a means and not
an end.

What if--

     Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
     Shakes his light wings, and in a moment flies?

The warning of the verse teaches that the skittish god must not be
scared by a premature exhibition of the noose hid beneath the sieve
of corn. Champagne suppers and love among the roses--yes. But there
should be, also, cunningly hidden, the noose among the roses.

And to this wisdom the Diva her well-trained mind did seriously
incline, during that last Milan campaign. Nor did her moral aim seem
to be without good promise of success. The sleek young colts with
their shiny coats, glossy, with the rich pastures of the Lombard
plains, pranced up and nibbled, all unconscious of the hidden noose.
One fine young unsuspecting animal, the noblest of the herd, came so
close to the noose that Bianca thought her work was done, and was on
the point of casting it over his lordly head--and he all but
enchanted into such docility as to submit to it, even seeing it.

When lo! with sudden swoop of hand, sharp vibrating police decrees,
an unsleeping paternal government darts down the fabric of our
hopes, sends off the nearly captured prey, loud neighing and with
heels kicked high in air, but safe, to his ancestral Lombard
pastures, and whirls away the too dangerous enchantress into outer
space.

Sorrowfully the baffled fair goes forth (a graceful picture
somewhere seen of paradise-banished Peri with pretty stooping head,
recalls itself to my mind as I write the words); sorrowfully but not
despairing,--and wiser than before.

And yet before she goes seeking fresh fields and pastures new, and
meditating new emprise, wealthy Milan shall itself equip her for the
next campaign. For much of such expedient outfit Milan can supply,
which, in remote Ravenna, might in vain be sought. There, beneath
the shadow of those marble walls, where once the sainted Borromeo
preached, the cunningest Parisian artists may be found--so rich in
corn and wine and silk are Lombard plains-modists and mercers,
corset-makers, lacemen, skilled so to clothe the limbs of beauty,
that every fold shall but display the perfect handiwork of nature,
yet add to it the further grace of art. Makers of tiny slippers and
such dainty bootlets as show forth and enhance the separate beauty
of each inch of outline of rounded ankle, arched instep, and slender
length of foot, shall lend their help. And if envious Time have
something done to blur the bloom upon the cheek, or blot the clear
transparent purity of skin,--sunt certa piacula,--there are not
wanting means for helping a mortal Diva to some of the prerogatives
of immortality in these respects.

And thus equipped, everything is ready, Quinto mio; we turn our
backs on haughty Milan, and nova regna petentes cras ingens
iterabimus aequor, that is to say, the wide plains of Lombardy.

So Bianca and her faithful Quinto journeyed forth on that
interminably long flat monotonous Emilian road, with no accompanying
sound of music on their departure, but with the much-improved
prospects, which have been described, on their arrival.



CHAPTER II

An Adopted Father and an Adopted Daughter


When Bianca, on the evening of her arrival at Ravenna, rejoined
Quinto Lalli at the handsome and convenient lodging which had been
provided her, after having passed an hour or two, as has been
related, in being presented to the notabilities of the city, and
receiving a great deal of homage at the Palazzo Castelmare, she had
already learned many useful things.

Imprimis, she had learned that the Marchese Lamberto was a bachelor;
that he was--though what young girls call an old man--still almost
in the prime of life, for a man so healthy and well preserved; that
he was a remarkably handsome and dignified gentleman; that he
evidently occupied the very foremost place in the esteem and respect
of his fellow-citizens; that he was rich; and that he appeared from
all those little signs and tokens of manner, which such a woman as
La Diva Bianca can interpret so readily, the last man in the world
likely to fall in love with such a travelling Diva as herself. She
had learned, further, that the Marchese Ludovico was his heir; that
the said Ludovico might be judged, by all those same signs and
tokens, to be very much such a man as might be likely to fall over
head and ears in love with a beautiful woman, who should make it her
business to cause him to do so; and yet further, that this Marchese
Ludovico was just the sort of man, whom, if she might permit herself
to join pleasure with business, she would very well like so to
operate on. She had heard a poem read to her by the Conte Leandro,
and had decided that, if he were the wealthiest man in all Ravenna,
no sense of her duty to herself could prevail to make her do
anything but run away from him at the first warning of his approach.
Nevertheless, from him, even, she had learned something. She had
become acquainted with the fact, whispered in his own exquisitely
felicitous manner, and with the tact and judicious appreciation of
opportunity peculiar to him, that Ludovico di Castelmare was, to the
great sorrow of his friends and family, enslaved by a certain
Venetian artist, then resident in Ravenna,--a girl really of no
attractions whatever.

Thus much of the carte du pays of that new country, in which her own
campaign was to be made, and of which it so much imported her to
have the social map, she had learned, when she found Quinto Lalli
waiting for her to take possession of their new home.

"Well, bambina mia,--my baby," for so the old man often called her,
"what sort of folk have we come among? How do you like the
appearance of the country?"

"Eh, papa mio, che volete? I have seen only a bit of it. It is
rather early to judge yet," said Bianca.

"Not too early for your quickness, bambina mia. Besides, you may be
sure you have seen most of what you are likely to see, and what it
most concerns you to see. The Cardinal Legate was not likely to come
out to meet you, I suppose; nor does it much matter to you to see
his Eminence."

"Well, what I have seen, I like. As for the theatre, that Marchese
Lamberto, whom you saw, knows what singing is as well as you do. I
shall please him on the stage; and, if so, as I see very well, I
shall please all the rest of Ravenna. But--"

"But what? There is always a `but.' What is it this time?" said the
old man.

"As if you did not know as well as I!" said Bianca, with a little
toss. "Is what I can do on the theatre of Ravenna the thing that is
most in my thoughts?"

"'Twas you who mentioned it first," said Quinto. "I spoke of it
merely with reference to that man, the Marchese Lamberto di
Castelmare. He is one of the first, if not the very first, man in
the city; and everybody is cap in hand before him. Evidently a rich
man."

"And he is a musician, you say?" rejoined Quinto.

"Fanatico! But what matters that; except, indeed, as a stepping-
stone? What has music done for me? The Marchese Lamberto is a
bachelor, Quinto."

"Ha! what, the old man?" said Quinto, looking sharply at her.

"Yes, the old man, as you call him. Not so old but he might be your
son, friend Quinto. But there is the young man, the Marchese
Ludovico, whom you also saw, when they met us on the road. He is the
nephew and heir to the other--a bachelor too--and as pretty a fellow
as one would wish to see into the bargain; a charming fellow."

"So was the Duca di Lodi at Milan," said the old man, quietly; "a
very charming fellow--charming and charmed into the bargain. But--"

"Yes! I don't need to ask the meaning of your `but.' We know all
about that; but what is the good of going back upon it?" said
Bianca, throwing herself at full length upon a sofa, and tossing her
hat on to the ground, with some little display of ill-temper, as she
spoke.

"Only for the sake of the light past mistakes may throw on future
hopes," replied Quinto, with philosophic calmness.

"Bah-mistakes--what mistake? There was no mistake, but for that
infamous old wretch of a governor," said Bianca, with an expression
which the individual referred to would hardly have recognized as
beautiful, if he could have seen it.

"Yes! I know. May the devil give him his due! But, bambina mia,
there are wretches of governors here too, it is to be feared, no
less infamous."

"What do you mean? What did we come here then for?" cried Bianca,
rearing herself on her elbow on the sofa, and looking at her old
friend with wide-opened eyes of angry surprise.

"In the first place, cara mia, because it was necessary to go
somewhere; and, in the second place, because I should be very much
at a loss to name any place where the governors are not infamous
wretches, every whit as bad as at Milan. 'Tis the way of them, my
poor child. But you see, Bianca dear, to return to what we were
saying, there was a little mistake at Milan. The Duca di Lodi did
not go off into the country, and leave you plantee la, to please
himself."

"Who ever thought he did? No, poor fellow, he was right enough. But
what was the mistake, I want to know?"

"You could bring no influence to bear, except upon himself, you
know."

"Of course not. How should I? E poi?"

"And he could not do as he pleased," said Quinto, with a slight
shrug of his shoulders. "That was the mistake, cara mia, to
endeavour to bring about an object, by influencing some one who had
no power to act for themselves in the matter."

"A very pleasant Job's comforter you are to-night, Quinto. I don't
know what you are driving at?" said Bianca, staring at him.

"Only this, my precious child. I was set thinking of the mistake at
Milan by what you said of these two men, the uncle and nephew. Has
it not come into your clever head, mia bella, that we might find
here the means of avoiding a repetition of that error?"

"Ah--h! Now I see what you are at. The uncle--hum--m--m," said
Bianca, meditatively; and then shaking her head with closely shut
lips.

"And why not the uncle, bambina mia? I am sure the few words you
have said about him are sufficient to point out that an alliance
with the Marchese di Castelmare would be an advantageous one for any
lady in the land," said old Quinto, with a demure air, that
concealed under it just the least flavour in the world of quiet
irony.

"I won't deny, papa mio, that, being humble as becomes my station,"
replied Bianca, in the same tone, "I should be perfectly contented
with the style and title of Marchesa di Castelmare. But what reason
have we for thinking that there would be any less difficulty in
becoming such than in becoming Duchessa di Lodi? That, between
ourselves, is the question."

"And what difficulty lay in the way of becoming Duchessa di Lodi?
Certainly none that arose from the Signor Duca. Governors and
fathers, and uncles and aunts, and police commissaries, and the
devil knows what, all interfered to keep two young hearts asunder,
and spoil the game. And why did they interfere?--the devil have them
all in his keeping! Because all the world agrees to believe that
such springalds as the Duca di Lodi can't take care of themselves.
Because it is considered that the titles and acres of such, if not
their persons, should be protected against--against the impulses of
their warm hearts, shall we say? Now, do you think that the world
would consider any such protection necessary in the case of the
Marchese Lamberto? Would any governors, or fathers, or uncles, or
aunts, or commissaries, interfere to prevent him from doing as he
pleased in such a matter?"

"No, I suppose not!" replied Bianca, thoughtfully; "but if no father
or uncle did, a nephew might. It is always the way; people get out
of the leading-strings put on them by their elders, only to be
entangled in others wound round them by their sons and daughters and
nephews and nieces! The poor old man is beguiled. We must prevent
him from making such a fool of himself! And the interference is all
the worse. and the more fatal, because the poor old man would not
only make a fool of himself, but beggars of his protectors."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed old Quinto Lalli with a quiet, almost
noiseless laugh; "it is very well and shrewdly said, bambina mia.
But between the two times of interference, my Bianca, there is a
happy medium; an intervening space, a high table-land, we may say,
after the dominion of fathers and uncles has been escaped from, and
before that of sons and nephews begins--a short time, during which a
man may and can please himself. Now, it seems to me, that your
Marchese--pardon me for the anticipation, it is a mere figure of
speech, your Marchese di Castelmare, I say, seems to me to be just
in that happy position!"

"I don't know that, I have not seen enough to be sure about that
yet. That young fellow, the Marchese Ludovico, does not look to me a
likely sort of man to stand by quietly and see himself cut out of
houses and lands! And besides,--it strikes me--"

"Speak out your thought, bambina mia; I am sure it is one worth
hearing. And between us, you know--"

"Well, between ourselves then," continued Bianca; while a smile,
half of mockery and half of pleasure, writhed her lips into changing
outlines, each more bewitchingly pretty than the other, and her eyes
were turned away from Quinto to a contemplation of the slender
dainty foot peeping out from beneath her dress, as she lay on the
sofa; "between ourselves, papa mio, from one or two small
observations, which I chanced to make to-day, it strikes me that the
Marchese Ludovico might possibly feel other additional objections to
the establishment of any such relations, as you are contemplating
between me and his uncle, besides the likelihood that they might be
the means of cutting him out of his heirship."

"Ha, I see, I see; nothing more likely! Per Dio, bambina mia, you
lose no time! Brava la Bianca! And perhaps I may conclude, from one
or two small observations that I have been able to make myself, you
would prefer to win on the nephew! Eh, cara mia" said the old man,
looking at her with a sly smile.

"Pshaw!" cried Bianca, with a toss of her auburn ringlets, and a
shrug of her beautiful shoulders; "I must do my duty in that state
of life to which it has pleased God to call me,--as the nuns at St.
Agata taught me. But between uncles and nephews, I suppose any girl
would say, nephews for choice!"

"But you see, my child, the devil of it is that it would be the
Milan story over again. You would have all the family to fight
against. A Cardinal Legate can be quite as despotic, and
disagreeable, and tyrannical as an Austrian governor. You may be
very sure that these people have some marriage in view for this
young Marchese, the hope of the family! We know that the Marchese
Lamberto is hand and glove with the Cardinal. And there would be an
exit from Ravenna after the same fashion as our last!"

"I know for certain already, that there is a marriage arranged
between the young Marchese and no less a personage than the niece of
the Cardinal Legate himself," said Bianca.

"Well then; that is not very promising ground to build on, is it,
bambina mia!" replied Quinto.

"It may be, that as far as the man himself is concerned, the match
that has been made for him would be rather the reverse of a
difficulty in the way," rejoined Bianca.

"But the difficulty will not come from the man himself, cara mia! It
would be doing you wrong to suppose that to be at all likely. I
don't suppose it; but--do you imagine that the Cardinal Legate will
permit you to snatch his niece's proposed husband from out of her
mouth! It would be a worse job than the other," said Quinto, shaking
his head emphatically.

"So that you are all for the uncle, papa mio?" rejoined Bianca;
yawning, as if she were tired of discussing the subject.

"Well, I confess it seems to my poor judgment the better scheme, and
indeed a very promising scheme. Depend upon it, my child, an old
man, who is his own master, is the better and safer game," replied
Quinto.

"Very well! Have at the old man then, as you call him; though, as I
have told you, Quinto, he is not an old man--not over forty-five I
should say; at all events the right side of fifty, I'd wager
anything! But I tell you fairly, that a less promising subject I
never saw. A man, who has lived till that age a bachelor, though the
head of his family,--and a bachelor of the out-and-out moral and
respectable sort, mind you,--the great friend of the Cardinal;
trustee to nunneries, and all that sort of thing!--a man who looks
at you and speaks to you as if he was a master of ceremonies
presenting a Duchess to a Queen,--a man, I should say, who had never
cared for a woman in his life, and was very unlikely to begin to do
so now," said Bianca, yawning again as she finished speaking.

"Bambina mia," replied Quinto, "you are a very clever child, and you
know a great many things. But you have not yet sufficiently studied
the elderly gentleman department of human nature. If the Marchese
Lamberto is as you describe him, it may be, it is true, that he is
one of those men for whom female beauty has no charm, and on whom
any kind of attack would be thrown away and mere lost labour. But it
is far more likely that the exact reverse may be found to be the
case! A thousand circumstances of his social position, or even of
his temper and turn of mind, may have kept him a bachelor,--may have
kept him out of the way of women altogether. He may be found
cautious, haughty, backward to woo, requiring to be wooed, in love
with the respectabilities of his social standing; but depend upon
it, bambina mia, if you can once awaken the dormant passion of such
a man, you may produce effects wholly irresistible,--you may do
anything with him! His love would be like a frozen torrent when the
thaw comes! It would dash aside every opposition that could be
offered it. The calculated and calculating tentatives, and
coquettings and nibblings of your practised lovers, who have been in
love a dozen times, would be as a trickling rill to an ocean wave,
compared to what might be expected from the passion of a heart first
strongly moved at the time of life the Marchese has reached.
Fascinate such a man as that, and in such a position, bambina mia,
and all the governors, and all the Cardinals that ever mumbled a
mass, won't avail to prevent him from being your own!"

"Well, I suppose you are right, Quinto. And I suppose that that is
what it must be!--But--well! it is time to be going to bed, I
suppose; I am tired and sleepy!" said Bianca, rousing herself after
a pause from a reverie into which she seemed to have fallen, and
yawning as she got up from the sofa.



CHAPTER III

"Armed at All Points"


The quartiere which La Lalli found prepared at Ravenna for her and
her travelling companion was a very eligible one. It consisted of a
very nicely-furnished sitting-room, with a bed-room opening off on
one side for herself, and another similarly situated on the other
side for her father. There was also, behind, one little closet for a
servant to sleep in, and another, still smaller, intended to serve
as a kitchen.

On the morning following the conversation related in the last
chapter Bianca, hearing Quinto coming out of his bed-room into the
sitting-room about nine o'clock, called out to him from her bed:

"Oh, papa! I forgot to tell you last night that the Marchese and
Signor Stadione are to be here at one o'clock to-day to hear me, and
settle about the night of the 6th, you know."

"All right, bambina mia! I will be back in time. I'm going to the
cafe to get some breakfast," called out Quinto through the door.

"Yes. But, papa, be here at one o'clock, and do not come back before
that. E inteso? And send me a cup of chocolate from the cafe."

"Inteso! I'll be here at one, and not before," said the old man
through the door, with special emphasis on the last words.

Then Bianca called her maid, told her to bring the chocolate to her
as soon as it came from the cafe, and then to come and dress her at
ten. Whether the intervening time was spent in sleep or meditation
may be doubted; but, at all events, when the hour for action came
Bianca was ready for it.

By means of the skilled and practised assistance of Gigia Daddi, the
maid who had been with her ever since the first beginning of her
stage career, the Diva had completed her toilette by half-past
eleven. But she had had, to a certain degree, a double toilette to
perform. All the component parts of a rich and very becoming
morning-costume had been selected and assorted with due care, and
minute attention to the effect each portion of it was calculated to
produce in combination with the rest; and then they had been not put
on, but laid out in order on the bed. The more immediate purpose of
the Diva was to array herself differently--differently, but by no
means with a less careful and well-considered attention to the
result which was intended to be produced.

The magnificent hair was brushed till it gleamed like burnished gold
as the sun-rays played upon it. But when ready to be coiled in the
artistic masses, which Gigia knew well how to arrange, variously,
according to the style and nature of the effect designed to be
produced, it was left uncoiled, streaming in great ripples over back
and shoulders in its profuse abundance. An exquisite little pair of
boots, of black satin, clasping ankle and instep like a glove, were
chosen to match the black satin dress laid out on the bed: but, like
the dress, were not put on. The place of the black satin dress was
supplied by a wrapper of very fine white muslin, edged with delicate
lace, so shaped with consummate skill that, though the snowy folds
seemed to lie loosely within the girdle that confined them at the
waist, no part of the effect of the round elastic slimness of the
waist was lost; open at the neck, from a point about a span beneath
the collar-bone, it allowed the whole of the noble white column of
the grandly-formed throat to be visible from its base above the
bosom to the opening out of the exquisite lines about the nape of
the neck into the tapering swelling of the classically-shaped head.
The exact arrangement of the shape of this opening of the dress,
from the throat down to about a hand's-breadth above the girdle, was
very carefully attended to; the lace-edged folds of the muslin being
three or four times drawn a little more forward so as to conceal, or
a little back so as to show, a more liberal glimpse of the swelling
bosom on either side, by the doubting Diva, as she stood before the
glass.

"E troppo, cosi." she said to her attendant at last. "Is that too
much so?"

Gigia looked critically before she answered, "To receive, yes,--a
little, perhaps. But to be caught unawares, no; and then with a
handkerchief, you know--"

"Oh, yes! One knows the exercise," said Bianca, with a laugh; "blush
and call attention to it by covering it with one's handkerchief,
which falls down as often as one chooses to repeat the manoeuvre. A
chi lo dite?"

"Style?" said Gigia.

"Sentimental,--eyes soft and dreamy; therefore the very faintest
blush of rouge. Yes; not a shade more."

"You won't put your bottines on?"

"No; there'll be time afterwards. Give me a pair of bronze kid
slippers. After all, there is nothing that shows a foot so well: and
look here, Gigia, draw this stocking a little better; I'd almost as
soon have a wrinkle in my face as in the silk on my instep. That's
better! The narrow black velvet with the jet cross for my neck,
nothing else. Now, you understand? Anybody who comes after one
o'clock may be admitted; before that you will let in no soul save
the Marchese Lamberto, in case he should come. I don't at all know
that he will. And, Gigia," continued her mistress, as she passed
into the sitting-room, "draw this sofa over to the other side of the
fireplace, so as to face the window; ten years hence, when you have
to place a sofa for me, you may put it just contrariwise--so, with
the head at the side of the fireplace, and push the table a little
further back so as to leave room for the easy-chair there to stand
near the foot of the sofa facing the fire. That will do. Now, be
sure of your man before you let him in. The Marchese Lamberto, mind,
an elderly gentleman--not the Marchese Ludovico, who is a young man.
If he or anybody else should come before one o'clock tell them that
I can see nobody till that time. Now, don't bring me the wrong man;
and, Gigia, if he comes, don't announce him, you know. Just open the
door quietly, and let him walk into the room without disturbing me--
you understand?"

"A chi lo dite, Signora mia! Lasciate fare a me! Is it the first
time?" said Gigia.

"If only one could hope that it would be the last," returned her
mistress with a half laugh, half sigh.

By the time all these arrangements were made it was nearly twelve
o'clock; and Bianca, dismissing her maid, placed herself, not
without some care in the arrangement of her delicate draperies, on
the sofa.

The judicious Gigia had said that the extent of snowy bosom exposed
was not too liberal, due consideration being had to the circumstance
that the Diva was to be caught by an unexpected surprise in an
undress. So, as Bianca meant to be very much surprised, she
carefully, and with dainty fingers, drew back the muslin on either
side just a thought, so as to permit to an exploring eye merely such
a suggestive peep of the swelling curves on either side as might
furnish an estimate of the outline of the veiled heights beyond. She
smiled, half with pleased consciousness and half with self-mockery,
as she did so: then carefully arranged her drapery so as to allow
two slim ankles to be visible just at the point where they crossed
each other in a position which exhibited the curved instep of one
slender foot in a full front view, and the side of the other
negligently thrown across it. The pose was artistically perfect.
Lastly, with one or two dexterous touches and shakes, she so
arranged her wealth of hair as to combine an appearance of the most
perfect negligee with a thoroughly artistic disposition of it,
which, while it displayed to the best advantage the tresses
themselves, served also to heighten the effect of the contours of
neck and bust, which they partly showed and partly concealed.

And then the Diva waited patiently.

She had, as she had said to Gigia, no certain knowledge that he
would come, nor even any very clear reason to believe that he would
do so--that he would come, that is to say, earlier than one o'clock,
at which hour it had been arranged that he should meet Stadione
there. Nevertheless, Bianca had a strong persuasion that he would
come earlier. Despite what she had said to Quinto Lalli of the
circumstances and signs which seemed to indicate that the Marchese
was not a man likely to be exposed to danger from such attacks as
the Diva meditated making on him,--despite the fact that she had
said to herself also all that she had said to her old friend, there
had been something about the Marchese's manner--something in that
last pressure of palm to palm that had set Bianca speculating as to
the meaning of it. It was not a mere manifestation of admiration;
the Diva was used enough to that in all its forms, and could read
every tone of its language. It was more like wonder and curiosity,--
at all events, it was not indifference. She had seen with half an
eye, and without the slightest appearance of seeing it, that the
Marchese could not keep his eyes away from her. During the drive to
the city, and afterwards at the Palazzo Castelmare, while she was
making the acquaintance of the principal people of the city, it had
been the same thing. And nothing could be further than was the
Marchese's manner, from the bold, unabashed staring, which such
beautiful Divas as Bianca have often to endure. He evidently was
devouring her with his eyes on the sly. Evidently he did not wish to
be observed looking at her as he did look. Whenever her own eyes
caught him in the fact, his were on the instant withdrawn: to
return, as Bianca well marked, on the next instant.

Then, after those first words, which he had addressed to her at
their meeting in the road, she had noted that he did not speak to
her, as she sat by his side in the carriage, with the simple ease
and freedom of indifference. There was almost something approaching
to a manifestation of emotion in his manner of addressing her. It
could not be that this elderly gentleman,--this very mature
Marchese, had fallen in love with her already. Such an idea would
have been too absurd! Yet his whole bearing was odd and ill at ease.

It had seemed to himself as if some subtle material influence
affected him, as he sat by her side,--as if a magnetic emanation
came forth from her that mounted to his brain, and disordered his
pulses, and the flow of his blood. He had sat by the side of women
as beautiful before now, and never been conscious of being affected
in any similar manner. What it was that produced such an effect upon
his nervous system,--what was the matter with him, he could not for
the life of him imagine. It was unpleasant; he did not like it at
all. And yet some irresistible stimulus and curiosity drove him to
prolong rather than to avoid the sorcery.

Bianca was by no means fully aware of the power and of the strength
of the sorcery which she was exercising on the Marchese. But she
understood a great deal more about it than he did. And when, in
making the appointment for him and the impresario to call on her at
one o'clock, he had asked her if that was too early for her habits,
and she had replied, that she was always afoot much earlier than
that, Bianca had felt persuaded that he would be at the door at an
earlier hour.

And her experience, or her instinct, with reference to such matters
had not deceived her.

The quarter-past twelve had not struck, when the Diva heard a knock
at the door of her apartment.



CHAPTER IV

Throwing the Line


In the next instant Bianca heard the door of the room in which she
was sitting opened very gently; it was Gigia who opened it, so
gently as to enable her mistress to keep her eyes on a book she held
in her hand, apparently unconscious that she was not alone. The
Marchese Lamberto advanced two paces within the room, and then
stopped gazing at the exquisite picture before his eyes. Bianca knew
that all her preparatory cares were doing the work they were
intended to do. But no sound had yet been made to compel her to
recognize her visitor's presence; and she remained as motionless as
a recumbent statue.

"I fear, Signora--," said the Marchese, after a few instants given
to profiting by the rare opportunity a singular chance had given
him,--"I fear, Signora--

"Santa Maria, who is there!" cried Bianca in a voice of alarm,
starting to her feet as she spoke with a bound, that none but so
skilled an artist and so perfect a figure could have executed with
the faultless elegance with which she accomplished it.

"A thousand pardons, Signora; your servant--"

"The Marchese Lamberto! It is unpardonable in the woman--to have so
failed in her duty-towards your Excellency! It is I who have to beg
your indulgence, Signor Marchese. Can it be one o'clock already? In
truth I had no idea it was so late; and I have still to dress! How
can I apologize to your Excellency sufficiently for appearing before
you in this dishabille?"

"Nay, Signora, it is in truth I who have to apologize; it is not yet
one o'clock, it is not much past twelve! And I feel that I am guilty
of an unwarrantable intrusion. But I hoped for the opportunity of
having a few words of conversation before the hour named for our
little business with our good Signor Ercole. Permit me to assure
you, Signora, that if your servant had given me the least hint that
you were not yet--ready to see any visitor--"

"If only your Excellency will excuse--the fact is, I have so rarely
any visitors that the poor woman does not understand her duty in
such matters. Really I am so covered with confusion,"--she
continued, putting up her delicate little hand with a feeble sort of
little attempt to draw her dress a little more together across her
throat. "I cannot forgive her! She has exposed me to seem wanting in
respect towards your Excellency; I will dismiss her from my
service!"

"Let me intercede for her, poor woman!" said the Marchese, advancing
into the room; "indeed it was mainly my fault, I ought to have asked
if you were visible."

"One word from la sua Signoria is enough. If you can forgive me, I
must forgive her! But you will own, Signor Marchese, that it is--
what shall I say--?" She hesitated and cast her eyes down with a
bewitching smile and a little movement of her bead to one side,
"that it really is--embarrassing! Such a thing never happened to me
before!"

"But now it has happened, Signora," said the Marchese, emboldened by
the smile, and by a shy sidelong glance, which she shot from under
her eye-lashes with a laugh in her eyes, as she spoke; "now it has
happened that I have been permitted to see you in a toilet all the
more exquisitely charming in that it wants the formality of the
costume in which the world is wont to see you,--may I not say what I
came for the purpose of saying?"

"Will you be very discreet, Signor?" she said, putting a slender
rosy finger up to her smiling lips; "and never, never let it be
known to any human being, that I ever received you save in the
fullest of full dress, as would become me in receiving the honour of
a visit from your Excellency!"

"Not a syllable, not a whisper!" replied the Marchese, taking her
tone, and putting his own finger on his lips. "And then, I may say,
Signora, that in Ravenna a visit at any hour from old Lamberto di
Castelmare would do your fair name no harm!" he added, taking the
arm-chair by the side of the sofa to which she pointed, as she
resumed her former place and attitude on the couch.

"I dare say it might not, if I am to judge of his position in the
society from your own, Signor Marchese. But I did not know, that
there was any old Signor Lamberto di Castelmare. I supposed you were
the head of the family, your uncle, perhaps?" said Bianca, very
innocently.

"I have no uncle, Signora! I am the oldest Castelmare extant," said
the Marchese.

"And you call yourself old Lamberto, Marchese! Why I would wager my
pearl necklace,--and that is the most valuable possession I have--
against a daisy chain, that you are not ten years older than I am. I
shall be called old Bianca Lalli next, at that rate!"

"And how many years, since you are ready to wager on it,--have gone
to the bringing the face and form I see before me to their matchless
perfection?" said the Marchese.

"Who was ever before so prettily asked how old she was?" said
Bianca, suffering her large blue eyes to rest fully on the
Marchese's face for an instant, and then dropping them with an air
of conscious embarrassment. "Well, a frank question deserves--or at
least shall have--a frank answer! I shall never see my twenty-fourth
birthday again?"

"And you judge me then to be thirty-four!" said the Marchese,
looking at her laughingly.

"Certainly I don't think any room full of strangers would judge you
to be more than that," replied Bianca, looking at him seriously.

"Ta!--ta!--ta! Add fifteen years to that; and you will be nearer the
mark. So you see, bella Signora, that you may safely trust yourself
to a tete-a-tete with me under any circumstances."

"Ta!--ta!--ta!" said Bianca, repeating his own phrase, with a merry
laugh in her eyes, and shaking her rich auburn curls at him. "It
seems impossible, utterly incredible! But I am very glad if it is
so,--very glad. There is nothing so intolerable to me as the young
lads who come buzzing about one circumstanced as I am, and whom it
is as difficult to drive away as it is to drive away flies in
summer. There is no trusting to them; they would compromise a poor
girl as soon as look at her, if she was fool enough to let them. And
I have had lessons in the necessity of caution, Signor Marchese. I
have been cruelly treated,--very cruelly calumniated!" And Bianca,
knowing, it is to be supposed, that, if it is not always the case
that "Beauty's tear is lovelier than her smile," as the poet says,
yet that it is a phase of beauty often more potent over a male heart
than the sunniest smile, raised a corner of her daintily-embroidered
handkerchief to her eyes.

The Marchese was an old man of the world,--as the cynical phrase
goes,--and of what a world?--an old Italian Marchese of the
beginning of the nineteenth century,--a period when, if crime was
less rife than in former and stronger ages, morality was never at a
lower ebb. He was a man whose musical tastes had made him conversant
with the Divas of the stage, and familiar with the interior aspects
of Italian theatrical life;--one, too, whom circumstances had caused
to become specially well acquainted with the antecedent history of
this particular Diva now stretched on the sofa before him. Yet none
the less for all this did "beauty's tear," enhanced by beauty's
laced pocket-handkerchief, exercise on him its usual glamour.

Calumniated!--that lovely creature of matchless purity before him,--
matchless purity! so white was her throat; so round and slender her
waist; so daintily snowy her muslin drapery. Calumny! Of course it
was calumny. And how he could have poignarded the calumniators, and
taken the poor, fluttering, persecuted Diva to his bosom. The desire
to execute that latter portion of retributive and poetical justice
was making itself felt stronger and stronger within him every
minute, as he sat beside the sofa exposed to the full force of the
magnetic poison-current which was intoxicating him.

"Signora--" he said, putting his hand out to take hers, which she
readily gave him. His own hand shook, and he paused in his speech,
overcome for a moment by a sort of dizziness and a sudden rush of
the blood to his brow and eyes,--a veritable electric shock caused
by the contact of her hand with his.

"Signora," he continued, recovering himself, "no such slander--no
such insults will follow you here; none such shall follow you here.
Lamberto di Castelmare can, at least in Ravenna, promise you that
much. Nor if they did follow you, would such stories here be
believed"

"Generous! Just!" murmured Bianca behind the laced pocket-
handkerchief in a broken voice, just loud enough to reach the
neighbouring ear of the Marchese, while she suffered her slender
fingers to press the hand which held hers just perceptibly before
withdrawing it from him;--"just," she continued in a louder tone,
taking her handkerchief from her face, and raising her shoulders a
little from the sofa, so as to turn more fully towards him, while
her eyes fired point blank into his a broadside of uncontrollable
gratitude and admiration;--"just, because generous and noble. Oh,
Signor Marchese, those who have never known what it is to suffer
from a slanderous tongue can never know the delight--the sweet
consolation of meeting with such generous appreciation."

The poor Diva was quite overcome by her own emotion; and, sinking
back on the cushions of the sofa, again lifted her handkerchief to
her face, while one or two half-stifled sobs showed how deeply she
had been moved;--and how perfect was the form and hue of the
beautiful half-covered bosom which this emotion caused to heave
beneath its gauzy veil.

Just at that minute there came, to the infinite disgust of the
Marchese, a discreet tap at the door.

Bianca rapidly passed her fingers over the tresses above her
forehead, resettled her pose on the sofa, and gave the Marchese a
meaning look of common intelligence and mutual confidence, which set
forth, as well as a volume could have done, and established the fact
that there existed thenceforward a bond of union and a fellowship
between her and him, such as shut them in together, and shut out in
the cold all the rest of Ravenna, and then said "Passi," and
admitted, as she knew very well, no more startling an interrupter
than Gigia.

The well-trained servant said nothing and looked at nothing; but
silently handed to her mistress two cards.

"Of course you told these gentlemen that I was not visible, Gigia?"

"Diamine! Signora; of course I should not have let any gentleman
pass this morning more than any other morning of the year if you had
not specially told me to admit the Marchese Lamberto at any hour he
might come," said Gigia with a niaise simplicity, as she left the
room.

Bianca covered her face with her pretty hands and shook a gale of
perfume from her sunny locks, as she exclaimed, sotto voce,--

"Oh, the stupidity of these servants! Signor Marchese," she
continued, looking up shyly, but with a gay laugh in her eyes, "what
must you not imagine?--not, at all events, I hope, that I
contemplated the possibility of receiving you in this dishabille?
But I will do as other criminals do;--confess when they are found
out. I did think," she continued, casting down her eyes, and
hesitating with the most charmingly becoming and naive confusion; "I
had some little hope--no; I don't mean that;--I did not mean to put
that into my confession;--it did occur to me as possible," she went
on, hanging her pretty head, and playing nervously with the folds of
her dress in a manner which had the accidental effect of causing it
to leave uncovered an additional inch of silk stocking--"it did
occur to me as possible that the Marchese Lamberto might come to me
sooner than the time named for the meeting with the impresario;--for
the sake of giving me any hints that his perfect knowledge of the
subject might suggest; and I fully intended to be dressed and ready
to receive him if be should show me any such condescending kindness-
-and so told my maid to make an exception in his case to my
invariable rule! And then the minutes slipped away; and I fell into
a reverie, thinking--thinking--thinking; and then, all of a sudden,
before I knew that there was any one in the room--if you think of
the devil--and I suppose it is equally true if you think of an
angel;--but there, again, that was not intended to be any part of my
confession. I think I shall give up confession, at all events to
you, Signor Marchese, for the future. But now I have confessed
myself this time, and told the whole, whole truth--may I hope for
absolution?"

There was an adorable mixture of candour, and gaiety of heart, and
child-like simplicity in the beautiful features as she looked up
into his face when she finished speaking, together with an
expression of appealing confidence and almost tenderness in the eyes
that achieved the final and complete subjugation of the Marchese.

Again he took her hand, and again his head swam round with the
violence of the emotion caused by the contact of palm with palm, as
he said,

"Ah, Signora, if I were equally candid perhaps it would turn out
that it was for me to confess, and for you to grant absolution--if
you could. Do you think you could?" he said, raising her hand to his
lips as he said the words.

"Ha! Signor Marchese, that would quite depend upon the nature of the
confession. When I have heard it I will do my best to be an
indulgent confessor. But, however curious I may be to hear you in
the confessional, it must not be now; or I shall really not be ready
to receive Signor Stadione. Heavens! It wants only ten minutes to
one now. I must run and dress as quickly as I possibly can. To think
that almost an hour should have run away since you came here; and it
seems like ten minutes. May I beg your indulgence, Signor Marchese,
if I ask you to wait for me while I dress? I will be as quick as I
possibly can."

"On no account hurry yourself, Signora. It is my fault for having
detained you. And if I had to wait ten hours instead of one, would
not the one I have passed be cheaply purchased? Never mind Stadione;
I will explain to him that you are dressing--"

"And that you have been made to wait some time already by my
abominable unpunctuality," said Bianca, holding up one fore-finger
and giving him a look of mutual intelligence.

"Of course--of course. A chi lo dite!" returned the Marchese, giving
her once more his hand to help her to rise from the sofa.

As she did so she put into his hand, without any word of comment,
but with a slight smile and a little momentary raising of her
eyebrows, the two cards that Gigia had, a little while before,
handed to her. They bore the names of the Barone Manutoli and the
Marchese Ludovico Castelmare; and Bianca handed them to the Marchese
with a matter-of-course air that seemed to say that, in the position
which the Marchese Lamberto and she had assumed towards each other,
it was natural and proper that he should see who had called on her.

He merely nodded as he looked at them; and then, for the second
time, kissing the tips of the fingers he still held, as she got up
from her couch, he bowed low as she passed him to go towards the
bedroom; and she, before quitting the room, made a sweeping curtsey,
half playfully, and then kissed the tops of her fingers to him as
she vanished into the inner room.



CHAPTER V

After-thoughts


The Marchese Lamberto and Signor Ercole Stadione quitted the house
in which the prima donna had her lodging, together, when the
business matters, which they had come thither to arrange, had been
settled.

"A wonderful woman, Signor Marchese," said the little impresario,
trotting along with short steps by the side of the Marchese, and
rising on his toes in a springy manner, that made his walk resemble
that of a cock-sparrow. "Truly a wonderful woman. I have seen and
known a many in my day, Signor Marchese, as you are well aware, sir;
but such an one as that, such an out-and-outer, I never saw before."

"She is evidently a lady, whose education and manners entitle her to
be treated with all respect," replied the Marchese, more drily, the
little man thought, than his great patron was usually in the habit
of addressing him, and somewhat quickening his stride at the same
time, as if he wanted to walk away from the impresario.

"Most undoubtedly, Signor Marchese, and every sort of respectful
treatment she shall have. There shall be a stove and a new looking-
glass put into her dressing-room this very day. If she don't draw,
say Ercole Stadione knows nothing about it. A very singular thing it
is, Signor Marchese,--and you must have observed it, Signor, as well
as I,--there's some women whose singing, let 'em sing as well as
they will, is the smallest part of their value in filling a theatre.
There's no saying what it is, but they draw--Lord bless you, as a
bit of salt will draw the cattle after it! And this Lalli is one of
that sort. I know 'em, when I see 'em. Won't she draw, that's all!"
said the little man again, rubbing his hands together, and chuckling
with infinite glee.

The Marchese Lamberto would have been at a loss probably if he had
been required to state clearly why he felt angry and annoyed with
the impresario that morning, and thought him a bore, and wished to
be quit of him. But such was the case. And presently, when the well-
skilled and business-like little man began to canvass the
capabilities of certain parts in his repertorio, for the most
advantageous showing off of the personal advantages of the new
acquisition, the Marchese could stand it no longer, but replied
hastily:

"Well, well. All these matters had better be submitted to the lady
herself. I think, Signor Ercole, that I will say good-morning now.
You are going to the theatre, and I am waited for at the palazzo."

And the Marchese did return to the palazzo, though nobody was
specially waiting for him there. On the contrary, he told the
servant in the hall to admit nobody, and when he reached his
library, he shut the door and bolted it. And then he threw himself
into an easy chair to think.

The first thing that his thinking made clear and certain to him was
that something had happened, or was happening to him, which had
never happened to him before,--something respecting the exact nature
of which all his previous experience afforded him no light.

In love! He had never been in love; but he knew, with some tolerable
accuracy, what was generally understood by the phrase. He had read
the poets, who describe the passion under sufficiently various
phases; and he had heard plenty of lovers' talk among a people who
are not wont to suffer, or to exult, or to be happy in silence. Was
he in love with this woman? Did he, in his heart, love her--in his
heart, as he was there in the solitude of his own room, at liberty
and at leisure to examine his heart upon the subject. A heavy frown
settled on the Marchese Lamberto's brow, and an unpleasant change
came over his face, as he proceeded with the task of asking his
heart this question. There rose up feelings and promptings within
him, which almost drove him to the fierce assertion to himself that
he hated this woman, who was thus occupying his thoughts against his
will.

What had become of all that warm chivalry of feeling that had urged
him, with all perfect earnestness of sincerity, to declare that no
breath of calumny or insult should come near her, beneath the aegis
that he could and would throw over her? Where was it gone? All clean
gone. He knew, with tolerable accuracy, the story of the former life
of this woman. They were facts which he knew,--certainly knew. But
they had all vanished from his mind,--had been as though they were
not,--while he had sat there by her sofa, looking at her and
listening to her,--had all vanished, even as the ardent chivalry,
which had then been caused by some sorcery to spring up in his mind,
had vanished now.

It was passing strange.

That he was very sorely tempted--as he had never before in his life
been, tempted--to make love to this actress,--as it is called,--to
make love to her after the fashion, not so much of those poetical
descriptions which have been referred to, as after the fashion of
those prosaic settings-forth of the passion, which were familiar
enough to his ears, was clearly recognizable by him. He knew very
certainly that he desired that.

And was what he desired so much out of his reach? Surely all that
had happened, all that he had seen, all that he had heard at the
interview with Bianca that morning, was not calculated to lead him
to think so. And why should it be? It would be all very much
according to the ordinary current of events in such matters. He was
a bachelor. He was wealthy. He was the most prominent noble of the
city. He was brought specially into contact with the lady by his
theatrical connection and habitudes. His patronage and protection
were by far the most valuable that could be offered to her in
Ravenna. The Diva herself was--such as Divas of her sort and time
were wont to be. It would seem to be all very easy and straight-
forward. What was the worst penalty wont to follow from such
peccadilloes to persons in his position? The loss of a little
money,--of a good deal of money perhaps. But he had plenty and to
spare.

But none of these considerations availed to smooth the frown from
the Marchese's brow, or to make the future at all seem clear before
him.

In the first place to make this singer his mistress, simple and
little objectionable as such a step might seem to most men of his
country, and rank, and period, and freedom from ties, was not an
easy matter, or an agreeable prospect to the Marchese, on purely
social considerations. He had placed himself on a special pedestal,
from which such a liaison would involve a fall. And such a fall, or
the danger of such a fall, was very dreadful to the Marchese. There
was the Cardinal; there were the good nuns, whose affairs he
managed, and who looked on him as a saint on earth. Worst of all
there was his nephew. How preach to him (terribly necessary as such
preaching might be) under such circumstances?

To be sure, there was no need of doing whatever he might do in such
sort that the whole town should be his confidant. He had as good
opportunities for secrecy as could be desired. Theatrical business
and his recognized connection with it was an abundant and
unsuspected excuse for as much conversation with the lady,--as many
interviews as he might wish. It seemed safe enough upon the whole.

And yet these considerations did not avail to take the frown from
the Marchese's brow, or bring his perplexed self-examination to an
end. The very evident disposition of the lady to be kind did not
avail to please him. Instead of being pleased and triumphant at the
probable prospect of so enviable a bonne fortune, he was displeased,
unhappy, irritated, angry--angry with himself and with the sorceress
who had thrown this spell on him. How was it? By what charm had she
bewitched him so? Already he was impatient, longing to be back again
in her presence. And yet he was angry with her,--doubted whether he
did not rather hate her than love her.

At last he started from his chair and swore that he would retain the
mastery over his own self; that he would think no more of the
abominable woman,--see her no more!

Taking his hat he rushed out of the house, with an instinctive
desire for bodily movement as a means of stilling the tossing fever
that was raging within him; walked through the streets at such an
unusual pace, that the people turned round to look after him as he
passed; walked by the door of the house in the Via di Santa Eufemia
in which Paolina lived,--saw Ludovico coming from it, who was
surprised indeed at thus seeing his uncle; and more surprised still
to find, that the Marchese passed him without seeming to notice
him,--walked out into the country, and returned only at supper-time,
tired and worn out; and then, when the supper was over, and Ludovico
had gone out to the Circolo as usual, after pacing his room, and
swearing to himself at every turn, that he would see the creature no
more,--slunk out of his own palazzo, feeling afraid of being seen by
his own servants, and wandered to her lodging!

And what were Bianca's meditations, when the business visit of the
impresario was over, and he and the Marchese left her room together?

First and foremost, the Marchese Lamberto was in love with her; and
that not as dozens of youngsters in many a city had been; but madly,
desperately, in love with her. That fact admitted of no doubt
whatever! It was strange, curious enough, that she should have
succeeded so brilliantly, so entirely, and so immediately in spite
of all the signs and tokens which had led her not small experience
to expect so entirely different a result. Clearly the still larger
experience of old Quinto Lalli had been more far-sighted. His view
of the matter had been the true one!

But still, how far was his view of the question a correct one? What
was the success, which had been very unmistakably so far achieved,
in reality worth? It was very plain that this Marchese Lamberto had
been caught, captivated, fascinated! But what then? There was no
doubt at all that he would very willingly suffer her to add him to
the list of her previous admirers and lovers. It never entered into
the Diva's head to conceive, after the very unmistakable testimony
she had received of the evident admiration of the Marchese, that
very grave difficulties, objections, and hesitations would, on his
side, stand in the way of his accepting any such position. She
doubted not that this conquest was perfectly within her reach; and
that there would be no difficulty at all in drawing large supplies
from the Castelmare wealth towards recruiting the needs of the Lalli
exchequer.

But this, as has been explained, was not what Bianca wanted. "Major
rerum sibi nascitur ordo!" She was intent on playing a higher and
greater game. Was it likely she would be able so to fix the harpoon
she had successfully thrown in the very vitals of the prey, so to
make this man feel that she was absolutely essential to his
happiness, as to induce him to marry her? That was the question! And
Bianca did not delude herself into imagining that anything that had
passed between herself and the Marchese that morning entitled her to
consider the battle which should lead to that victory as even begun.

The Diva did not conceal from herself the greatness and arduous
nature of the task before her. She knew what a Marchese of mature
age, of noble lineage, and of unblemished reputation, was; and she
knew what she was. But she did not appreciate those extra
difficulties in the case, which arose from the special social
position, and still more from the special character and temperament
of the man,--and these were the greatest difficulties of all!

On the whole, she was sanguine; and what was perhaps more to the
purpose, old Quinto, when they talked the matter over together, and
the general result of the morning interview had been reported to
him, was sanguine too.

"Depend upon it, bambina mia," he said, "it is the best game--the
real game. Young fry will rise to the bait more readily; but they
also wriggle off the hook much more easily. It is the old fish who,
when he has it once fixed in his gills, cannot get rid of it,
struggle as he may. You play your game well,--neither relaxing, nor
yet too much in a hurry, and I prophesy that I shall live to see you
Marchesa di Castelmare."

"And many a year afterwards, I hope, papa mio. And you may depend on
my teaching my husband to behave like a good son-in-law," said
Bianca, with a bright laugh.

"As for the nephew," continued Quinto, "I can understand that it
would be more agreeable to make your attack on him--"

"I don't know that at all, papa mio," interrupted Bianca. "You may
laugh, if you will, and think that I am making a virtue of
necessity--and small blame to me if I were--but the truth is, I do
like the Marchese. I like him better, as far as I can yet tell, than
any man I ever knew. Yes! you may make grimaces, and look as wicked
as you please! But it is true. And, if you ever do see me Marchesa
di Castelmare, you will see that I shall make him a very good, ay,
and a very fond, wife."

"Who could doubt it, Signora, that has the advantage of knowing you
as well as I do?" said the old man, with a mocking bow.

"You may sneer as much as you like, Quinto; but you understand
nothing about it. The Marchese is a man any woman might love. You
call him an old man? I tell you he is younger for a man than I am
for a woman, God help me! It isn't only years that make people old."

"That's true, bambina mia, poveretta. And I am sure I have nothing
to say against it if you can fancy this Marchese a gay and handsome
young cavalier."

"Handsome he is, as far as that goes. I swear he is the handsomest
man I have seen here! His nephew is good-looking enough, but he is
not to be compared to his uncle either in face or person."

"Well, whether you have succeeded or not in making the Marchese in
love with you, cara mia, I begin to think that you have succeeded
already in falling in love with him," said Quinto, looking at her
with raised eyebrows.

Bianca remained silent awhile, nodding her head up and down in a
sort of reverie, and then said, rousing herself with a shake of her
flowing curls as she looked up, "No; not quite that. But I won't say
that it is impossible that if I am to make him love me, I may come
to love him in the doing of it. You see, amico mio, it is something
new. It is not the old weary mill-round. He did not come to me with
the set purpose of making love to me, as all those young fellows
have done, and do, just because they have nothing else to amuse
them; because it's the fashion; because it's a feather in their
caps; because it's the thing to have a prima donna for their
mistress! If the Marchese has fallen, or falls, in love with me, he
does so because he cannot help himself, he does it in despite of
himself; and that flatters a woman, Quinto. Well, we shall see," she
added, after another pause: "one thing, at all events. I swear that
there shall be nothing between me and the Marchese--of--the old
sort."

"It is wisely said, bambina mia. That is the road which must lead,
if any can, to the winning of your game."



CHAPTER VI

At the Circolo


There was, at all events, one man at Ravenna who was entirely
pleased and satisfied with the famous prima donna in all respects:
and this was Signor Ercole Stadione.

The Carnival campaign of La Lalli had been thus far brilliantly
successful, and the Carnival was now about half over. She "drew," as
the little impresario had prophesied she would, to his heart's
content. It was many a year since there had been so successful a
season at the theatre. Each part she sang in was a more brilliant
success than the last; and the public enthusiasm was such as
enthusiasm on such subjects never is save in Italy.

In every respect, too, her ways and behaviour had been
unexceptional. Her attention was never distracted from her business
by the visits of young men behind the scenes--a torment which,
during the reigns of other Divas, had often driven the poor little
impresario, who dared not get rid of such intruders as he would have
liked to do, almost wild. Bianca would permit no visits of the kind.
She had never behaved herself to any of the young men in such sort
as to cause any of those rivalries and jealousies which are
sometimes apt to manifest themselves in hostile partisanship, when
the Diva is on the boards--another fruitful source of trouble to
much-tried impresarios.

She had walked circumspectly and prudently in all respects--a most
moral and highly satisfactory Diva.

She was understood to receive no visitors at home--at least, none of
a compromising kind. The Marchese Lamberto was often with her: of
course, naturally! He was well known to be always a sort of second
amateur manager: neither the theatre nor little Ercole Stadione
could go on without him. And then the Marchese Lamberto was--the
Marchese Lamberto! If he had chosen to sit by the bedside of any
prima donna in Italy night after night, it would only have been
supposed that he was giving her possets for the improvement of her
voice.

Occasionally, also, she would receive the visits of the Marchese
Ludovico; evidently by reason of the unavoidable intimacy of his
uncle in the house. And Ludovico reported to them all at the Circolo
that she was a most charming woman indeed--full of talent, merry as
a young girl, companionable, and fond of society, but wholly devoted
to her art, and quite inaccessible in the way of love-making. He
assured the jeunesse doree of Ravenna that they lost nothing in any
such point of view by their exclusion from her intimacy, for that
all their enterprises in that line would be quite thrown away.

The Conte Leandro Lombardoni, indeed, always carried about with him
in his breast-pocket, a carefully preserved little letter on pink
notepaper, which he gave the world to understand was part of a
correspondence carried on between him (reconciled as he was to the
bel sesso) and the Diva; and had more than once contrived to be seen
hanging about the door of her house at hours when honest Divas, as
well as mortals, ought to be in bed and asleep. But nobody believed
him, or imagined that anything save a bad cold was at all likely to
result from his vigils beneath the cold stars. He showed, indeed,
with many mysterious precautions against the remainder of the letter
being seen, that the little pink sheet of notepaper did indeed bear
the signature of "Bianca Lalli." But when one of the ingenuous youth
picked his pocket of it, it was found to be a very coldly courteous
acknowledgment of a copy of verses, which the Diva promised to read
as soon as her avocations would permit her to do so!

"Any way," said the discomfited poet, "that is more than any of you
others have got. And it's not so small a matter, when you come to
think of it!"

"Per Bacco, no! Leandro is in the right of it!" said the young Conte
Beppo Farini; "a small matter to find somebody who promises even to
read his verses! I should think not, indeed! Where will you find
another to do as much?"

"Riconciliato col bel sesso! I should think you were, indeed!" cried
another; "she absolutely thanks you for sending her your rhymes!
Nobody ever did as much as that before, Leandro mio! No wonder you
haunt the street before her door!"

"I don't haunt the street before her door. Envy, Jealousy, ye green-
eyed and loathsome monsters, how miserably small and mean can ye
make the hearts of men!" said Leandro, lifting up hands and eyes.

"Bravo, Leandro, bravo! get upon the table, man!" cried Farini.

"Get home to bed, rather. It is too bad, because no human being will
read his poetry, he takes to spouting it!" said the other.

"Let us look what she says," cried Ludovico di Castelmare; putting
out his hand to take the little note. "Upon my word she writes a
pretty hand. It is a very neatly expressed note."

"Oh, you can see that much, can you?" returned Leandro. "I should
think it was too! Is there any one of you here can show such a note
from any woman, let her be who she may? She says she will read the
poem I have been good enough to send her--good enough to send her,
mark that!--as soon as she can find time to do so! What could she
say more, I should like to know? Of course she is occupied. It
stands to reason. But she will read my poem; and then you will see!"

"Ay, then we shall see our little Leandro duly appreciated at last!"
said the Barone Manutoli. "As soon as the Diva has found time to
read the poem there will come another little pink note, adorably
perfumed: he will be summoned to her august presence, and installed
as her poet in ordinary, and who knows what else besides,--her
Magnus Apollo? It is a pity there are not eight other prime donne to
make up the sacred number. Then we should see our Leandro in his
true position and vocation. Give me a sheet of paper, and I will
show you a new presentation of Apollo and the Muses. They are all
presenting him with pasticcerie and bonbons. He has one hand on the
lyre, and the other on his stomach, for the homage of the goddesses
has made him somewhat sick; his eyes, you observe, are cast
heavenwards, partly by reason of poetic inspiration, and partly by
reason of nausea!"

"Bravo! bravo, Manutoli!" cried a chorus of voices.

"Envy and jealousy, envy and jealousy, all envy and jealousy. It is
pitiable to see what they can reduce men to," cried the poet,
foaming at the mouth.

"Never mind them, Leandro mio--never mind them. It is the universal
penalty of true merit, you know; the same thing all the world over,"
said Ludovico.

"But, I say, Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli, "in the meantime, till
our Leandro's poem shall have been read and duly appreciated, you
are the only one who has been admitted to the privacy of La Lalli.
What is your report to us Gentiles of the outer court? Is she really
so unapproachable? And is she as adorable behind the scenes as
before them?"

"Well, you ought to be able to answer that question yourself,
Manutoli," replied Ludovico; "you were with lo zio and me that day
when we went out to meet her; I am sure you had a fair look at her
then."

"A look? Yes; and I looked all I could look. I saw a charming face,
younger and fresher looking than might have been expected from the
length of time she has been on the boards,--a very pretty figure, as
far as her travelling-dress would show it one; and the loveliest
foot and ankle I ever saw in my life. I could swear to that again at
any time. Don't you remember how she stood with her foot down on the
step, when she was getting out of the carriage. I thought at the
time that she knew what she was about very well."

"Of course she did. Do you think they don't always know very well,
every one of them, off the stage or on the stage?" said Farini.

"But I want to know what sort of body, she is?" returned Manutoli;
"I don't need to be told that she is a very lovely woman; but of
what sort is she? Why does she keep us all at a distance? What is
her game?"

"Upon my life I don't know," answered Ludovico, "unless it's a
devouring passion for Leandro. I protest I have no reason to think
she cares a button for anything but her own art. I never tried; but
it's my impression that if I had ever whispered a word in her ear I
should have got a flea in my own for my pains."

"You don't want to make us believe that you have been seeing her
frequently all this time,--passing hours with her a quattro occhi,
and have never made love to her, Ludovico?" said Farini.

"No; I don't want to make you believe don't care a straw whether
you, believe it or it is the fact for all that," returned Ludovico.

"Ludovico has enough on his hands in quarter. What would they say
about it in the Via Santa Eufemia if he were to bow down to new and
strange goddesses?" said Manutoli.

"That, if you please, Manutoli, we will not discuss either now or at
any other time," said Ludovico, with a look that showed he was in
earnest. "But, as for La Diva Bianca, I have no objection to tell
all I know to anybody. My belief is that she is as correct and
proper, and all that sort of thing, as a Vestal."

"Che!"

"Che!"

"Che!"

A chorus of protestations of incredulity in every tone of the gamut
met the monstrous assertion.

"What, after all we heard of her doings at Milan--after all the
histories of her goddess-ship in every city of Italy?" said
Manutoli.

"Well, what did we hear of her doings at Milan? The fact is, we know
nothing about the matter; and as to her previous history--of course
I don't suppose that she is, and always has been, a Diana; but it
may be that she has come to the time when she has thought it well to
turn over a new leaf. Such times do come to such women; but all I
know is, that I firmly believe that since she has been here she has
lived the life of a nun," said Ludovico, in the simple tone of a man
who is stating a truth which he has no interest in causing his
hearers to credit or discredit.

"Per Bacco, it's queer!" said Farini, slapping his hand against his
thigh. "I have heard," he continued in the tone of one speaking of
some strange and almost incredible monstrosity,--"I have heard of
such women taking a turn to devozione. It's not that with La Lalli,
is it?"

"Che! Nothing of the sort; she is as full of frolic as a kitten--up
to any fun. And she is a very clever woman, too, let me tell you--a
good deal of education. If you will put making love to her out of
your head, I never knew a woman who was pleasanter company," said
Ludovico.

"And you really mean that you have never tried to make love to her
in any way?" reiterated Manutoli.

"I do mean it, upon my soul; but I don't care a rap whether you
believe it or not," rejoined Ludovico.

"And you are with her very frequently?" persisted Manutoli.

"Yes, I have seen a good deal of her altogether. I like her; and I
fancy she likes me to go there; she seems to wish me to come.
Perhaps it is a novelty to her to have a man about her who doesn't
try to make love to her."

"The Marchese Lamberto sees her a good deal?"

"Yes; naturally. If it had not been for that I should probably never
have made acquaintance with her at all. Lo zio is continually there.
He ought to have been an impresario. In fact, he is the real
impresario. Little Ercole only does what my uncle tells him. I don't
believe she ever sings a note on the stage that he has not heard and
approved beforehand."

"Suppose he is the dark horse; suppose she is his mistress all this
time; and he takes care to keep her all to himself," said Manutoli.

"What, lo zio. Bah! I should have thought that you knew him better
than that, Manutoli. To him a woman is a voice, and nothing else. If
the same sounds could be got out of a flute or a fiddle he would
like it much better, and think it far more convenient. I don't think
my uncle Lamberto ever knew whether a woman was pretty or plain. I
wish to heaven he would get caught for once in his life; it would
suit my book very well. He would have less leisure to think of other
things."

The fact was that the Marchese had, in truth, had less leisure to
think of those other things from which Ludovico desired that his
attention should be drawn away. His visits to the Via Santa Eufemia
had been more frequent than ever; his visits to the Marchesa Anna
Lanfredi and her niece rarer than ever. And he had received neither
lectures nor remonstrances for a long time past. In truth, the
Marchese had his mind too full of other matters to think much of his
nephew's affairs or doings. And, besides that, there was a quite new
and hitherto unknown feeling in the heart of the Marchese Lamberto
which made him shrink from any such encounter with his nephew, as
remonstrances respecting his conduct with regard to Paolina would
have occasioned;--a feeling which made it seem to him that he was
the watched instead of the watcher; that suggested to him the fear
that the first word he might utter upon the subject would be met by
references to doings of his own.

An utterly unfounded fear. But so it is that conscience doth make
cowards of us all.



CHAPTER VII

Extremes Meet


The Marchese was uneasy in the presence of his nephew. But the fact
was that he was uneasy and unhappy altogether, and at all times.
From being one of the most placidly cheerful and contented of men,
he was becoming nervous, anxious, and restless. People began to
remark that the Marchese was beginning to look older. They had said
for years past that he had not grown a day older in the last ten
years. But this winter there was a change in him!

It did not occur to anybody to connect any change that was
observable either in the Marchese's manner or in his appearance,
with the frequency of his visits to the quartiere inhabited by the
prima donna and Signor Quinto Lalli, in the Strada di Porta Sisi.
The ordinary habits of the Marchese, and his functions as a patron
of the theatre and amateur impresario were so well known and
understood, that it seemed perfectly natural to all Ravenna that he
should be very frequently with the prima donna. And on the other
hand, the almost monastic regularity of his life, and his character
of long standing in such respects, would have made the notion that
he had any idea of flirting with the singer appear utterly absurd
and inadmissible to every man, woman, or child in the city, if it
had ever come into anybody's head.

The fact was, however, that the Marchese was much oftener in the
Strada di Porta Sisi than anybody guessed. Besides the morning
visits, which were patent to all the world, who chose to take heed
of them, the Marchese very frequently spent those evenings there,
when the "Diva" did not sing; slinking out of the Palazzo
Castelmare, and taking all sorts of precautions to prevent any human
being--nephew, servants, friends, or strangers--from guessing the
secret of these nocturnal walks.

Such precautions were very needless; if anybody had noticed the
Marchese Lamberto passing under the shadow of the eaves in any part
of the city after nightfall, it would only have been supposed that
he was bound on some mission of beneficence, or good work of some
sort! And if even it had become known to a few persons given to
prying into what did not concern them, that the Marchese Lamberto di
Castelmare was not more immaculate in his conduct than his
neighbours, the only result would have been a few jests which he
would have never heard, and a few sly smiles which be would have
never seen.

But the Marchese could not look at the matter in this light. He felt
as if his fall from the social eminence on which he stood would have
been as a moral earthquake in Ravenna. The idea that such jests and
such smiles could exist, however unseen and unheard, would have been
intolerable to him. And the Marchese was, accordingly, a miserable
man.

A miserable man, and he could not help himself! Each time that he
quitted the siren, the chain that bound him was drawn more tightly
around him. At each visit he drank deep draughts of the philtre,
that was poisoning the fountains of his life. Again and again he had
made a violent struggle to throw off the enchantment and be free.
And again and again the effort had been too great for his strength,
and he had returned like the scorched moth, which comes back again
and again to the fatal brightness, till it perishes in it.

In his hours of solitary self-examination he loathed and mocked
himself to scorn! He, Lamberto di Castelmare, to risk and to feel
humiliation, and to suffer for the love of a woman, whose light
affections had been given to so many! He, who had been smiled on by
many a high-born beauty in vain! Love! did he love her? Again and
again he told himself that what he felt for her was far more akin to
hate. He marvelled; he could not comprehend himself! He was often
inclined to believe that the old tales of philtres and of witchery
were not all false, and that he was in truth bewitched; and he
struggled angrily against the spell, and at such times hated the
beauty that had tangled him in it!

And in all this time Bianca had not yet ventured to show clearly her
real game. Nor had it yet occurred to the Marchese that such a
preposterous thought as that he could marry her could have entered
into her mind. Yet it was clear to him that he made no progress
towards making her his own upon any other terms. The alternations
between beckoning him on and warding him off had been managed with
such skill, that they appeared to be the result of the Diva's
internal struggle with her own inclinations. What was he to
understand by it? If she had been,--had always been--of unblemished
character! But it was not so; he knew better!

That her conduct at Ravenna had been correct was undeniable. Still,
even with regard to that, the Marchese was not spared the pangs of
jealousy, in addition to all the rest. Ludovico continued to
frequent the house in the Strada di Porta Sisi. It seemed, as he had
said at the Circolo, as if Bianca wished him to come there. In fact
he had spoken to the young men at the Circolo with perfect truth in
all respects as to his relations with the Diva. There had never been
any word of love-making or even flirting between them. Yet, in a
sort of way, she seemed to wish to be agreeable to him and to
attract him. But she never made any secret of his visits from the
Marchese, although it was unmistakable enough that it was
disagreeable to him to hear of them.

Had he been free from the spell himself he would have rather
rejoiced that his nephew had met with an attraction, which would be
likely to have the effect of making him faithless to Paolina. As it
was, it was an additional source of irritation to the Marchese,--
another drop of gall in his cup, to hear it constantly mentioned by
Bianca in the most innocent way in the world, that Ludovico had been
here with her, or there with her, or passing the morning with her!

It was drawing towards the end of the Carnival, which the late fall
of Easter had made rather a long one that year, when, on one
Saturday night, Bianca sat by her own fireside, expecting a visit
from the Marchese. She doubted not that he would come, though no
special appointment on the subject had been made between them. There
were few "off evenings" now, that he did not spend with her.
Saturday in most of the cities of Italy is, or was, an off night at
the theatre, being the vigil of the Sunday feast-day. The
ecclesiastical proprieties are less attended to now in matters
theatrical, as in other matters in Italy. But Saturday used, in
ante-revolutionary times, to be an evening on which actors and
actresses and their friends could always reckon for a holiday.

Bianca was sitting, exquisitely dressed, it need hardly be said, in
a style which combined with inimitable skill all the requirements of
the most strict propriety with perfect adaptation to the objects of
showing off every beauty of face, hair, hand, figure, foot to the
utmost, and attracting her expected visitor as irresistibly as
possible.

Quinto Lalli had been sent to enjoy himself at the Cafe, with
stringent directions not to return before he should have ascertained
that the Marchese had left the house, let the hour be as late as it
might.

Bianca meditated deeply, while she waited her lover's coming.

Her lover! yes, there was no doubt about that. Bianca had felt
perfectly assured that she was justified in considering the Marchese
as such on that first morning, when he had come to her an hour in
advance of the time appointed for his visit in company with the
impresario. But it was high time that some better understanding of
the footing on which they stood as regarded each other should be
arrived at.

Hitherto no direct proposals of any kind had been made to her by the
Marchese. He was not good at any such work. Any one of those
distinguished sons of paternal governments, who had constituted the
material of Bianca's experiences of that division of mankind, would
have long since said what he wanted, and have very clearly indicated
the terms on which he was willing to become the fortunate possessor
of the coveted article. And Bianca would have perfectly well known
how, under the present circumstances, to answer any such proposals,
as she had known under the other circumstances of past days. But the
Marchese made no proposals. What he wished, indeed, was abundantly
clear to her. But his mode of making it clear rendered the task of
dealing with him a somewhat difficult one.

Partially, Bianca understood the nature of the case. She was partly
aware why the Marchese was slow to say that which so many, whom she
had known, had made so little difficulty of saying. She understood
that, whatever his years might be, he was a novice at that business.
She comprehended that he was, in many respects, a younger man than
many a coulisse-frequenting youth whom she had known. But she was
far from conceiving any true notion of the Marchese's state of mind
on the subject. She was very far from imagining that he looked with
disgust and with terror at the position which she conceived him to
be but too ready to accept to-morrow, if only he knew how to ask for
it, or if it could be offered to him without his asking. She little
guessed that his feeling towards her oscillated between the maddest
desire and the fiercest hatred; that reveries, filled with pictured
imaginings and fevered recollections of her beauty, alternated with
the most violent efforts to cleanse his mind and imagination of the
thought of her.

She understood nothing of all this, and it was impossible that she
should understand it. In truth, she was innocent of any conduct
which could have justified such sentiments. Why should he hate her?
It was true that she sought to attract him,--true that she was
scheming to lead him to a point at which he might find it so
impossible to give her up, that, being well convinced that he could
have her on no other terms, he might offer her marriage. But was
there anything worse in that than men had been treated "since summer
first was leafy?" How many men had married women in her position--
women less capable of doing credit to the position to which they
were raised than she was? How many men had been treated in such
matters very much worse than she had any thought of treating him?
She fully proposed to make him a good and true wife, and fully
thought that she should do so. She was not deceiving him in any way.
She made the best of her past life--naturally; but was it to be for
a moment supposed that such a man as the Marchese could, or did,
imagine that she, Bianca Lalli, whose career, for the last eight
years, was known to all Italy, was in the position of a young
contessa just taken from her convent?

It is abundantly clear that there were difficulties in the way of
the desirable understanding being arrived at, greater than either
the lady was aware of, or than might usually be expected to attend
similar negotiations.

Bianca waited without impatience the coming of the Marchese. She was
a study for an artist as she lay perfectly still on her sofa,
turning the minutes of expectation to profit by arranging in her
mind her plan of attack in the coming battle; for she was thoroughly
determined that that evening should not pass without some progress
towards the understanding having been accomplished.

One lamp on the table alone lighted the small but comfortable-
looking room; but the flame was leaping cheerfully among the logs on
the hearth, and the sofa was so placed that the fitful light from
the fire glanced in a thousand capricious reflections on the Diva's
auburn hair and rich satin dress. It was black of the most lustrous
quality, and fitted her person with a perfection that showed the
shape of the bust, and the lithe suppleness of the slender waist to
the utmost advantage. The dress was made low on the superb
shoulders--the dazzling whiteness of which, as seen contrasted with
the black satin, was now covered with a slight silk scarlet shawl,--
a most artistic completion of the harmonious colouring of the
picture, which yet was not so fixed in its position as to be
prevented from falling from the snowy slopes. it veiled at the
smallest movement of them.

Presently the now well-known step and well-known tap at the door
were heard, and the Diva, without stirring a hair's-breadth from her
charmingly-chosen attitude, spoke, in a silver voice, the "Passi"
which admitted her visitor.



CHAPTER VIII

The Diva shows her Cards


"Ah, Signor Marchese," she said, with a sweet, but somewhat sad,
smile, extending to him a long, white, slender, nervous-looking,
ungloved hand, but not otherwise moving from her position. "Ah,
Signor Marchese, then I am not to be disappointed this evening? I
was beginning almost to fear that the fates were against me."

He advanced to the head of the sofa and took her hand, and held it
awhile, while he continued to stand there looking down from behind
her shoulder on the beautiful form as it lay there beneath his gaze-
-on the parting of the rich golden hair; on the snowy forehead; on
the still whiter neck; on the gentle heaving of the bosom beneath
its light veil of scarlet silk; on the tapering waist; on the
exquisitely-formed feet peeping in their black satin bottines from
beneath the extremity of her dress! It was all perfect: and the
Marchese held the soft warm hand that served as a conductor to the
stream of magnetic poison that seemed to flood his whole being as he
gazed.

For an instant all the room seemed to swim round with him. The blood
rushed to his brow. He shut his eyes, and a nervous crispation
caused the fingers of his hands to close themselves with such force,
that the grasp of that which held her little palm hurt her.

"Ah, my hand! you hurt my hand!" she said. "You don't know how you
squeezed it, you are so strong. You don't know the quantity of force
you put out!"

"Pardon--a thousand pardons, Signora! I am such a clumsy clown! Have
I really hurt you, Bianca?"

"Not to the death, Signor," she said, with a charming smile, and
holding up to him the injured member, shaking it as she let it
dangle from the slender wrist. "But see! it is really all blushing
red from the ardour of your hand's embrace!"

"Poor little hand!--indeed, it is!" said the Marchese, taking it
gently and tenderly between both of his; then, suddenly throwing
himself on his knees by the side of the sofa, while he still held
it, he said, "And how can the great cruel hand that did the harm
make fit amends?"

"Ah, Signor Marchese, it might find the way to do that, if it were
so disposed. It would not be so far to seek. But you are seeking in
the wrong direction," she continued, drawing herself back from him
on the sofa, as he, leaning forward against it, had brought himself
so near to her, that the back of the hand in which he held hers
touched her waist. "You are seeking amiss. It is not so that any
remedy can be found; and--pray rise, Signor, and take your usual
chair. This must not be,--I am sure you would not willingly give me
pain, Marchese, and you are paining me. Pray leave the sofa."

She had drawn herself back away from him as far as the breadth of
the sofa would allow, yet without withdrawing her hand from him; and
she looked at him certainly more in sorrow than in anger,--looked
into his face earnestly with grave, sad eyes, and heaved a long sigh
as he, after pressing the hurt hand to his lips, rose from his knees
and took the chair she had pointed to.

"Pain you, Bianca?" he said, as he sat down; "why should I pain you?
You do me no more than justice when you say that I would not do so
willingly; but have you thought how much pain you inflict on me by
thus keeping me at a distance from you? I think you must know that.
Is there aught to offend you in anything that I have done, or said,
or hoped, or wished?"

"I think, Signor Marchese," she said, dropping her large eyes
beneath their long fringes, and looking adorably lovely as she did
so, "I am afraid that what you have wished is--what some might deem
offensive to a lady."

And as she spoke she looked out furtively from behind her eyelashes.

"Bianca, is that reasonable?" he said, in a tone of remonstrance.
"Diamine, let us talk common sense; we are not children. Have you
always found such wishes as mine offensive in others?"

"Yes, always--always offensive, always cruel," she said, with
extreme energy; "but--can you not understand, Signor Marchese,--can
you not conceive that what from one man passes and makes no mark,
and leaves no sting, may from another--What cared I what all the
empty-headed young fops who came in my way could say or do; they
were nothing to me. But--I did not expect pain from the Marchese
Lamberto di Castelmare. I--I thought--I hoped--I--I flattered
myself--fool, idiot fool that I have been!" she exclaimed, bursting
into violent sobs, and hiding her face with her hands.

The Marchese was startled and utterly taken aback for a minute or
two. He was genuinely at a loss to interpret the cause or the
meaning of the lady's emotion. His puzzled embarrassment did not,
however, prevent him from seeing that she looked, if possible, more
fascinatingly beautiful in her grief and her tears than he had ever
before seen her. And, again, despite what she had said, he knelt
down by the side of the sofa, and gently removing her hands from
before her face, murmured in her ear,--

"Bianca, what is it--what is moving you so? Don't you know that you
are dear to me;--that I would--Don't you know that I would do
anything to be agreeable to you rather than give you any sorrow or
pain? What is there within my power that I would not do? Bianca,--
let me tell you--let me speak the truth--I cannot keep it in my own
heart any longer--I love you! You have come to be all that I care
for in the world. Bianca, do you hear me? For your love I would
sacrifice all,--everything in the world; I die without it; I must
have it--I must! You have been loved before; but never as I love
you--never, never! And, Bianca, I--I--Bianca, you are my first love-
-my only love. Never, till I saw you, did I care to look on a woman
for a second time; I never felt love. But, when I saw you--the first
time--the first hour--Bianca, I must have your love or die; I
thirst--I hunger for it. Since I have known you all my nature is
changed; all my old life is flat and unmeaning, and without interest
to me. I care for none of the things I used to care for; all--all
has melted and slipped away from me, and nothing remains but one
great devouring rage and passion--my love for you!"

He had spoken like a torrent, which, for a long time dammed up, at
last becomes too powerful for restraint, and bursts forth,
overthrowing all obstacles with its headlong flood.

Bianca turned her face away from him towards the back of the sofa;
but she slowly, and with an uncertain intermittent movement, drew
his hand over to her lips, and pressed it against them.

A light came into the Marchese Lamberto's eyes;--a gleam almost, one
would have said, rather fierce than fond, as he felt the pressure of
her lips; and a shock as from an electric spark ran through all his
body, making him quiver from head to heel.

"Bianca, Bianca! You are mine--you are mine!" he cried, pantingly,
with his mouth close to her ear, and encircling her waist, as he
spoke, with the hand which she had relinquished after she had kissed
it in the manner that had been described.

But she sprang away from him, pushing him from her, by putting her
flat hand against his forehead, with her face still turned towards
the back of the sofa, away from him.

"No, no, no!" she cried, violently; "it cannot be, not so--not so! I
cannot--I cannot!"

"Bianca," he cried, starting to his feet as if he had been stung;
"what does this mean? What am I to understand? What is it you wish?
You know my position. I tell you that there is no sacrifice that I
am not willing to make. I am rich; name what you would wish."

"Spare me--spare me, I deserve all; but spare me! I deserve to
suffer, but not at your band," she cried, in words interrupted by
her sobs.

"Spare you what, Bianca? In truth, I do not understand you," said
the Marchese, genuinely mystified.

"Do you not understand?" she said, turning round on the sofa, so as
to face him, and looking into his face with those great appealing
eyes suffused with tears; "do you not understand? Can you not
comprehend? A woman would understand, I think; but I suppose men
feel these things differently."

"Upon my honour, Bianca, I do not know what you mean. Every word I
have spoken to you has been spoken from the very depth of my heart.
I am ready to--"

"Hush, hush, Marchese! No more of that; I could not bear it," she
said, with a great sigh that seemed as if it would burst her bosom;
"it is very--very painful to me; but I must endeavour to bring your
heart to understand me,--it must be your heart, Lamber--your heart,
Signor Marchese; for one does not arrive at the understanding of
such things with the head. See, now, I will put myself in the place
I deserve to occupy--in the dust at your feet! You may trample on
me, if you will. I say I have deserved the shame and the misery I am
now suffering. I deserve them because I have no right to resent the-
-the--the proposals which you--wish to make to me. I have suffered
much from calumny and evil tongues--much from unhappy circumstances
and evil surroundings. Yet it may be that I-have--more right to--
resent--what--I have heard from you than you imagine. But let that
pass. You know--or think you know--that I have accepted from others
that which I have said I cannot accept from you; and you cannot
imagine why this should be so. Oh, Marchese, does your heart lend
you no aid to the understanding of it? What were those men,--those
empty creatures whose gold could not repay the disgust occasioned by
their presence, what were they to me? Did they love--pretend even to
love--me? Did I love them? Love! Alas, alas, alas! Ah, Marchese, a
poor girl exposed to the world, as I have been from my cradle
upwards, has to suffer much that might well move the pity of a
generous heart; but it is nothing--nothing--nothing to the tragedy
of the misery, the shame, the remorse that comes upon her when at
last the day shall come that her heart speaks and shows to her the
awful chasm--the immeasurable gulf that separates such--I cannot,
Lamber--pardon, I don't know what I am saying; I cannot go on--I
cannot put it into words! Do not you--cannot you understand the
difference?"

"I do understand, Bianca mia; povera anima sofferente--I do
understand. Do you imagine that I would judge you harshly--severely?
I know too well all that you would say; I know the difficulties, the
impossibilities of your position. Do you think that I cannot make
allowances for all the fatalities attending on such a combination of
circumstances? And, trust me, the difference between what has been,
and what I so earnestly hope may be now, is greater,--I feel it to
be greater, not less than you can feel it to be. Truly there is
nothing in common between the all-devouring passion which consumes
me, and--such love-vows as you have spoken of. Do I not understand
the difference. And remember, Bianca, dearest, that the protection I
offer you would be the means of placing you out of the reach,--far
out of the reach of any such disgusts,--such suffering for the
future."

Bianca let her head fall on her bosom, and covered her face with her
hands, and remained silent for some moments. Then, lifting her face
slowly, and shaking her head, she sighed deeply as she looked with a
wistful earnest glance into his eyes; she said,--

"You are good,--you are,--very good and kind to me; perhaps it might
have been better for my happiness if you had been less so. But bear
with me yet a little, Signor Marchese. Sit down there,--there where
I can see your face,"--pointing, as she spoke, to a spot exactly in
face of the sofa,--"and let me see if I can explain myself to you.
It is difficult; it is very difficult. A woman, as I said, would
understand it at once; but men--are so different. You have told me,
Signor Marchese, that you love me; that you never loved before; that
I am the first woman who has ever moved your heart. Eh, bene, Signor
Marchese! If I, having heard those protestations, were to confess
that--that it was with me even as with you,"--she dropped her eyes
and sighed as she made the confession;--"that I, too--that you have
taught me now for the first time what it is to love,--though I might
speak it less eloquently than you have done, the words would be
equally true,--equally true, Signor," she repeated, slowly nodding
her head. "And when I have confessed that it is so," she continued,
speaking more rapidly, "can you wonder--can you not understand that
it is impossible to me--that it would be a horror unspeakable to--to
renew with the object of a true love--the first--the first, as God
sees my heart--the degradation that has left nothing but bitterness
and humiliation behind it? Shall the name of Lamberto di Castelmare
be written in my memory in the hateful list of those who have been
to me the occasion of remorse, of self-condemnation, of bitterness
immeasurable? Never, never, never! Come what may there shall be one
pure place in my heart; one unsoiled spot in my life; one ever-dear
remembrance unlinked with sorrow and with shame; one memory which,
however sad, shall not be humiliating."

She put her handkerchief to her eyes as she ceased speaking, and
appeared to be entirely overcome by her emotion.

The Marchese rose from his chair in a state of hardly less
agitation. He walked across the room;--returned to the sofa, and
seemed for a moment as if he were going to take her hand; then
turned away, and stood on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire.
He was much moved, puzzled, pained, disappointed,--goaded and lashed
more violently than ever by the furies of passion; more than ever
wishing that he had never seen the beautiful creature lying there
before him, and more than ever writhing in mind under the
consciousness that to give her up was beyond his power.

At length he again stepped up to the side of the sofa and took her
hand.

She started; and plucked it from him.

"Go, Signor Marchese--go, and leave me. It would perhaps be better
so for both of us. I am not used to show to anybody the very inmost
secrets of my heart, as I have been doing to you,--I know not why.
Forget what I have said. Go, and forget me;--forget the poor
comedian to whom your goodness, your nobleness, and--your love--
seemed for a passing minute to open a blessed glimpse of a heaven
upon earth; but never--never again propose to me to associate the
name of Lamberto di Castelmare with names that I would--oh, so fain-
-forget!"

Still the Marchese had not realized the nature of the position or
seen the only outlet from the cul-de-sac into which he had been
driven. It involved too monstrous an impossibility to seem to him to
be an outlet at all. What was the real meaning of all this? Then
suddenly an in-rushing suspicion flashed across his mind like a
blasting lightning brand, bringing with it a sharp pang, as of a
dagger stab in the heart. What was the meaning of all these
protestations of admiration and affection, coupled with a denial of
all that his passion drove him there in search of? Did it perchance
mean that this woman, so terrible in the power of her beauty, so
dangerously irresistible, would fain have the protection which his
position could give her, the supplies which might be drawn from his
purse, while her love--such love as he wanted from her--would be
given to a younger rival?

Suddenly he asked her, "When was the Marchese Ludovico here last?"

"The Marchese Ludovico?" said Bianca, carelessly; "oh, he is often
here. When last? Let me see: he was here this morning. As good and
noble a gentleman as any in Italy he is, too. He is worthy to bear
your name, Marchese, though it is only a poor girl like me that says
it."

"He seems to have won your good will, anyhow," said the Marchese,
frowning heavily. "What answer, I wonder, would he get if he were to
speak to you as I spoke just now?"

"He would never speak so, Signor Marchese; he would know that,
whatever might have been the case in past years, alas! it would be
useless or worse to speak so now. I do not say, indeed, that--I have
a sincere regard for the Marchese Ludovico. This much you may be
very sure of, Marchese, that the feelings which you have surprised
me into confessing would make it quite impossible for me to listen
to any such words from the Marchese Ludovico. But, if ever the
Marchese Ludovico were to say any word in my ear,--it would not be,"
continued Bianca, dropping her voice and speaking as if more to
herself than to him--"it would not be to offer me what his uncle was
offering me just now."

And now it flashed upon the Marchese for the first time what the
real drift of Bianca's words and conduct had been. She wanted to be
Marchesa di Castelmare. And the meaning of her last words, with
their reticences and their half-uttered expressions spoken out at
length might, he thought, be read thus: If you, Marchese Lamberto,
do not make me Marchesa di Castelmare, your nephew will be ready
enough to do so. The scandal, the wrong done to the family name, the
chatter of all the tongues in Ravenna will be none the less. The
matter would be, indeed, worse instead of better. For it would
involve the grave injury that would be done to the Lady Violante,
and the destruction of all the hopes built upon that alliance. All
this seemed to be revealed to him as by a lightning flash. But the
pang of jealousy, which had stung his heart, still remained the
foremost and most prominent occupation of his mind.

"If you imagine, Bianca," he said after a while, "that my nephew
would, or could, however much he might wish to do so, make any other
kind of proposal to you, you are labouring under a delusion. I speak
in all sincerity of heart"

"And I have spoken to you, God knows, with all sincerity, Signor
Marchese. I have spoken as I have never before spoken to any human
being. I have opened my heart to you to the very bottom of it. But
the effort of doing so has been a painful one. It has terribly
overset me; I feel like a wrung-out rag; and would fain rest. You
will not be offended if I ask you to leave me now. It is getting
late, too; and I expect my father home every instant. Good-night,
Signor Marchese. Forgive me if I have said aught that I should not
have said; if I have in any way offended you. I think you know how
far the wish to do so is from my heart. Good-night."

"Good-night, Bianca," said the Marchese, taking the hand she held
out to him, and retaining it in his own for some instants, despite
his intention of specially abstaining from any demonstration of the
kind--"Good-night, Bianca. We shall meet to-morrow morning."

"Yes, on business," said Bianca, looking up into his face with a sad
smile. "Signor Ercole said he should be here at midday."

And then the Marchese left her, and, carefully shunning the more
frequented parts of the city, returned to his own home.



CHAPTER IX

One Struggle more


The Marchese reached the Palazzo Castelmare unobserved by any one,
save old Quinto Lalli, who had been for some time past watching the
door of his adopted daughter from a neighbouring corner, in order to
ascertain when he might go home to his bed without infringing the
order that had been given him.

"And what do you think of it now, papa mio?" said the Diva, when she
had very faithfully, though summarily, recounted the scene which had
just passed, to her old friend and counsellor.

"Well, I see no reason to despair of the result," said Quinto. "You
did not expect him to jump at the idea of making you Marchesa di
Castelmare, I suppose? Of course he was a little staggered; and,
probably, his own notion at this moment is, that he would rather
never see your face again, than dream of such a thing. Ma, ci vuol
pazienza! My notion is, that you will have him nibbling at the hook
again before long. That little hint about the nephew was masterly.
Depend upon it that will do its work."

"But, Quinto, I did not say a word to him that was not true--hardly
a word. I do like him better, by an hundred times, than any other
man I ever knew; and if I succeed, you see if I do not make him a
good wife; I swear I will! As for Signor Ludovico, that is all trash
and nonsense. He belongs to his Venetian, body and soul: and he has
enough to think of, poor boy, in scheming to get out of the marriage
they have planned for him."

"What! he wants to marry the Venetian, does he?" asked Quinto.

"Yes; they have engaged themselves to each other; she would not hear
of anything else."

"Lord bless me! how moral and respectable the world is growing. I
suppose Cupid himself will be attended by a gentleman in cassock and
bands before long, and Mars will make Venus an honest woman, as the
phrase goes. Well, I am not sorry I had my day in the old time. It
would be rare fun, though, if these grand Signori, the uncle and the
nephew, were both to be hooked in the same fashion at the same
time."

"There is nothing against the character of the Venetian of any
sort," said Bianca, with a sigh.

"Ta, ta, ta! I'd back your chance of the uncle against her chance of
the nephew, any day of the week."

"Ludovico is solemnly engaged to her."

"I'd hold to my bet, all the same for that; and now let's get to
bed, you have to sing to-morrow night."

"Yes, and I'm regularly tired out; good-night."

The Marchese Lamberto was probably hardly less in need of rest, when
he reached the Palazzo Castelmare. But he did not equally feel that
it was within his reach. He shut himself into his room; and throwing
himself into an easy chair, with one hand pressed to his fevered
brow, strove to think; set himself to think out the possibilities of
the present, and the prospects of the future, as far as the blinding
volcano bursts of passion, which ever and anon threatened to sweep
all power of thought away, would permit him to do so.

So this was the meaning of all the difficulties, which Bianca had
made. She had absolutely conceived the idea of his marrying her.
Heavens and earth! Was she mad? But, at all events, if this notion
had been the cause of all her fighting off of his advances for the
last month past, it was not necessary to attribute her conduct to
any preference for some more favoured lover; she had assured him
that she loved him--loved him as she had never loved another. And,
gracious heaven, how lovely she looked as she said it!

He pressed his hands before his eyes, and saw again in fancy the
beautiful vision; gloated on the eloquent movement of her person in
the earnestness of her confession; looked again into those large
appealing honest eyes, which seemed to be so incapable of lending
their voucher to a lie. Surely it could not be that all those
protestations and assurances were false,--mere comedy got up for the
purpose of deluding him. That she was worldlily anxious to secure so
great a prize as that which she was trying for was natural enough--
was matter of course. But surely, surely there was genuine affection
in that glance. Was it not likely to be genuine,--that feeling that
she could not be to him what she had been to others? It must have
been abundantly clear to her that had she chosen to accept from him
what he had offered her, she might have amply satisfied any
mercenary views, the most exorbitant. Therefore her views and her
feelings were of a different order.

And then the thought of being so loved by such a creature--of being
really loved for himself--loved as she had never loved before, made
for the moment all other thought impossible to him: he started from
his chair, and paced the room with rapid disordered strides. What
was all the world to the ecstasy of such a love? All--all that he
had hitherto lived for, was it not flat, stale, poor, puerile, in
comparison to it? Why not leave all, and seize a happiness so
infinitely greater than any he had ever known or imagined? Why not
marry her, and be hers for ever, as she was anxious to be his?
Nobles of higher rank than his had done as much before. Why not?

What would they all say and think? All his world, that he had lived
among, and lived for, from his cradle upwards: the Cardinal, his
sister, his nephew, Violante? The whole society which had looked up
to him as some one altogether above the sphere of human frailties
and follies: how could he face them? What say to them? Why face them
at all? Why not leave all, and make a new world for himself and the
one dear companion of it? Marry her, and take her safe away from all
her past, and from all his. Why not?

But would she consent to that? Would that be her idea of a marriage
with the Marchese di Castelmare? Was it not likely that she would
prefer to be Marchesa di Castelmare in the Palazzo Castelmare,--in
Ravenna, where--ha!--where Ludovico was, for whom she had so much
regard? who was so frequently with her. That poor Violante! Of
course he knew that there could be no love between her and his
nephew. Ludovico had promised that that marriage should be made. Ay,
marry the uncle, to be the nephew's mistress with all convenience!
Such things had often been; there was nothing new in the
arrangement--nothing original in the idea--why, the very stage was
full of such examples: he to be the old duped husband of the farce;
he saw it all.

And as these thoughts also suggested themselves to his mind, his
heart seemed as though it were clutched by a hand of ice, while his
brow throbbed and his head burned with the pulsing blood.

He threw himself on to his chair again, and tore his hair with rage
and anguish; and all those vivid and palpitating love-representations
which passion had but now painted on the retina of his eye, were
reproduced by jealousy with the difference that Ludovico instead of
himself was the actor in them.

It was maddening; his brain seemed to reel; a cold sweat broke out
all over him. The fear dashed across his mind that he should really
lose his reason.

Was there, he thought to himself, as the terror of this made him
shudder--was there that night in all Ravenna so miserable a being as
himself? And that miserable man, cowering there in the restlessness
of his agony, was the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare; he whose
whole life had been one placid scene of happiness, prosperity, and
content. Never had he known a passion strong enough and forbidden
enough to cause him a pang or a sleepless hour till now. Had not his
life been happy? What did he want with more? Ah, if he could but
blot out for ever all that the last month had brought with it. If he
could but be again as he had been before this woman had cast her
sorcery on him. Ah, would to God that his eyes had never seen her!

Was it yet too late? Could he not even now tear her from his mind,
shut his eyes to the recollection of her, so command his imagination
that it should never again present the image of her to his fancy?

And thereupon forthwith uncommanded fancy was busy with every detail
of the beauties that had so made him their slave. The line of the
neck and shoulder which he had looked down on as he stood at the
sofa head; all the white ivory from the fresh innocent rosy little
ear to the swell of the curves about the bosom; the intoxicating
perfume from the heavy tresses of the hair; the lithe slender waist,
round and yielding; the slight nervous hands, the touch of whose
fingers fired the blood, as a match fires gunpowder; the exquisite
feet; and, oh God! that face, whose every feature, as he last looked
on it, was harmonized in an expression of love.

Quite still he sate for some minutes, conscious of nothing save the
pictures which memory was passing before his eye. Then suddenly,
with a bound, he sprang from his chair, and away from it, and beat
his head against the opposite wall of the large room.

"Fool, fool; enslaved, besotted idiot! I am lost, spelled; the
victim of sorcery I cannot fight against. What am I to do, what am I
to do? Surely I can keep my steps from going near her. If I were to
swear now that I will never set eyes on her more?"

And then he recollected that it was impossible for him even to seek
that means of safety without giving rise to all kinds of
observations, and wonder, and speculation in the city. He was to see
the prima donna on the following day. His habits in such matters,
well known to all the town, brought him into frequent contact with
Bianca, as with other ladies who had been similarly engaged in
Ravenna. What would be thought, or guessed, or said, if he were
suddenly to refuse to hold any further communication with her?

And would he not thus be simply leaving the coast all free to his
nephew? To be sure. There, there, he could see it all. And that was
the worst hell of all. Anything, anything was preferable to that.
Come what would that should never, never, never be. Rather--rather
anything. He gnashed his teeth, and clenched his hand; and a sudden
agony of hatred for both Bianca and his nephew seemed to steal like
a snake into his heart, and maddened him.

And thus the miserable man passed the greater part of the night in
useless strugglings with the bonds that bound him.

It was near morning before he crept, still sleepless, but utterly
worn out, to his bed.

He did sleep, exhausted as he was, after awhile; but it was only to
see again in dreams all that he had so bitterly wished that he had
never seen at all. Sometimes he was himself by Bianca's side,
licensed to revel to the full in her every charm. And then the dream
would change. It was Ludovico he saw in her white arms; and he
started from his fevered sleep bathed in perspiration and quivering
in every limb.

The next morning he was, in truth, quite ill enough to have
furnished a very sufficient and unsuspected excuse for not going to
meet the impresario at Bianca's house according to appointment. He
thought at first that he would do so. But as the time drew near, he
dragged himself from his bed, haggard, fevered, and looking very
ill, and crawled to the appointed meeting.




BOOK IV

The last Days of the Carnival



CHAPTER I

In the Cardinal's Chapel


Paolina was industriously pursuing her task in the chapel of the
Cardinal's palace. Ludovico was not so frequently with her there as
he had been while she was at work in San Vitale. But there were
evident reasons why this was necessarily the case. The chapel in
question is a private one, and is accessible only by passing through
a portion of the Cardinal's residence. At San Vitale Ludovico needed
to take nobody into his confidence, when he climbed to Paolina's
scaffolding to be by her side while she worked, save the old
sacristan. But to have joined her at her work in the Cardinal's
palace, he must have knocked at the door of the residence, and told
the servants what he wanted.

And that would have been obviously inconvenient, even without
mentioning the fact that the Lady Violante, to whom the gentleman
ought to have been addressing himself, passed much of her time at
the palace, and might very possibly have been met by him there.

It was true that, ever since the ball at the Castelmare palazzo, on
the second day of the year, Ludovico had felt pretty nearly sure
that Violante was as desirous of escaping from the marriage which
had been arranged as he was himself. But it did not at all follow
that it would be an easy matter to break it off. Of course it was
not to be expected that Violante herself could take any active step
towards refusing to fulfil the promise that her family had made for
her. That would be for him to do. And except as regarded his
intercourse with the lady, and her personal feelings, the task of
doing so was hardly rendered any the easier by the knowledge that he
would be consulting her wishes as well as his own.

It would hardly, therefore, have done in any way for him to have
been visiting the young artist in the Cardinal Legate's chapel.

The intercourse, however, between Ludovico and Paolina was much
pleasanter and more unrestrained than it had been before that
explanation, which had ensued between them. He was a frequent
visitor at the house in the Via di Sta. Eufemia in the evening; and
the happy hours were passed by them on the perfectly understood
footing of mutual betrothal.

And Ludovico was perfectly honest and sincere in all that he said to
Paolina. He said nothing to her that he did not equally say to
himself. And if his conduct under the circumstances was not exactly
what a father or brother of Paolina might have desired it to be, the
fault arose from the indecision of character, which belonged to a
weak man accustomed to self-indulgence. There was difficulty and
annoyance before him; and instead of meeting it, as a strong man
would have done, he turned from it, and was content to put off the
evil day, contenting himself with the enjoyment of that which was
passing. He marvelled somewhat at the ease, with which he was
permitted to pass evening after evening with his mistress,--at the
absence of surveillance, of which he was conscious,--and at the
silence of his uncle as to both his visits to Via di Sta. Eufemia,
and his no visits to the Lady Violante. But he troubled himself
little to account for this, or to question the reason of the goods
the gods provided him. It was not in his character to do so.
Paolina, on her side, was, upon the whole, trustful and contented.
Yet there had been moments at which she had suffered a passing pang
from little gossipings which had been, perhaps injudiciously,
repeated to her by Orsola Steno. Of course the great prima donna,
the celebrated Lalli, who was blessing Ravenna by her presence, was
often talked of in the Via di Sta. Eufemia, as she was in every
other house in the city. That was quite a matter of course. And then
Orsola would speak of the strict conduct of the lady; of the fact
that no one of the young nobles of the place was permitted to visit
her--except, indeed, the young Marchese Ludovico; and how people did
say that half-a-dozen would be safer company than one; and that the
young Marchese was finishing the sowing of his wild oats before
becoming a married man by a flirtation with one of the most
celebrated beauties of Italy.

There was very little cause for this gossip beyond what the reader
is aware of. Still, upon the whole, it might have been better if
Ludovico had seen less of the fascinating singer. He had given cause
enough for spiteful tongues to make mischief if they could do so;
and it may probably be supposed that he was not insensible to the
fascinations of Bianca--perhaps not to the glory of the fact that he
was the only young man admitted to her society, and that he had
occasionally done that which, being repeated, might not unnaturally
give umbrage to Paolina.

It was now within ten days or so of the end of Carnival; and, while
almost everybody else was amusing themselves in some way or other,
Paolina stuck close to her work in the chapel, intent on her silent
and solitary task, while, from time to time, the voices of revellers
in the streets would reach her in her seclusion.

But all her hours of work there had not passed in utter solitude.

The Contessa Violante was in the habit of spending much of her time
in the palace of her great-uncle the Cardinal Legate. It presented,
among other advantages, that of being pretty well the only place in
which she could escape for awhile from the companionship of the
Signora Assunta Fagiani, her duenna. Certainly, it would not have
been consistent with that lady's conception of her duty to allow her
charge to visit any other house whatever in the city, without the
protection of her companionship, but the palace of a Cardinal
Legate--and that Legate her great-uncle. Besides that, her great-
aunt, the Cardinal's sister, was also often at her brother's
residence; and, having this facility close at hand, Violante was
wont very frequently to avail herself of the privacy, comfort, and
warmth of her uncle's chapel for the morning's devotions, which she
never missed.

One morning she found a small portable scaffold or estrade of deals
standing in one corner of the chapel; and, on inquiring for what
purpose it had been placed there, she was told that it was to enable
an artist to make a copy of some of the mosaics on the vault of the
little apartment. She learned further that the artist in question
was a young Venetian lady: that she was a protegee of the Marchese
Lamberto; and that the permission to execute the copies in question,
and to have that scaffolding placed there, had been obtained by him.

Then Violante knew right well who the Venetian artist was. The
worthy Assunta Fagiani had taken care that all the gossip of Ravenna
which connected this girl's name with that of Ludovico di Castelmare
should reach her ears. And she was glad of the easy opportunity
which thus offered itself to her of gratifying her natural curiosity
respecting the stranger--the girl who could win that love which had
been promised to her; but which she had been unable to inspire.

This Paolina Foscarelli--she well knew her name--was, in some sense,
her rival. Ludovico di Castelmare was bidden to love her, the
Contessa Violante, and instead of doing so, had given his love, as
she had been assured, to this Venetian. She knew, indeed, quite well
that had the stranger never come near Ravenna, Ludovico would not
have loved her the more. She did not love Ludovico. She was anxious
to be quit of the engagement it had been proposed to make between
them; and it might be very likely that this girl might be
serviceable to her, rather than otherwise, in helping to bring about
such a consummation.

Nevertheless, there was a certain amount of bitterness--such
bitterness, more akin to self-depreciation, as could find place in
the gentle heart of Violante--in the thought of what might have
been; in the thought that she was irrevocably excluded from that
which it had been so easy for this poor stranger artist to attain;
and, above all, there was a strong curiosity to see the beauty which
had accomplished this; to hear the voice which had been able to
charm; and, further, in her own interest, to ascertain, if that
should be possible, whether the tie which she had been told existed
between this girl and the man who had been assigned to her for a
husband, was, or was not, of a nature likely to lead to a marriage
between them.

At first sight this would have seemed impossible to the aristocratic
notions of the Cardinal Legate's niece. But Assunta Fagiani, whose
object had been simply to convince Violante that no union between
herself and Ludovico would ever take place, despite all appearances
to the contrary, had given her to understand that it was whispered
as a thing not impossible--such was Ludovico's infatuation--that he
might even go the length of making such an alliance.

One morning, soon after the commencement of her work in the chapel,
whither she had been escorted on her first going thither by the
Marchese Lamberto himself in person, in accordance with his promise,
Violante, on entering the chapel, saw that the little scaffold had
been pulled out from its corner and placed immediately under one of
the medallion portraits of the Apostles, on the vault of the
building. She looked up, and perceiving the artist above her at her
work, paused, hesitating before kneeling at the footstool in front
of the altar.

In an instant a light step tripped down the steps of the wooden
erection, and a little figure, clad in a brown holland frock, which
wrapped it from head to foot, stood by her side.

Paolina knew very well who the lady that had entered the chapel was:
and, as may be easily imagined, she too was not without her share of
curiosity.

"Do I disturb you, Signorina?" said Paolina, in a sweet, gentle
voice. "If you would prefer it, I will wait till you have finished
your prayer. I can kneel here too the while."

Violante looked at the girlish face, bright not only with the
elements of material beauty, but with the animation of intelligence
and the informing expression of talent. One would have said that
nothing could well be less becoming than such a long shapeless
wrapper as that which the artist wore. There was the band at the
waist, which showed that the figure was slight and slender; but, for
the rest, a less ornamental costume could not well be imagined.
Nevertheless, Violante perfectly well perceived and understood at a
glance that this girl had what she had not--a something by virtue of
which it was possible for her to win a man's love, while for herself
it was, or seemed to her appreciation of herself, impossible.

"Oh, no, Signorina," answered Violante, gently, "the knowledge that
you were painting up there would not suffice to distract my
thoughts. But will you not let me look at your work? It must be very
difficult to copy these strange old wall-paintings. May I climb up?
I know your friend the Marchese Lamberto well. Do you know who I
am?"

"Pray, come up, Signorina, if you have any curiosity. Oh, yes, I
know your ladyship. I saw you once in the Cardinal's carriage. You
are his niece, the Contessa Violante," replied Paolina, blushing a
little at the name of the Marchese Lamberto, only because, though
assuredly not the rose, he lived close to it.

So the two girls climbed the steps of the estrade together.

"How came you to know the Marchese Lamberto?" asked Violante, after
they had matured their acquaintanceship by a little talk about the
subject of Paolina's work.

"Only because the Englishman, who employed me to copy these mosaics,
gave me a letter to him. He seems to be very highly esteemed."

"More so than any other man in all Ravenna,--except my uncle the
Cardinal, I suppose I ought to say; he is a most excellent man in
all ways. But you know his nephew also, the Marchese Ludovico? non e
vero?" said Violante, looking down on the ground, while a pale blush
came over her white cheeks.

"Yes," replied Paolina, flushing crimson, and similarly looking
down, but stealing a side-glance under her eyelashes at her
companion,--"yes; I became acquainted with him also in the same
manner--at least, on the same occasion; and, in truth, I have seen
more of him than of his uncle, for the Marchese Lamberto is always
so busy, and he commissioned his nephew to do all that he could to
assist us, when we were first settling ourselves here."

"And you found him kind, too; as kind as his uncle?" said Violante,
stealing a sidelong glance at Paolina.

"Yes, indeed, Signorina," said she, feeling not a little
embarrassment.

"Paolina--you see I know your name, and I think it such a pretty
one--Paolina," said the Contessa Violante, yielding to a sudden
impulse, and taking the hand of the blushing girl, who kept her eyes
fixed on the ground, "shall we be friends, and speak openly to each
other? I should like to."

"Oh, Signorina! so should I, so much. There is nothing I should like
so much--almost nothing," replied Paolina, looking up into her face,
with her own still crimson.

"Tell me, then, if you ever heard my name mentioned in connection
with that of the Marchese Ludovico?" said Violante, looking with a
rather sad and subdued, but yet arch, smile into Paolina's eyes.

"Yes, Signorina, I have so heard," said Paolina, raising her head
with a proud movement, and looking, with well-opened eyes and clear
brow, into Violante's face as she spoke. "I have heard that it was
intended by both your families that you and the Marchese Ludovico
should be married."

"Yes; everybody in Ravenna, I believe, expects to see such a
marriage before long; do you? We are to be friends, you know, and
speak frankly to each other; do you expect it, Paolina?" asked
Violante, still holding her hand, and looking with a smile, half
shrewd, half sad, into her face.

Paolina remained silent a minute or two, again dropping her clear
honest eyes to the ground. Then raising them again, she said in an
almost whispered voice, but looking straight at her companion,

"No, Signorina, I do not expect that; for he has promised to marry
me."

"Ah--h! it is a relief to hear you say so. My dear Paolina, I am so
glad," said the elder girl, putting a hand on each of Paolina's
shoulders, and kissing her on the forehead--"I am so glad; much for
your own sake, somewhat, too, for his, and much for my own sake.
For, Paolina, I could not marry Ludovico. If he asked me to do so,
it would be only done in obedience to the will of his uncle. He does
not--no, 'tis no fault of yours, my child--never has loved me."

"Signora, when first I--allowed him to teach me to love him, I knew
nothing of any duty that he owed elsewhere. And when I did know it I
determined, even if it should break my heart, to refuse any such
love as should have been stolen from a wife," said Paolina.

"That was the part of a good and honest girl. And for me, I have to
thank you for it. Paolina, I hope you may be happy. We shall often
meet here, shall we not?"

"Not often here, Signora. My task here is not a long one; and I hope
by the end of Carnival to have finished it, so that I may go to St.
Apollinare, outside the town, where I have to make several copies.
It is very desirable not to go there later; because when the warm
weather comes it becomes so unhealthy there."

"Yes; but we have some days yet before the end of the Carnival; and
till then you will be at work every day here?"

"Si, Signora; I hope so."

"Then I hope we shall have several more opportunities of seeing each
other. And now I must not keep you from your work any longer. Shall
we be friends?"

"Oh, Signorina; it is too good of you to ask me, a poor artist. And
when--it would be my greatest pride to have such a friend."

And then the girls kissed and parted: Violante to kneel for her
daily devotions, at the footstool before the altar; and Paolina to
continue her copying. And after that they had frequent meetings in
the little chapel, and learned to become fast friends.

The Carnival was now drawing near its end; and the city had been
promised that before the time of cakes and ale should be over, and
that of sackcloth and ashes should begin, the divine prima donna
should appear in one more new part. And, after much deliberation and
debate, it had been decided that this should be Bellini's
masterpiece, La Sonnambula. She was to sing it on one night only--
the last Sunday of the Carnival; and the attraction on that night
was proportionably great. The Sonnambula, then in the first blush of
its immense popularity, had never yet been heard in Ravenna. It was
one of the favourite parts of the Diva; and all the city was on the
tiptoe of expectation.

It was a matter of course that all the "society" would be there. The
entire first row of the boxes,--the "piano nobile," as it is called
in Italian theatres,--was the private property of the various noble
families of the city, which each had its box, with its coat of arms
duly emblazoned on the door thereof, in that tier. Nobody who did
not belong to "the society" of the town could in any way show his
intruding face in the "piano nobile." But above this sacred
hemicycle there was another range of boxes; equally private boxes;
as all the boxes of an Italian theatre are;--and the key of one of
these upper "loggie" had been secured by Ludovico, and presented to
Signora Orsola and Paolina for the great evening.

Of course he himself would be obliged to be in his proper place in
the Castelmare box, which was the stage box on the left hand of the
stage.

"Whether I may be able to run up and pay you a little visit in the
course of the evening, I don't know. You may be very sure I shall if
I can; but there will be all the world there, of course, and lo zio
in the box--unless, indeed, he should choose to go behind the
scenes. Talking of that," he added, as he was on the point of
leaving the room, "I don't know what to make of lo zio of late."

"Has he said anything?"

"Not a word; but I don't like the look of him. He never was more
amiable as far as I am concerned; but he is not well; I never saw
him as he is now. He is haggard, feverish, restless; an older man in
appearance by a dozen years than he was at the beginning of
Carnival."

"I suppose he has been raking too much, and wants a little rest.
Lent will be good for him."

"What, he! The Marchese Lamberto raking! You don't know him. But he
seems quite broken down; I should say, that he had got something on
his mind, if it was not impossible. He never had any trouble in his
life; and never did anything he ought not to do, I believe. But I
confess he puzzles me now. Good-night. God bless you, Paolina mia!"

That was on the Friday; and the Diva's last appearance was to take
place on the following Sunday.



CHAPTER II

The Corso


The institution of Carnival and Lent in Italy seems very much as if
it arose from a practical conviction in the minds of the Italians
that they cannot serve two masters,--at least at the same time,--
Mammon in all his forms is to be the acknowledged and exclusive lord
of the hour during the first period, on condition that higher and
holier claims to service shall be as unreservedly recognized when
the second shall have set in.

     "Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
     Sermons and soda water the day after."

Byron has given us the rule with the most orthodox accuracy. Whether
the second portion of the prescription is observed as heartily,
punctually, and universally as the first, may be doubted. But in all
outward form and ceremony the violence of the contrast between the
two seasons is acted out to the letter; is, or was, as may be
perhaps more correctly said now-a-days; for both Carnival jollity
and licence, and Lent strictness, are from year to year less
observed than used to be the case. At Rome, Mother Church exhorts
her subjects to feast and laugh in Carnival, in nowise less
earnestly or imperatively than she enjoins on them fasting and
penances for having laughed in Lent. But her subjects will do
neither the one nor the other. And when one hears reiterated
complaints in Roman pulpits of pipings to which no dancers have
responded, and the vain exhortations of the ecclesiastical
authorities to the people to Carnival frolic and festivity, one is
reminded of our own Archbishop's "Book of Sports," and led to make
comparisons, by which hangs a very long tale.

Great Pan died once upon a time. And Carnival, as it used to be, is
with much else dying now in Italy. But in the days to which the
incidents here narrated belong, the difference between Carnival and
Lent was as marked as that between day and night.

More marked indeed. For between day and night there is twilight, but
the transition from Carnival to Lent is as sudden as a plunge from
sunshine into cold water. Carnival ends at twelve o'clock on the
night of Shrove Tuesday. And the theory of its observance is, or
was, that the fun and revelry should grow ever more fast and furious
up to the last permitted moment. Then, the clock strikes; the lights
are put out, Carnival dies amid one last hurrah. And maskers and
revellers go home to rise the next morning with grave and perhaps
yellow faces.

In Ravenna, as has been said, a great reception of all the society
at the Palazzo Castelmare on the Sunday evening was as much an
institution as the High Mass on a Sunday morning. And this was the
course of things during all the year, except in Carnival time. Then,
in order to leave Sunday evening--the great time for balls and
theatres, and pleasure of all sorts free, the reception at the
Palazzo Castelmare was changed to the Monday. The programme,
therefore, for the three last grand days of the Carnival in Ravenna,
on that occasion, stood thus:--

On the Sunday, a grand gala Corso from four to six in the afternoon.
(That is to say, that every available carriage of every sort in
Ravenna would be put in requisition, and would be driven in
procession, at a slow foot pace, up and down the long street called
the Corso; and those who had servants and liveries and fine horses
would display them and rejoice; and those who had none of these
things would mingle with the grand carriages in broken-down
shandridans, and rejoice also at the sight of the finery, without
the smallest feeling of shame at their own poverty. This is a
Corso.) On the Sunday evening, the grand representation of the
Sonnambula, with the theatre lighted (according to advertisement)
"with wax-candles, till it was as light as day!"

Secondly, on the Monday, another Corso, with throwing of flowers and
"coriandoli" (i. e. what was supposed to be comfits, but in reality
little pills of flour made and sold by the hundredweight for the
purpose) from the carriages to each other, and from the windows and
the balconies of the houses. Then in the evening, a grand gala
reception at the Palazzo Castelmare, at which it was understood
masks would be gladly welcomed by the host.

On the night of the Tuesday, thirdly, the last great day of all,
there was to be a grand masked ball at the Circolo dei Nobili; that
ball of which and of its consequences on the Ash Wednesday morning,
the reader already wots. And this was to be the wind-up of the
Carnival.

The Corso on the Sunday was a most successful one. The weather was
all that was most desirable; bright, not too cold, and free from
wind and dust. The Marchese Lamberto turned out with two handsomely
appointed equipages. He and his sister-in-law occupied one carriage,
and the Marchese Ludovico and the Conte Leandro Lombardone, who was
not a rich man, and had no carriage of his own, sat in the second.

It could not be said that the Marchese Lamberto "looked like the
time!" And, in truth, he would have given much to escape the ordeal
he was called upon to go through. But that was out of the question;
unless he had been confined to his bed--in which case the whole town
would have been at the palazzo door with inquiries, and all the
doctors at his bedside in consultation--it could not be that he
should not show himself at the Corso.

Both the Castelmare carriages had the front seats laden with huge
baskets of bouquets prepared for throwing at friends and
acquaintances in other carriages, and at windows and balconies. The
occupants of the carriages seemed to be embedded in a bank of
flowers. And there sat the Marchese amid this wealth of rainbow-
colours, looking positively ghastly,--so changed, so drawn, so aged
was he. And his painful attempts to enter into the spirit of the
scene, and act the part which he was expected to act, would have
been pitiable to any eye which had observed them closely.

He had left Bianca only just before it had been necessary to return
to the palazzo to get into his carriage for the Corso: and the
interview between them had been an important one. He had gone
thither fully purposed to explain to her, finally, the utter
impossibility of his doing as she would have him do. He meant to
point out to her how exceptionally difficult it would be for him, in
the peculiar position he occupied, to make her his wife. He intended
to show her that such a step would have the effect of pulling him
down rather than that of pulling her up. He had purposed
endeavouring to induce her to accede to such proposals as he could
make to her by the exhibition of the most unstinting generosity. And
he had determined,--fully, finally, and irrevocably determined, that
if all that be could say to her on these points should fail to
persuade her to accede to such an arrangement, as he had it in his
power to propose to her, he would that day, and from that hour, give
her up, and swear to himself never to let the image of her cross his
memory again.

The visit had been long, and occasionally even somewhat tempestuous.
The Marchese had been eloquent; and now driven to bay, had been
unequivocal enough in his declarations, his determinations, and his
promises. The Diva had shown herself a Diva at every point. She had
wept, she had smiled, she had been scornful, she had been suppliant,
she had been repellent, she had been loving! And in every mood she
had seemed to the fascinated eyes of the Marchese more lovely than
in that which preceded it. Finally, she had conquered. Instead of
coming away from her, never to see her again, he came away leaving
her with the offer of his hand.

And there had been a moment of supreme triumph and ecstasy when
permitted, for the first time, to take her in his arms, and press
that lovely bosom to his own, and glue his own to those heavenly
lips; it had seemed to him as if the prize that was his was worth a
thousand times all that he was paying for it. It was all for love,
and the world well lost. For not for an instant did the Marchese
blind himself to the fact that his world must be lost by such a
marriage as he was contemplating. But what did he care for all that
had been hitherto to him as the breath of his nostrils? He now felt,
for the first time, what of joy and real happiness life had in truth
to offer. He would go away,--far away with his Bianca and live only
for her, and for the delights of her love! Fool that he had been to
hesitate. And blessed a thousand times was her sweet, her dear
insistence, that had led him to better things!

Such was the state of the mind of the Marchese, while he held his
Diva in his arms; and it lasted in full force, almost till he had
left the door of her house behind him as he hastened to the palazzo
to discharge the Corso duty, which was one of the most prominent
functions of his present social position.

And then it seemed as if suddenly,--with a suddenness equal to that
of a tropical sunset,--the scales had fallen from his eyes, and he
was another man.

Great God! What had he done? Had he been smitten with sudden
madness? What--what was the fatal power this fearful woman had over
him? Were then the old witchcraft and philtre tales really true?
Surely he must be the victim of some spell, some horrible
enchantment. Marry her! Heavens and earth! He hated her. He felt as
if he could with pleasure take her by that beautiful throat and
squeeze the noxious life out of her.

He pressed his burning hand to his yet hotter forehead, as soon as
he found himself in the quiet and solitude of his own room,
swallowed a large glass of water, and strove to obtain such little
command over himself, for the moment at least, as might suffice to
enable him to go through the task before him.

A servant knocked at the door and put his head in to announce that
the carriages were at the door. The miserable man started from his
chair as if he had been caught in some crime, and answered that he
would be down directly. A second time he swallowed, hastily, a large
glass of water, for his throat felt parched with thirst; and then,
with a vigorous effort to appear gay and at his ease, which produced
only the semblance of a fixed unnatural grin on his face, he went
down to the carriage.

It was painful to him to pass between the servants who stood in the
hall, painful to have to take his seat by the side of his sister-in-
law,--and most painful of all to meet the gaze of all the town
assembled for the Corso. He could not help thinking that all eyes
were turned on him, with glances of surprise and suspicion. He felt
ashamed to meet and be seen by his acquaintances. He, the Marchese
Lamberto di Castelmare, who had never, till that hour, known what it
was to shun the eye of any man,--who had been accustomed to be the
cynosure of all eyes, and to feel that they were all turned on him
with respect and regard.

The occasion, and the part he was expected to fulfil in it, made it
necessary for him to recognize and return every minute the
salutations and greetings of his friends and those who knew him. And
who in Ravenna did not know the Marchese Lamberto? There was a good-
natured word wanted here, a gallant little phrase there, a
salutation with the speaking fingers to this carriage, a more formal
bow to the occupants of another, a gracious nod to one person, and a
smile to a second.

And all this the unhappy man essayed to perform, as he had so often
performed it happily, easily, and successfully in other days.

It was impossible for anybody, whose eye rested on the Marchese for
an instant, as he sat amid the flowers in his carriage, to avoid
seeing that there was something wrong with him--that he was very
unlike his usual self. And every eye, as the carriages passed each
other in the long procession, forming two lines as one passed down
the street while the other moved in the contrary direction, did rest
on him. But it never for an instant entered into the head of a
single human being there, to guess at anything like the real cause
of the change in the Marchese.

"Time begins to tell on the Marchese; he takes too much out of
himself; always busy--no rest--a bad thing!" said one.

"The Marchese Lamberto looks knocked up with this carnival. Quite
time for him that Lent was come," said another.

"The fact is that the Marchese is growing old, and he wants more
rest. He has not a minute to himself,--too many irons in the fire at
once, said a third.

"I dare say he has been worried out of his life in getting this new
Opera put upon the stage. You'll see he'll be all right enough at
the ball to-morrow night."

"Is she in the Corso--La Lalli?"

"Altro. I should think so--and looking so lovely. What a woman she
is!"

"Whereabouts is she?"

"About twenty carriages further ahead. You'll see her presently,
when we are near the turn, sitting buried up to her waist nearly in
flowers--a regular Flora, and such a representative as the Goddess
never had before."

"Who has she got with her in her carriage?" asked the first speaker.
"I expected to have seen the Marchesino Ludovico there, but he is
with the Conte Leandro, in one of the Castelmare carriages."

"Che! catch her compromising herself in any such manner. I wonder
how much some of our friends would have given to have the place
beside her to-day? But not a bit of it: she has got the old man she
calls her father with her."

"Funny, isn't it? I wonder what her game is?"

"Simply to work hard at her vocation, and make as much money as she
can, I take it. Probably you would find, if you got at the truth,
some animal of a baritono robuato, who owns the Diva's heart, and
for whom she works and slaves."

"Poverina! there are the Castelmare carriages coming round again."

The manner of an Italian "Corso" is this: A certain street, or
streets--the most adapted to the exigencies of the case that the
city can supply--is selected for the purpose; and when the line of
carriages reaches the end of this, it turns and proceeds back again
to the other end; turns again, and so on. Thus, at each turn, every
carriage in the line meets every other once in each circuit.

The second Castelmare carriage, in which the Marchese Ludovico and
Leandro Lombardoni were sitting, was following next after that
occupied by the Marchese Lamberto and his sister-in-law; and thus
each carriage in the line proceeding in a contrary direction to
them, passed first the Marchese Lamberto and then his nephew. The
carriage occupied by the latter was a wholly open one with a low
back. But that in which the Marchese Lamberto sat, though also an
open carriage, and entirely so in front, had a half roof at the
back, so that it was not so conveniently adapted as the other for
seeing those following it as well as those preceding it.

The Marchese and his sister-in-law threw bouquets into almost every
carriage that passed them; and the stock with which they had started
was soon very much diminished. But one specially magnificent and
large bouquet, which conspicuously occupied the centre of the front
seat of the carriage, was evidently reserved. Everybody who saw it
knew very well for whom that was intended. Of course it was for none
other than the Diva of the theatre. And the known interest which the
Marchese took in such matters, his musical fanaticism, and the large
share he had had in bringing La Lalli to Ravenna, made it quite
natural, and a matter of course, that he should pay her such a
compliment.

Presently he descried her in the opposite string of carriages,
coming towards him. Her carriage was an entirely open one, and she
sate in it, with old Quinto Lalli by her side, literally, as one
observer had said, half buried in flowers. And most assuredly
neither the labours nor the dissipations of the carnival, nor time,
nor care, nor any other circumstance, had dimmed the lustre of her
beauty, or lessened the verve and spirit of enjoyment with which she
took her part in the pageant. She was brilliant with vivacity,
beauty, and happiness.

The Marchese might have been seen, had anybody been observing him
closely at the moment, to turn visibly paler as her carriage
approached his. As far as any clear thought had been in his mind, or
any power of thinking possible to him, his latest idea in reference
to her had been a desperate resolve that he would never speak to her
again. And now, again, as he saw her, in a new avatar of loveliness,
he once again knew that to keep such a resolution was above his
power.

What he had to do at the moment was to be done, in any case, with
the best grace he might. Taking the huge mass of skilfully-arranged
flowers in both hands, as her carriage came opposite to his, he
leaned out as far as he could, and Quinto Lalli, who sat on the side
nearest to him, stretched out to meet him, and then handed the
offering to the Goddess. She smiled brilliantly and bowed low,
sending a coquettish, sidelong glance of private thanks under
eyelashes as she bent her graceful neck.

The carriages rolled on, and passed each other; and there rushed
into the Marchese's head a sudden pulse of blood, which turned his
previous pallor into a dusky crimson, and seemed to make all the
scene swim before his eyes. Partly to hide the evidences of the
emotion of which he was conscious, and partly because he felt as if
he needed the support, he threw himself back into the corner of the
carriage, turning himself away from the scene in front of it as
though to shelter his face from the sun that was then so low in the
sky as to begin to throw its slanting rays under the hoods of the
carriages. This position, as it chanced, brought the Marchese's eye
to bear on the little glass window made in the back of the hood of
the carriage, after the old-fashioned manner of coach-building.

And what he saw through the little window was this.

A something--a white paper packet, it looked like--was in the act of
being thrown to the Diva's carriage from that immediately behind his
own, in which, it will be remembered, were his nephew and the Conte
Leandro; and the Goddess herself was leaning far out of her carriage
in the act of throwing a bouquet to the Marchese Ludovico: The
Marchese Lamberto also saw the magnificent flowers he had himself
just given to Bianca roll from her carriage on to the pavement,--an
accident caused by the movement of her person as she leaned forward
to throw her flowers to the other carriage.

With what an added torment to the hell that raged within him the
unfortunate Marchese returned from that miserable Corso to his
palazzo, may be well imagined.

Nevertheless, there had been as little meaning in what he had seen
as there often is in many things that make the madness of a jealous
man's jealousy.

With the white paper packet--for such it in truth was--the Marchese
Ludovico had nothing whatever to do. It had been thrown by the poet
Leandro, and contained an attempt to improve the occasion after a
fashion, such as he hoped must draw some reply from the Diva. Bianca
had taken the opportunity--somewhat coquettishly, but according to
the laws and customs of such occasions, quite permissibly--to pay
Ludovico the compliment in the eye of all Ravenna of throwing some
flowers because she liked him, and because she chose to mark the
fact that she threw none during all the Corso to anybody else. She
would have done the same if it had so happened that it had been in
front of the Marchese Lamberto's carriage instead of behind it; but,
of course, to the passion-blinded brain of the latter, this
circumstance made all the difference.

As to the rolling of his own superb bouquet on the pavement, it had
been quite accidental, and much regretted by Bianca. To recover
anything of the kind on such an occasion is, it must be understood,
quite out of the question. Any such fallen treasure--and half the
things thrown do fall short of the hands for which they are meant--
becomes the instant prey of the small boys who throng the streets,
and are constantly on the look-out for such windfalls around the
carriages.



CHAPTER III

"La Sonnambula"


It may be easily imagined that the Marchese returned from the Corso
very little disposed to take any pleasure in the treat to which all
Ravenna was looking forward, and which he would have enjoyed more
than any one else under other circumstances--the performance at the
theatre on that Sunday evening. Nevertheless, the duty of attending
it had to be done. All Ravenna would have been astonished, and have
wanted to "know the reason why," if the Marchese had been absent
from his box on such an evening. "Society" expected it of him that
he should be there, and he had been all his life doing everything
that "society" expected of him; besides, his presence there really
was needed, and poor little Ercole Stadione would have despaired
inconsolably if he had been deprived, on such an occasion, of the
support of his great friend and patron.

But if none of these reasons had existed--if the Marchese, when he
reached the shelter of his own roof after that horrible Corso, had
been entirely free to go to bed and escape the necessity of facing
the eyes of all the world of Ravenna, which seemed to him to be from
hour to hour growing into a more terrible ordeal, would he have gone
to bed and abstained from attending the theatre?

It might have been very confidently predicted that he would not have
done so. He began, in an unreasoning animal-like sort of way, to
recognize the fact that every hour that he spent away from this
woman was bare, barren, and of no value to him at all. He was
conscious that he could be said to live only in her presence. He was
beginning to give himself up as a lost man, and to acquiesce, half-
stunned and stupid, in a fatality which he could not struggle
against.

And now he was longing--burning not only to have his eyes on her
again, but to speak to her. He would have plenty, of opportunities
of doing so at the theatre in the green-room, or in her dressing-
room, and every minute seemed to him an age till he could find such
an opportunity.

If he had been asked at that minute--if he had himself asked of his
own mind--what he meant to do--to what future he was looking,
whether he meant to marry La Lalli or to give her up, he would
probably have repudiated either alternative with equal violence. His
mind was in a state of chaos; and what was to come in any future,
except the most immediate one, he had become incapable of
considering. Now he was going to see, to hear, to breathe the same
atmosphere with her again, and to go through the wretched task of
striving to behave as usual, and look as usual in the eyes of all
Ravenna.

The performance was to commence at half-past eight o'clock, and the
Marchese, reaching the theatre nearly half-an-boar before that time,
found Bianca sufficiently nearly dressed for him to be admitted to
her dressing-room. She was putting the finishing touches to the
platting of her magnificent hair, after the fashion of a Swiss
village-girl, for the completion of her toilette as Amina. He
thought that, in this new costume, she looked more irresistibly
attractive than he had yet seen her.

"Bianca," he said, as soon as her dresser had left her, and shut the
door, "you have made me so miserable to-day. I must tell you openly
at once what is in my heart. I saw, to-day, at the Corso--by no
means intending to look at all at your carriage after it had passed
mine--I saw my poor flowers thrown away by you, while you were
throwing a bouquet to my nephew and receiving from him something
thrown in return. Bianca, is that the conduct of a woman who has the
very same morning accepted the hand of another man? Bianca, I warn
you to beware; you do not know what such a love as mine, if it
should discover itself to be betrayed, might be capable of."

"Marchese, do not look at me in that way; you frighten me, and what
have I done? It is all a mistake, entirely a mistake!" said the poor
Diva, really frightened at the manner of the Marchese.

"Did I not see you throw the flowers I had given you from your
carriage; evidently for the purpose of gratifying another person?"

"Oh, Marchese! how is it possible that such a thought should enter
into your head? Ah, how little you know. If you knew how I had
grieved over the loss of the beautiful bouquet that had come from
your hand! It fell from the carriage by accident; and it was
snatched up, and a boy ran off with it, all in a moment; I would
have given anything to get it back again."

"But how came the accident? It was caused by your leaning out of
your carriage to throw a bouquet yourself."

"Yes, exactly so; to the Marchese Ludovico. He was the only person
to whom I threw a bouquet in all the Corso."

"And why should you throw one to him?"

"To him,--to your nephew? Why not, I should not have thought of
doing so to another. But to him--"

"And what was it, pray, that he threw to you? I wonder whether he
thought, too, that he should not dream of throwing anything to
anybody except you."

"The Marchese Ludovico threw nothing to me. Just at the same moment
that troublesome idiot, the Conte Leandro, threw a packet into the
carriage. I have not even opened it; you may have it unopened the
next time you are in the Strada di Porta Sisi, if you like. No doubt
it contains some of his charming verses. It is not kind of you,
Signor Marchese, to say such things, or to have such thoughts in
your head!" said Bianca, turning away her face and putting her
handkerchief to her eyes. "And now," she added, "you have made my
eyes all red just before I have to go on the stage!"

Of course once again the unhappy Marchese was entirely routed, and
the Diva was victorious. "Forgive me, Bianca,", he whispered; "I
think only of you from the morning to the evening, and from the
evening to the morning again. And it would be impossible for any man
to love, as I love you, without a liability to jealousy. I am
jealous of your love, Bianca!"

"But it is wonderful that you should not perceive how little cause
you have for any such feeling. Oh, Marchese, how can you doubt me?
Surely you must have seen and known how entirely my love is yours.
You must not wring your poor Bianca's heart by such cruel
suspicions."

And then the three knocks, which announced the raising of the
curtain, were heard; and the Marchese again murmuring a request to
be forgiven, as he kissed her hand, hurried away to take his place
in his box.

The house was already nearly full, for the occasion was a notable
one; and the opera was new to Ravenna; and everybody wished to hear
every note of it. The Marchese Ludovico was not, however, in the
Castelmare box, when his uncle reached it, but he came in a minute
afterwards. He had been up to the upper tier of boxes to say a word
to Paolina and her old friend, who were in the box he had provided
for them, which was on the opposite side of the house to the
Castelmare box; and exactly over that in the "piano nobile" in which
were the Marchesa Anna Lanfredi, and her niece the Contessa
Violante.

There was a little noise in the house of people not yet seated
during the opening chorus of villagers; but when the prima donna
came on the stage as Amina, after the prolonged and repeated rounds
of applause, which greeted her appearance, had subsided, a pin's
fall might have been heard in the theatre.

The Marchese Ludovico had joined cordially and boisterously, and the
Marchese Lamberto more moderately, in the applause which had saluted
the entrance of the Diva; and after that the latter had placed
himself in the corner of the box, with his back to the audience, and
his face towards the stage, and with an opera-glass at his eyes, he
sat perfectly still, feeding his passion with every glance, every
change of feature, and every movement of the woman who had
enthralled him.

Then came the famous song of Amina, the happy village-bride about to
be married on the morrow to her lover--the tenor of course. The Diva
sang it admirably, and acted it equally well. The purest girlish
innocence was expressed in every trait of her features and
manifested itself in every gesture and every movement. The perfect,
trusting, happy love of a fresh and innocent heart could have had no
better representative.

The recitative, "Care compagne," etc, addressed to the assembled
villagers, fell from her lips with a purity of enunciation that made
each syllable seem like a note from a silver bell. And then the air,
"Come per me sereno," held the house entranced till the final note
of it. And then burst forth such a frantic shout of applause and
delight as can be heard only in an Italian theatre.

Ludovico leant far out of the stage-box in which he sat, and joined
vociferously in the plaudits with both hand and voice. But the
Marchese remained quiet in his corner, with his face half-shaded by
his hand, conscious as he was that the expression of it might need
hiding from the others in the box. He need not have heeded them; for
their attention was too exclusively occupied with the stage for them
to expend any of it on him. Had it been otherwise his hand, covering
the lower half of his face, would not have sufficed to conceal his
emotion.

Now again the hot fit of his love was in the ascendant. Never had
Bianca more thoroughly captivated him. Never had it seemed to him
less possible to live without her. What to him were all these dull
and empty blockheads for whom be had hitherto lived, and who were
now--the foul fiend seize them!--sharing with him the delight of
seeing and hearing her for the last time. Yes, it should be for the
last time. He would make her his, all his own; and carry her far
away from all that could remind either her or himself of their past
lives. And then a scowl of displeasure came over his face as his
glance lighted on his nephew's noisy and unrestrained manifestations
of enthusiastic admiration.

Presently, towards the end of the first act, came the duet between
Amina and her lover, who has been made causelessly jealous, and
Bianca sang the pretty lines--

     "Son, mio bene, del zeffiro amante,
     Perche ad esso il tuo nome confido.
     Amo il sol, perche teco il divido,
     Amo il rio, perche l'onda ti da,"

with a sweetness of expression perfectly irresistible. The Marchese
in his corner, half-shrouded from the observation of the house by
the curtain, which, though undrawn, hung down by the side of the
box, but fully facing the stage, was perfectly aware that the singer
had specially addressed herself to him; and he felt the full force
of the loving rebuke for the unreasonable displeasure he had so
recently manifested in her dressing-room. His heart went out towards
her; and he felt that if it were to be done that moment, he could
have led her to the altar in the face of all Christendom.

At the end of the act the plaudits were again vociferous, and four
times was the smiling and triumphant Diva compelled by the calls and
clamour of her worshippers to return before the curtain to receive
their applause and salute them in return for it. The Marchese
Ludovico again loudly and enthusiastically joined in these
manifestations; and then, when they were over, and the noise in the
house had subsided, he quietly slipped out of the box, and springing
up the stairs which communicated with the upper tier of boxes,
entered that occupied by Paolina and the Signora Orsola Steno.

"What did you think of that, Paolina mia?" he said, sitting down by
her side, and making the action of applauding with his hands, as he
spoke. "Did you ever hear a thing more charmingly sung? Is she not
divine?"

"There is no mistaking your opinion on the point, at all events,
amico mio. I never saw anybody manifest such unbounded admiration as
you did just now. But the Diva was not thinking of you, I can tell
you," said Paolina, with just the slightest possible flavour of
pique in her tone.

"Thinking of me; I should imagine not indeed. But what upon earth
have you got into that dear little head of yours, my Paolina? Did
not you think both singing and acting very fine?"

"Certainly I think her voice is perhaps the finest I ever heard in
my life; and she is no doubt a great actress--a very great actress;
but--she is not simpatica to me. I don't know why, but--somehow or
other--I don't like her."

"What can you have got into your head, tesoro mio? You know nothing
of her; you have nothing to do with her except to see and hear her
on the stage."

"No; thank heaven! I should not like that she should come any nearer
to my life than that," replied Paolina, with a little shudder.

"Come, Paolina, you must admit that that is being prejudiced and
unreasonable," said Ludovico smiling at her.

"Yes; I suppose it is. But--Ludovico mio, just ask any other woman--
any other good woman--in the house; and see if they have not the
same feeling. The Contessa Violante, for example--ask her," said
Paolina.

"Just because she is splendidly handsome: women cannot be just to
each other when that comes in the way. But you might afford to be
charitable even to so beautiful a creature as the Lalli, my
Paolina."

"No, Signor, I won't be bribed by compliments, even from you," she
whispered, with a look that showed that the value of the bribe was
not unappreciated; "and I think that what you say is unjust to women
in general."

"But I wonder what it is then that has prejudiced you against the
Lalli?"

"I don't know. Really nothing that I can tell. One feels sometimes
what one cannot explain. She is not simpatica to me, that is all."

"But what on earth put it into your head, Paolina mia, to say that
she was not thinking of me when she was singing her part? Why should
she think of me--or of anybody else, except the primo tenore, who
was singing with her? What is it you mean?" said Ludovico, much
puzzled.

"You said she was a very good actress as well as a fine singer,"
returned Paolina; "and I think she is. This is a capital box for
seeing all that goes on the opposite side of the theatre. And I can
tell you who the Lalli was thinking of, and who she was singing at
during her duet at the end of the act--your uncle, the Marchese
Lamberto; and he knew it very well, too."

"What parcel of nonsense have you got into your little brains,
Paolina? Sing at the Marchese? Of course they all do; of course they
all know that his suffrage is of more importance to them than all
the rest of the theatre put together. But as for my idea of--lo zio-
-of all men in the world. Ha, ha, ha! If you had lived in Ravenna
instead of Venice all your life, carina mia, you would know how
infinitely absurd the idea seems of there being anything between the
Marchese Lamberto and a stage singer, or of its being possible for
him to regard her in any other light than that of a singing
machine."

"I dare say you are right, caro mio. Still I can't quite think that
the Marchese would look at any one of the fiddles quite as I saw him
look at her," said Paolina.

And then the immense interval, which occurs between one act and
another in Italian theatres, and which is tolerated with perfect
contentment by Italian audiences, came to an end; and Ludovico
hurried down to take his place again in the Castelmare box.

The next point in the opera which excited the special enthusiasm of
the house was the impassioned finale to the second act, in which
Amina on her knees strives to convince her lover of her innocence of
having ever harboured a thought inconsistent with entire devotion to
him. She sang as if her whole soul were in her words; and the entire
theatre was electrified by the power of her acting; the entire
theatre, with the exception of one intelligent and observant little
face in a box on the upper tier, exactly opposite to that of the
Marchese Lamberto.

From that vantage-ground of observation Paolina saw perfectly well
both the singer on the stage and the Marchese in the box; and again
felt sure that the actress was specially addressing herself with an
implied meaning to the latter; and that he was aware that she was
doing so. She felt no doubt that the motive for this was exactly
that to which Ludovico had attributed it. It was important to the
Diva to flatter and make a friend of so powerful a theatrical patron
as the Marchese; and she took this very objectionable method,
Paolina thought, of attaining that end. Paolina thought nothing more
than this; but, nevertheless, it made her conceive a dislike for the
Diva greater, perhaps, than the cause would seem to justify.

The interval between the second and the third act Ludovico thought
himself obliged to pass in the box of the Marchese Anna Lanfredi, in
which Violante was sitting with her aunt. There, too, he found the
ladies not quite disposed to be as frantically enthusiastic in their
praises of the singer as the whole male part of the audience. The
Marchesa Lanfredi thought that La Lalli was nothing at all in
comparison with some singer who had charmed all Bologna some forty
years before. And Violante, admitting that she had an exquisite
voice and perfect method, confessed much as Paolina had done, that
she did not quite like her, she hardly knew why.

In the third act, the song sung by the sleep-walker in her state of
unconsciousness--"Ah non credea mirarti,"--was a great success. And
most fascinatingly lovely the Diva looked in her white night-dress,
with her wreath of rich auburn tresses hanging in luxuriant curls
around her shoulders.

Shortly after this had been sung a liveried servant entered the
Castelmare box, bearing a most superb bouquet of choice flowers,
tied with a long streamer of broad rose-coloured ribbon, and
deposited it on the front of the box.

And then came the joyful finale "Ah non giunge." And in that the
Diva seemed to surpass herself. It was a passionate carol of love,
and joy, and triumph in which she seemed to pour the whole force and
energy of her soul into the words and sounds that told the truth,
the entirety, the perfection of her love, and the overwhelming
happiness the recognition of it by its object gave her.

For many minutes the vociferous applause continued. The stage was
covered with flowers flung from all sides of the house. The Marchese
Lamberto whispered a word or two to Ludovico; and then the latter,
leaning far out of the box, presented the magnificent bouquet to
Bianca, who was smiling and thanking the public for their plaudits
by repeated curtsies, and who came for it to the side of the stage.
She made a very low and graceful curtsey to Ludovico, as she took it
from his hand; but her eyes thanked the Marchese Lamberto, who still
remained close in his corner, for the gift.

The fact was that he was too much moved by violent and contending
emotions to dare to trust himself to hand the flowers himself. He
knew that he was shaking in every limb; and, therefore, had told his
nephew to give the bouquet; which, indeed, it was quite a matter of
course that a successful prima donna should receive from that box on
such an occasion.

Again and again the curtain had to be raised after it had descended
in obedience to the cries of the spectators, who were determined to
make the Diva's triumph complete. Again and again she had to step
back on the stage and make yet one more bow and smile--yet one more
gracious smile.

During this delay the Marchese Lamberto slipped from his box and
made his way behind the scenes. "Can you feel as Bianca what you can
so divinely express as Amina?" he whispered in her ear as he gave
her his arm to lead her to her carriage at the stage-door.

"Try me as Amina was tried; and reward me as Amina was rewarded, and
then see," she replied in the same tone.

And so ended Bianca Lalli's Carnival engagement at Ravenna.



CHAPTER IV

The Marchese Lamberto's Correspondence


The next morning--the morning of the Monday after the gala
performance at the theatre--the post brought to the Palazzo
Castelmare a letter from Rome, before the Marchese had left his
chamber. The servant took it to his master's room, found him still
in bed, though awake, and left it on the table by his bedside.

The Marchese Lamberto was, and had been all his life, far too busy a
man to be a late riser. Italians, indeed, who do nothing all day
long, are often very early risers. Their, climate leads them to be
so. They sleep during hours which are less available for being out
of doors--for your Italian idler passes very little of his day in
his own home--and they are up and out during the delicious hours of
the early morning. But the Marchese Lamberto, whose days were filled
with the multiplicity of occupations and affairs that have been
described in a previous chapter, was wont, at all times of the year,
to rise early.

On the present occasion, a sleepless night--and such nights, also,
were a new phenomenon in the Marchese's life--might have been a
reason for his being late. But he was not sleeping when his servant
took the letter in to him. The frame of mind in which he returned
from the theatre has been described. It lasted till he fell into a
feverish sleep, soon after going to his bed.

The dreams that made such sleep anything but rest may be easily
guessed. He was startled from them by the fancy that the kisses of
Bianca burned his lips; that it was a scorching flame, that he was
pressing in his arms, the contact of which turned all his blood to
liquid fire.

He slept no more during the night. And the good that had seemed to
him, as he sate in his box at the opera, more desirable than all the
other goods the world could give, seemed good no longer; seemed, in
the dark stillness of his night-thoughts, like a painted bait, with
which the arch-tempter was luring him to his ruin and destruction.

Restlessly turning on his bed with a deep sigh, and pressing his hot
hand to his yet hotter brow, he took the letter that had been
brought him, and saw that it was from his Roman friend and
correspondent, Monsignore Paterini:

"Illusmo Signor Marchese E Mio Buono E Colendmo Amico," the letter
ran--"Seeing that the subject of my letter is matter adapted rather
to Carnival than to Lenten tide, I hasten to write so that it may
reach your lordship before the festive season is over. That your
friends in Rome are never forgetful of one, who so eminently
deserves all their best thoughts and good wishes, I trust I need not
tell you. But in this our Rome, where so many interests are the
unceasing care of so many powerful friends and backers, it needs
such merit as that of your lordship to make the efforts of friends
successful."

"Understand, then, that his Holiness has been kept constantly aware
of all that Ravenna--the welfare of which ancient and noble city is
especially dear to him--owes to your constant and intelligent
efforts for the advancement of true civilization and improvement, as
distinguished from all that innovators, uninfluenced by the spirit
of religion, vainly, boast as such. Specially, our Holy Father has
been pleased by the energy, tact, and truly well-directed zeal, with
which you have succeeded in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion
the thorny and difficult business of the Spighi property, on which
all the welfare of our well-beloved Sisters in Christ the Augustines
of St. Barnaba so greatly depends. The lady superior of that well-
deserving house is, as you are aware, the sister of his Eminence the
Cardinal Lattoli; and so signal a service rendered in that direction
is, as I need hardly tell your lordship, not likely to be
forgotten."

"It is under these circumstances that I have the great satisfaction
of having it in my power to inform your lordship, that it is the
gracious purpose of our Holy Father to mark his approbation and
satisfaction at the conduct of your illustrious lordship in this
matter, in a manner that, while it manifests to the whole world the
care of his Holiness for every portion of the dominions of the Holy
Church, will, I doubt not, be highly gratifying to yourself at the
present time, and will redound to the future glory and distinction
of your noble family. It is, in a word, the intention of the Holy
Father to confer on your lordship the Grand Cross of the Most Noble
Order of the Santo Spirito. And it is further the benignant purpose
and wish of his Holiness to present you with this most honourable
mark of his approbation with his own sovereign hand."

"We may therefore hope--myself and your numerous other friends in
this city--to see you here before long. Doubtless the tidings, which
I have been anxious to be the first to give you, will be very
shortly communicated to you in a more official manner. I fancy,
indeed, that I shall not have been able to be much beforehand with
the official announcement. Make your arrangements, then, I beseech
you, to give us as long a visit as you can steal from the grave
cares of watching over the interests of your beloved Ravenna. There
are many here who are anxious to renew their acquaintance, and, if
he will permit them to say so, their friendship with the Marchese di
Castelmare. And, if I may venture to do so, my dear friend, I would,
before closing my letter, whisper that, with due care and a little
activity, the present favour of our Holy Father may be but the
earnest of other things."

"The future, however, is in God's hands, and man is but as grass.
Nevertheless, as far as it is permissible to judge of the human
agencies by which the Heavenly Providence brings about its ends, I
should say that your Legate, his Eminence the Cardinal Marliani,
was, of all the present Fathers of the Church, one of the most
deserving of our regards and respect. Should you have a fitting
opportunity of allowing his Eminence to become aware how strongly
such have always been my sentiments, and how unceasingly I endeavour
to impress them on others, I should esteem it as a favour. It is
well that merit even so exalted as his should know that it is
appreciated."

"Omit not, my friend, to offer to the Marchese Ludovico, your
nephew, the expression of my most distinguished regard and respect;
and believe me, Illusmo Signor Marchese, of your Excellency the
devoted friend and most obedient servant."     "Giuseppe Paterini"

Before the Marchese had read the wordy epistle of his correspondent
half through, he raised himself briskly to an upright sitting
posture in his bed, his head was lifted with a proud movement from
its drooping attitude, and an expression of gratified pride and
pleasure came into his eyes. The much-coveted distinction which was
now, he was told, to be his, had long been the object of his eager
ambition. And the manner in which it was to be conferred on him--the
attitude he should stand in with reference to his friend the
Cardinal Legate--all contributed to make the occasion gratifying to
him.

He rang his bell sharply for his servant, and said he would get up
at once.

The valet said that there was a servant from the Legate's palace
below, with a letter for the Marchese from the Cardinal--that,
fearing his master was not well, and might be getting a little
sleep, he, the valet, had been unwilling to bring the letter up; but
that the man was waiting his Excellency's pleasure, as he had been
ordered to ask for an answer.

Doubtless this was the official communication of which Paterini
spoke, or the forerunner of it. The Marchese desired his man to
bring him the Cardinal's letter directly.

Yes; the pleasant duty having fallen to the lot of the Cardinal of
making a communication to the Marchese, which would doubtless be
highly gratifying to him, his Eminence was anxious to seize the
earliest opportunity of performing so agreeable a task; and would be
happy to see the Marchese at one o'clock that day, if that hour
suited his lordship's convenience.

"Delighted to have the honour of waiting on his Eminence at the hour
named."

The Marchese put the two letters on his toilet-table, and proceeded
to dress. They were large letters. That from Monsieur Paterini was
written on a sheet of foolscap paper, and addressed in a large
strong hand, with the word RAVENNA in letters half an inch