 | V. Inklings of adventure |  |
5. V.
It was noon on the following day, and the Contadini
from the hills were settling to their siesta on the steps
of the churches, and against the columns of the Piazza
del Gran' Duca. The artists alone, in the cool gallery,
the drowsiness of the hour, and strained sight and
thought upon the immortal canvas from which they
drew; while the sculptor, in his brightening studio,
weary of the mallet, yet excited by the bolder light,
leaned on the rough block behind him, and with listless
body but wakeful and fervent eye, studied the last
touches upon his marble.
Prancing hoofs, and the sharp quick roll peculiar to
the wheels of carriages of pleasure, awakened the aristocratic
sleepers of the Via dei Servi, and with a lash
and jerk of violence, the coachman of the Marchesa
del Marmore, enraged at the loss of his noon-day repose,
brought up her showy caleche at the door of
Count Basil Spirifort. The fair occupant of that luxurious
vehicle was pale, but the brightness of joy and
hope burned almost fiercely in her eye.
The doors flew open as the Marchesa descended,
and following a servant in the Count's livery, of whom
she asked no question, she found herself in a small saloon,
furnished with the peculiar luxury which marks
the apartment of a bachelor, and darkened like a painter's
room. The light came in from a single tall window,
curtained below, and under it stood an easel, at
which, on her first entrance, a young man stood sketching
the outline of a female head. As she advanced,
looking eagerly around for another face, the artist laid
down his palette, and with a low reverence presented
her with a note from Count Basil. It informed her
that political news of the highest importance had called
him suddenly to the cabinet of his Chef, but that he
hoped to be with her soon; and, meantime, he begged
of her, as a first favor in his newly-prospered love, to
bless him with the possession of her portrait, done by
the incomparable artist who would receive her.
Disappointment and vexation overwhelmed the heart
of the Marchesa, and she burst into tears. She read
with epithets of endearment, and seemed to her written
in the most sudden haste. Never doubting for an
instant the truth of his apology, she removed her hat,
and with a look at the deeply-shaded mirror, while she
shook out from their confinement the masses of her
luxuriant hair, she approached the painter's easel, and
with a forced cheerfulness inquired in what attitude she
should sit to him.
“If the Signora will amuse herself,” he replied, with
a bow, “it will be easy to compose the picture, and
seize the expression without annoying her with a posse.”
Relieved thus of any imperative occupation, the unhappy
Marchesa seated herself by a table of intaglios
and prints, and while she apparently occupied herself
in the examination of these specimens of art, she was
delivered, as her tormentor had well anticipated, to
the alternate tortures of impatience and remorse. And
while the hours wore on, and her face paled, and her
eyes grew bloodshot with doubt and fear, the skilful
painter, forgetting every thing in the enthusiasm of his
art, and forgotten utterly by his unconscious subject,
transferred too faithfully to the canvas that picture of
agonized expectation.
The afternoon meantime had worn away, and the
gay world of Florence, from the side towards Fiesole,
rolled past the Via dei Servi on their circuitous way to
the Cascine, and saw, with dumb astonishment, the
carriage and liveries of the Marchesa del Marmore at
the door of Count Basil Spirifort. On they swept by
the Via Mercata Nova to the Lung' Arno, and there
their astonishment redoubled; for in the window of
the Casino dei Nobili, playing with a billiard-cue, and
laughing with a group of lounging exquisites, stood
Count Basil himself, the most unoccupied and listless
of sunset idlers. There was but one deduction to be
drawn from this sequence of events; and when they
on the previous evening in the Cascine, Count Basil,
evidently innocent of participation in her passion, was
deemed a persecuted man, and the Marchesa del Marmore
was lost to herself and the world!
Three days after this well-remembered circumstance
in the history of Florence, an order was received from
the Grand Duke to admit into the exhibition of modern
artists a picture by a young Venetian painter, an
eleve of Count Basil Spirifort. It was called “The
Lady expecting an Inconstant,” and had been pronounced
by a virtuoso who had seen it on private view,
to be a master-piece of expression and color. It was
instantly and indignantly recognised as the portrait of
the unfortunate Marchesa, whose late abandonment of
her husband was fresh on the lips of common rumor;
but ere it could be officially removed, the circumstance
had been noised abroad, and the picture had been seen
by all the curious in Florence. The order for its removal
was given; but the purpose of Count Basil had
been effected, and the name of the unhappy Marchesa
had become a jest on the vulgar tongue.
This tale had not been told, had there not been more
than a common justice in its sequel. The worst passions
of men, in common life, are sometimes inscrutably
prospered. The revenge of Count Basil, however,
was betrayed by the last which completed it; and
while the victim of his fiendish resentment finds a peaceful
asylum in England under the roof of the compassionate
Lady Geraldine, the once gay and admired Russian
wanders from city to city, followed by an evil reputation,
and stamped unaccountably as a Jattatore.[1]
| V. Inklings of adventure | |