 | V. People I have met, or, Pictures of society and people of mark, drawn under a thin veil of fiction |  |
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
alone, in the cool gallery, and in the tempered halls of the Pitti,
shook off 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 del Servi, and with a lash and jerk of violence, the
coachman of the Marchesa del Marmore, enraged at the loss of
his noonday repose, brought up her showy caléche 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
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 the letter again,
and grew calmer; for it was laden 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 pose.”
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
everything 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 toward 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
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 remembered
the demonstration of passionate jealousy 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 Venetion painter, an elève 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 masterpiece 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 worse passions of men, in
common life, are sometimes inserutably prospered. The revenge
of Count Basil, however, was betrayed by the last act which com
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. People I have met, or, Pictures of society and people of mark, drawn under a thin veil of fiction | |