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CHAPTER XV. A TUSCAN POLICE COURT

Long before their generous patron had awoke the following morning, the little company of Babbo were standing as prisoners in the dread presence of the Prefetto. Conducted by a detachment of the carabinieri, and secured with manacles enough to have graced the limbs of galley-slaves, the vagabonds as they were politely called, were led along through the streets, amid the jokes and mockeries of a very unsympathising public.

Tuscan justice, we are informed by competent authority, has not made, either in its essence or externals, any remarkable progress since the time we are now speaking of. The same ruinous old edifice stands the Temple of Justice; the same dirt and squalor disgraces its avenues and approaches; the same filthy mob beset the doors – a ragged mob, in whose repulsive features a smashed decalogue is marked, amid whom, in hot and eager haste, are seen some others, a shadow better in dress, but more degraded still in look – the low advocates of these courts, ‘Cavallochi,’ as they are styled – a class whose lives of ignominy and subornation would comprise almost every known species of rascality. By these men are others goaded on and stimulated to prefer claims against the well-to-do and respectable; by them are charges devised, circumstances invented, perjuries provided, at the shortest notice. They have their company of false witnesses ready for any accusation – no impugnment upon their credit being the fact that they live by perjury, and have no other subsistence.

Meet president of such a court was the scowling, ill-dressed, and ill-favoured fellow who, with two squalid clerks at his side, sat judge of the tribunal. A few swaggering carabinieri, with their carbines on their arms, moved in and out of the court, buffeting the crowd with rude gestures, and deporting themselves like masters of the ignoble herd around them. By these, as it seemed – for all was mere conjecture here – were the cases chosen for adjudication, the selection of the particular charges being their especial province. Elbowing their way through the filthy corridors, where accusers and accused were inextricably mingled – the prisoner, and the plaintiff, and the witness all jammed up together, and not unfrequently discussing the vexed question to be tried with all the virulence of partisans – the carabiniere makes his choice among these, aided, not impossibly, by a stimulant, which in Italy has its agency throughout all ranks and gradations of men.

In this vile assemblage of all that was degrading and wretched our poor strollers were now standing, their foreign aspect and their title of vagabonds obtaining for them a degree of notice the reverse of flattering. Sarcastic remarks upon their looks, their means of life, and, stranger still, their poverty, abounded; and these from a mob whose gaunt and famished faces and tattered rags bespoke the last stage of destitution.

The Babbo, indeed, was a picture of abject misery; bankrupt was written on every line of his poor old face, through which the paint of forty years blended with the sickly hues of hunger and fear. He turned upon the bystanders a glance of mild entreaty, however, that in a less cruel company could not have failed to meet some success. Not so Donna Gaetana: her stare was an open defiance, and even through her bleared eyes there shot sparks of fiery passion that seemed only in search of a fitting object for their attack.

As for Gerald – his head bound up in a bloody rag, his arm in a sling, and his face pale as death – he might have disarmed the malice of sarcasm, had it not been that he held his arm clasped close round Marietta’s waist, and even thus, in all his misery, seemed to assert that he was her protector and defender. This was alone sufficient to afford scope for mockery and derision, the fairer portion of the audience distinguishing themselves by the pungent sharpness of their criticisms; and Marietta’s swarthy skin, her tinsel ragged-ness, and her wild, bold eyes, came in for their share of bitter commentary.

‘What a brazen-faced minx it is!’ cried one.

‘What a young creature to have come to such wickedness!’ exclaimed another.

‘Look at the roundness of her shape, and you ‘ll see she is not so very young neither,’ whispered a third.

‘That’s her gypsy blood,’ broke in another. ‘There was one here t’other day, of thirteen, with an infant at her breast; and, more by token, she had just put a stiletto into its father.’

‘The ragazza yonder looks quite equal to the same deed,’ observed the former speaker, ‘if I know anything about what an eye means.’

‘Vincenzio Bombici – where is Vincenzio Bombici?’ cried a surly-looking brigadier, whose large cooked-hat, set squarely on, increased the apparent breadth of an immensely wide face.

‘Ecco mi, Eccelenza!’ whimpered out a wretched-looking object, who, with his face bound up, and himself all swathed like Lazarus from the tomb, came, helped forward by two assistants.

‘Pass in, Vincenzio, and narrate your case,’ said the brigadier, as he opened a door into the dread chamber of justice.

While public sympathy followed the Signor Bombici into the hall of justice, fresh expressions of anger were vented on the unhappy strollers. Any one conversant with Italy is aware that so divided is the peninsula by national jealousies – feuds that date from centuries back – the most opprobrious epithet that hate or passion can employ against any one is to stigmatise him as the native of some other town or city. And now the mob broke into such gibes as, ‘Accursed Calabrians! Ah, vile assassins from Capri’ – from Corsica, from the Abruzzi; from anywhere, in short, save the favoured land they stood in. Donna Gaetana was not one who suffered herself to be arraigned without reply, nor was she remarkable for moderation in the style and manner of her rejoinders. With a voluble ribaldry for which her nation enjoys a proud pre-eminence, she assailed her opponents, one and all. She ridiculed their pretensions, mocked their poverty, jeered at their cowardice, and – last insult of all – derided their personal appearance.

Passion fed her eloquence, and the old dame vented upon them insult after insult with a volubility that was astounding. There is no need to record the vindictive and indecorous epithets she scattered broadcast around her; and even as her enemies skulked craven from the field, her wrathful indignation tracked them as they went, sending words of outrage to bear them company. The mere numerical odds was strong against her, and the clamour that arose was deafening, drawing crowds to the doors and the street in front, and at last gaining such a height as to invade the sacred precincts of justice, overbearing the trembling accents of Bombici as lie narrated his tale of woe. Out rushed the valiant carabinieri with the air of men hurrying to a storm, cleaving their way through the crowd – striking, buffeting, trampling all before them. At sight of the governmental power the crowd quailed at once, all save one, the Donna. Standing to her guns to the last, she now turned her sarcasms upon the gendarmes, overwhelming them with a perfect torrent of abuse, and with such success that the mob, so lately the mark of her virulence, actually shook with laughter at the new victims to her passion. For a moment discipline seemed like to yield to anger. The warriors appeared to waver in their impassive valour; but suddenly, with a gleam of wiser counsel, they formed a semi-circle behind the accused, and marched them bodily into the presence of the judge.

Justice was apparently accustomed to similar interruptions; at least, it neither seemed shocked nor disconcerted, but continued to listen with unbroken interest to Vincenzio Bombici’s sorrows – not, indeed, that he had arrived at the incident of the night before. Far from it. He was merely preluding in that fashion which the exactitude of the Tuscan law requires, and replying to the interesting interrogatories regarding his former life, so essential to a due understanding of his present complaint.

‘You are, then, the son of Matteo Friuli Bombici, by his wife Fiammetta?’ read out the prefect solemnly, from the notes he was taking.

‘No, Eccelenza. She was my father’s second wife. My mother’s name was Pacifica.’

‘Pacifica,’ wrote the prefect. ‘Daughter of whom?’

‘Of Felice Corsari, tin-worker in the Borgo St. Apostoli.’

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ interposed the judge, as he took down the words, and then muttered to himself, ‘in the Borgo St. Apostoli.’

‘My mother was one of eight – three sons and five daughters. The eldest boy, Onofrio – ’

‘Irrelevant, irrelevant; or, if necessary, to be recorded hereafter,’ said the prefect. ‘You were bred and brought up in the Catholic faith!’

‘Yes, Eccelenza. The Prête of San Gaetano has confessed me since I was eleven years old. I have taken out more than two hundred pauls in private masses, and paid for three novenas and a plenary, as the Prête will vouch.’

‘I will note your character in this respect, Vincenzio,’ said the judge approvingly.

‘They will probably bring up before your worship the story against my father, that he stole the cloak of the Cancelliere Martelli, when he was performing the part of Pontius Pilate in the holy mysteries at Sienna; but we have the documents at home – ’

‘Are they registered?’

‘I believe not, Eccelenza.’

‘Are they stamped?’

‘I ‘m afraid not, Eccelenza. The Cavallochio that defended my father couldn’t write himself, and it was one Leonardo Capprini – ’

‘The sausage-maker,’ broke in the judge, with a smack of his lips.

‘The same, Eccelenza; you knew him, perhaps?’

‘Knew him well, and liked his hog’s puddings much.’ Justice seemed half ashamed at this confession of a weakness, and in a more stern tone, told him to ‘Go on.’

It was not very easy for honest Vincenzio to know at what part of his history he was to take up the thread; so he shuffled from foot to foot, and sighed despondingly.

‘I said “go on,”’ said the judge, more peremptorily than before.

‘I was talking of my father, Eccelenza,’ said he modestly.

‘No, of your good mother Fiammetta,’ said the judge, rather proud of the accuracy with which he retained the family history.

‘She was my step-mother,’ interposed Vincenzio humbly.

‘Blockheads all!’ broke in old Gaetana, with a hearty laugh.

‘Silence!’ cried the gendarmes, as, with their muskets dropped to the ground, they made the chamber ring again, while the judge, turning a glance of darkening anger on the speaker, said: ‘Who is this old woman?’

‘Let me tell him. Let myself speak,’ cried Gaetana, pressing forward, while the gendarmes, with their instinct as to coming peril, prudently held her back.

‘So then,’ said the judge, in reply to a whisper of one of his assistants, ‘she is the principal delinquent’; and referring to the written charge before him, read out: ‘An infuriated woman, who presided over the drum.’

‘They smashed it, the thieves!’ cried Gaetana; ‘they smashed my drum; but, per Dio, I beat a roll on their own skulls that astonished them! They ‘ll not deny that I gave them an ear for music’ And the old hag laughed loud at her savage jest.

Again was silence commanded, and after some trouble obtained; and the judge, whose perceptions were evidently disturbed by these interruptions, betook himself to the pages of the indictment, to refresh his mind on the case. Muttering to himself the lines, he came to the words, ‘and with a formidable weapon, of solid wood, with the use of which long habit had rendered her familiar, and in this wise dangerous, she, the aforesaid Gaetana, struck, beat, battered, and belaboured – ’

‘Didn’t I!’ broke in the hag.

What consequences might have ensued from this last interruption must be left to mere guess, for the door of the chamber was now opened to its widest to admit a gentleman, who came forward with the air of one in a certain authority. He was no other than the Count of the night before, who had so generously thrown his protection over the strollers. Advancing to where the Prefetto sat, he leaned one arm on the table, while he spoke to him in a low voice.

The judge listened with deference and attention, his manner being suddenly converted into the very lowest sycophancy. When it came to his turn to speak, ‘Certainly, Signor Conte; unquestionable,’ muttered he. ‘It is enough that your Excellency deigns to express a wish on the subject,’ and, with many a bow, he accompanied him to the door. A brief nod to the youth Gerald was the only sign of recognition he gave, and the Count withdrew.

‘This case is prorogued,’ said the Prefetto solemnly. ‘The Court will inform itself upon its merits, and convoke the parties on some future day.’ And now the gendarmes proceeded to clear the hall, huddling out together plaintiffs and prisoners and witnesses, all loudly inveighing, protesting, denouncing, and explaining what nobody listened to or cared for.

‘Eh viva!’ exclaimed old Gaetana, as she reached the open air, ‘there’s more justice here than I looked for.’

CHAPTER XVI. THE POET’S HOUSE

It was late on the evening of the same day that Gerald received a message to say the Count desired to see him. No little jealousy was occasioned among his companions by this invitation. The Babbo deemed that, as ‘Impressario’ of the company, he ought himself to have been selected. Donna Gaetana was indignant that a mere Giovane was to occupy the responsible station of representing their dramatic guild; and even Marietta felt her eyes to swim, as she thought over this mere passing separation, and in her heart foreboded some ill to come of it. She, however, did her very best to master these unworthy fears. She washed the bloody stains carefully off his forehead. She combed and oiled his long silky hair. She aided him to dress in the one only suit that now remained of all his wardrobe – a page’s dress of light blue, with a little scarlet mantle, embroidered in silver, and a small bonnet surmounted by an ostrich feather. Nor was it without deep shame, and something very like open rebellion, that Gerald donned these motley habiliments.

‘The Count has not said that he wants me to exhibit before him – why am I to masquerade in this fashion?’

‘There is no choice for you between this “tinsel bravery” and the tattered rags, all blood-stained and torn, you wore last night.’ There they were, scattered about, the crushed and crumpled hat, the doublet torn to ribbons, the rapier smashed – all a wreck. ‘No, no, you could not appear in such a presence in rags like these.’ Still was Gerald irritated and angry: a sudden sense of shame shot through him as he saw himself thus alone, which, had the others been joined with him, he had doubtless never felt; and for the first time his station suggested the idea of humiliation.

‘I will not go, Marietta,’ said he at last, as he flung himself upon a chair, and threw his cap to the end of the room. ‘So long as thou wert with me, sustaining the interest of the scene, replying to my words, answering every emotion of my heart, I loved Art – I cherished it as the fairest expression of what I felt, but could not speak. Now, alone and without thee, it is a mere mockery – it is more, it is a degradation!’

She knelt down beside him and took his hands in hers. She turned her full, moist eyes toward him, and in broken words besought him not to speak slightingly of that which bound them to each other, for, ‘If the day comes, Gherardi mio, that thou thinkest meanly of our art, so surely will come another when thou wilt be ashamed of me,’ and she hid her face on his knees and sobbed bitterly. With what an honest-hearted sincerity did he swear that such a day could never come, or if it did, that he prayed it might be his last! And then he ran over, in eager tones, all that he owed to her teachings. How, but for her, he had not known the true tenderness of Metastasio, the fervour of Petrarch, or the chivalry of Ariosto. ‘How much have we found out together we had never discovered if alone!’

And then they dried their tears; and he kissed her, and set out on his way.

It was with a look of haughty meaning, almost defiant, that Gerald ascended the marble stairs and passed between two lines of liveried servants, who smiled pitifully on the strolling player, nor put the slightest restraint upon this show of their contempt Fortunately for him and them he had no time to mark it, for the folding doors suddenly opening, he found himself in a large chamber, brilliantly lighted, and with a numerous company assembled. Before the youth had well crossed the door-sill the Count was at his side, and having kindly taken him by the hand, expressed a hope that he no longer felt any bad effects of his late ill-treatment.

Gerald stammered out his acknowledgments, and tried to make some excuses for his costume, which ended, at last, by the blunt avowal, ‘It was this or nothing, sir.’

‘The mishap is not without its advantage,’ said the Count, in that calm voice which, but for a peculiar expression on his mouth when he spoke, had something almost severe about it. ‘It was the resemblance you bear to a certain portrait was the reason of my sending for you to-night: your dress assists the likeness, for, strangely enough, it is of the very same style and colour as that of the picture. Come forward, and I will present you to a lady who is curious to see you.’

‘Madame la Duchesse, this is the youth,’ said the Count, as he bowed before a lady, who was seated in a deep chair, at either side of which some ladies and gentlemen were standing. She closed her fan and leaned forward, and Gerald beheld a countenance which, if not beautiful, was striking enough to be remembered for years after. She was a blonde of the purest type, with full blue eyes, and masses of light hair, which in long ringlets descended to her very shoulders; the features were youthful, though she herself was no longer young; and the same contradiction existed in their expression, for they were calm, without softness, and had a fixity almost to sternness, while their colouring and tint were actually girlish in freshness. There was in her air and demeanour, too, a similar discordance, for, though with a look of dignity, her gestures were abrupt, and her manner of speaking hurried.

‘He is like,’ said she, scanning him through her eye-glass. ‘Come nearer, boy. Yes, strangely like,’ said she, with a smile, rather indicating sarcasm than courtesy. ‘Let us compare him with the portrait,’ and she gave her hand languidly, as she spoke, to be assisted to rise. The Count aided her with every show of deference, respectfully offering his arm to conduct her; but she declined the attention with a slight motion of the head, and moved slowly on. As she went, the various persons who were seated arose, and they who stood in groups talking, hushed their voices, and stood in a respectful attitude as she passed. None followed her but the Count and Gerald, who at a signal walked slowly behind.

After traversing three rooms, whose costly furniture amazed the youth, they reached a small chamber, where two narrow windows opened upon a little terrace. A single picture occupied the wall in front of these, to either side of whose frame two small lamps were attached, with shades so ingeniously contrived as to throw the light at will on any part of the painting. The Duchess had seated herself immediately on entering, with the air of one wearied and exhausted, and the Count occupied himself in disposing the lamps to most advantage.

‘Stand yonder, boy, and hold your cap in your hand, as you see it in the portrait,’ and Gerald turned his eyes to the picture, and actually started at the marvellous resemblance to himself. The figure was that of a youth somewhat older, perhaps, than himself, dressed in a suit of velvet, with a deep lace collar and hanging ruffles; the long ringlets, which fell in profusion on his neck, the expression of the eyes, a look of sadness not unmixed with something stern, and a haughty gathering of the lower lip, were all that a painter might have given to Gerald, if endeavouring to impart to his likeness some few additional traits of vigour and determination.

‘It is wonderful!’ said the Duchess, after a long pause.

‘So, indeed, it strikes me,’ said the Count. ‘Mark, even to the flattening of the upper lip, how the resemblance holds.’

‘What age are you – are you a Roman – what is your name?’ asked the Duchess, in a hurried but careless manner.

‘My name is Fitzgerald. They call me here Gherardi, for some of the race took that name in Italy.’

‘So that you talk of blood and lineage, boy?’ asked she haughtily.

‘I am of the Geraldines, lady, and they were princes!’ said the boy, as proudly.

‘Came they from Scotland?’ she asked eagerly. ‘No, madam, they were Irish.’

‘Irish! Irish!’ muttered she twice or thrice, below her breath; then, as her eyes caught sight of his features suddenly, she started and exclaimed: ‘It is nigh incredible! And how came you to Italy?’

With that brevity which distinguished Gerald when speaking of himself, he told of his having been a scholar with the Jesuits, where some – he knew not exactly which – of his relatives had placed him.

‘And you left them; how, and wherefore?’ inquired the Duchess.

‘I know not by what right, madam, I am thus questioned. Is it because I wear such tinsel rags as these?’

‘Bethink you in whose presence you stand, boy?’ said the Count sternly; ‘that lady is one before whom the haughtiest noble is proud to lay his homage.’

‘Nay, nay,’ broke she in gently, ‘he will tell me all I ask in kindness, not in fear.’

‘Not in fear, I promise you,’ said he proudly, and he drew himself up to his highest.

‘Was not that like him!’ exclaimed the Duchess eagerly. ‘It was his own voice! And what good Italian you speak, boy,’ said she, addressing Gerald, with a pleasant smile. ‘The Jesuit Fathers have given you the best Roman accent. Tell me, what were their teachings – what have you read?’

‘Nothing regularly – nothing in actual study, madam; but, passingly, I have read, in French, some memoirs, plays, sermons, poems, romances, and suchlike; in English, very little; and in Italian, a few of the very good?’

‘Which do you call the very good?’ ‘I call Dante.’

‘So do I.

‘Sometimes I call Tasso, always Ariosto, so.’

She nodded an assent, and told him to continue.

‘Then there is Metastasio.’

‘What say you of him!’ asked the Count.

‘I like him: his rhymes flow gracefully, and the music of his verse floats sweetly in one’s ear; but then, there is not that sentiment, that vigorous dash that stirs the heart, like a trumpet-call, such as we find, for instance, in Alfieri.’

The Duchess smiled assuringly, and a faint, very faint tinge of red coloured her pale cheek. ‘It appears, then, he is your favourite of them all?’ said she gently. ‘Can you remember any of his verses!’

‘That can I. I knew him, at one time, off by heart, but somehow, in this ignoble life of mine, I almost felt ashamed to recite his noble lines to those who heard me. To think, for example, of the great poet of the Oreste declaimed before a vile mob, impatient for some buffoonery, eager for the moment when the jugglery would begin!’

‘But you forget, boy, this is true fame! It is little to the great poet that he is read and admired by those to whose natures he can appeal by all the emotions which are common to each – lasting sympathies, whose dwelling-places he knows; the great triumph is, to have softened the hearts seared by dusty toil – to have smitten the rock whose water is tears of joy and thankfulness. Is not Ariosto prouder as his verses float along the dark canals of Venice, than when they are recited under gilded ceilings!’

‘You may be right,’ said the boy thoughtfully, as he hung his head; ‘am I not, myself, a proof of what the bright images of poetry have cheered and gladdened, out of depths of gloom and wretchedness? Not that I complain of this life of mine!’ cried he suddenly.

‘Tell us about it, boy; it must present strange scenes and events,’ said the Count, and, taking Gerald’s arm, he pressed him to a seat beside him. The Duchess, too, bent on him one of her kindest smiles, so that he felt encouraged in a moment.

And now Gerald talked away, as only the young can talk about themselves and their fortunes. Their happy gift it is to have a softly tempered tint over even their egotism, making it often not ungraceful. He sketched a picturesque description of the stroller’s life: its freedom compensating for the hardships; its careless ease recompensing many a passing mishap; the strange blending of study with little quaint and commonplace preparation; the mind now charged with bright fancies, now busy in all the intricacies of costume; the ever-watchful attention to the taste of that strange public that formed their patron, and who, not unfrequently wearying of Tasso and Guarini, called loudly for Punch and his ribaldries. The boy’s account of the Babbo and Donna Gaetana was not devoid of humour, and he painted cleverly the simple old devotee giving every spare hour he could snatch to penances for the life he was leading; while the Donna took the world by storm, and started each day to the combat, like a soldier mounting a breach. Lastly he came to Marietta, and then his voice changed, his cheek grew red and white by turns, and his chest heaved full and short, like one oppressed. He did not mark the looks of intelligence that passed between the Duchess and the Count: he never saw how each turned to listen to him with the self-same expression on their features; he was too full of his theme to note these things, and yet he could not dilate upon it as he had about Babbo and the Donna.

‘I saw her,’ said the Count, as Gerald came to a pause. ‘I noticed her at the court, and she was, indeed, very handsome. Something Egyptian in the cast of features.’

‘But not a gypsy!’ broke in the boy quickly.

‘No, perhaps not. The eyes and brow resembled the Moorish race – the same character of fixity in expression. Eyes, that carry —

“‘I tesori d’amore e i suoi nasconde.”’

There was a sly malice in the way the Count led the boy on, opening the path, as it were, to his enthusiasm, and so artfully, that Gerald never suspected it.

No longer restrained by fear or chilled by shame, he launched out into praises of her beauty, her gracefulness, and her genius. He told the Count that it was sufficient to read for her once over a poem of Petrarch, and she could repeat it word for word. With the same facility could she compose music for words that struck her fancy. The silvery sweetness of her voice – her light and graceful step – the power of expression she possessed by gesture, look, and mien – he went over all these with a rapture that actually warmed into eloquence, and they who listened heard him with pleasure, and encouraged him to continue.

‘We must see your Marietta,’ said the Duchess at last. ‘You shall bring her here.’

Gerald’s cheek flushed, but whether with shame, or pride, or displeasure, or all three commingled, it were hard to say. In truth, many a hard conflict went on within him, when, out of his dream of art and its triumphs, he would suddenly awake, and bethink him in what humble estimation men held such as he was; how closely the world insisted on associating poverty with meanness; and how hopeless were the task of him who would try to make himself respected in rags.

As these thoughts arose in his mind, he lifted his eyes once more to the portrait, and in bitterness of heart he felt how little resemblance there was in the condition of the youth there represented and himself.

‘I see what you are thinking of,’ said the Duchess mildly. ‘Shall I show you another picture? It is of one you profess to admire greatly – your favourite poet.’

‘I pray you do, madam. I long to know his features. It is a face I have painted in fancy often and often.’

‘Tell me, then, how you would portray him,’ said she, smiling.

‘Not regularly handsome; but noble-looking, with the traits of one who had such vigour of life and mind within, that he lived more for his own thoughts than the world, and thus would seem proud to sternness. A high, bold forehead, narrow and indented at the temples, and a deep brow over two fierce eyes. O! what wildly flashing eyes should Alfieri’s be when stirred by passion and excitement!’

‘And should you find him different from all this – a man of milder mould, more commonplace and less vigorous – will you still maintain that faith in his genius that now you profess?’ said the Count, with slow and quiet utterance.

‘That will I. How could I, in my presumption, doubt the power that has moved the hearts of thousands?’

‘Come, then, and look at him,’ said the Duchess, and she arose, and moved into a room fitted up as a library. Over the chimney was a large picture, covered by a silk curtain. To this Gerald eagerly turned his eyes, for he already marked that the gilded eagle that surmounted the frame held in his beak a wreath of flowers, interwoven with laurel leaves.

‘One whose enthusiasm equals your own, boy, placed the wreath there, on the 17th of January last. It was the festa of Vittorio Alfieri,’ said the Duchess, as she gently pulled the cord that drew back the curtain.

Gerald moved eagerly forward – gazed – passed his hand across his eyes, as if to dispel a fancy – gazed again and again – and then, turning round, stood steadfastly staring at the Count himself. A faint, sad smile was on the calm and haughty face; but, as it passed away, the boy dropped down upon his knees, and seizing the other’s hand, kissed it rapturously, as he cried —

‘Oh! that I should have ever known a moment like this! Tell me, I beseech thee, Signor Conte, is my brain wandering, or are you Alfieri?’

‘Yes, boy,’ said he, with a slight sigh, while he raised him from the ground, laying one hand gently on his shoulder.

‘It is with reason, boy, you are proud of this event in your life,’ said the Duchess. ‘The truly great are few in this world of ours; and you now stand before one whose memory will be treasured when we are all dust.’