His injunctions were obeyed, though I could not agree with all his conclusions. I wrote respectfully to my father, candidly to Dr. Lanfranchi; I wrote on my knees to Aurelia--though, as I now know, Padre Carnesecchi put the letter into his pocket. Expiatory rites of a religious sort, wisely recommended and cheerfully performed, I omit from this narrative. At their end I was set entirely at liberty; and there seemed no limit to the benevolence of the Society of Jesus in my regard. Money, clothes, a servant were found for me, a lodging in the Piazza Santa Maria, introductions into the fashionable world. I took my own rank once more, I had tutors, books, leisure, the respect of my equals. I went to Court, was made a visiting member of the famous Delia Cruscan Academy; I was offered a box at the opera, a villa in the hills, a mistress. I made the acquaintance of Count Giraldi, a gentleman not only in the immediate service of the sovereign but high in the confidence of the heir-apparent, a man of the world, a traveller, affable, an abundant linguist, no mean philosopher, possessor of a cabinet of antiquities, a fine library, a band of musicians second to none in Florence. If ever a young man was placed square upon his feet again after a damaging fall it was I. For this much, at least, I render a solemn act of remembrance to the Society of Jesus, who must not be held responsible for the series of events which befell me next, and by which it came to pass that the cup of my fortunes went again and again to the bitter fountain of shame.
I passed, I suppose, some six weeks without news, but not without hope, of Donna Aurelia; and I am ashamed to add that the pleasures and interests of the world obliterated in me those obligations of gratitude and honour which I owed to the friend of my misfortunes. But so I have always found it, that the more respect a man has from the world, the less he has to give it in return. It is as if, knowing his own worth too well, he was able to put a just estimate upon his tributary. I will only say in my defence that I knew Virginia to be safe from positive danger.
CHAPTER XXI
MY DIVERSIONS: COUNT GIRALDI
My new friend, as I must call him, since so he professed himself a dozen times a week, was Count Amadeo Giraldi, one of the three members of the Secret Cabinet of the Grand Duke, and the most influential and respectable of the three. He was a gentleman of some forty years, distinguished in presence and address, of suave manners and a cynicism past praying for. This tainted philosophic habit had permeated him to the soul, so that, not only was he naturally a sceptic in matters of received opinion, but found a perverse relish in his own misfortune, until he was become, indeed, sceptical of scepticism, and found himself, at times, in real danger of proving a sincere Christian.
So strange a result of philosophy, reacting upon itself, however, did not disturb his serenity, but, on the contrary, added to his diversions; for he confessed that his highest pleasure in this life was to discover fresh follies of which he could be capable. He considered himself as an inexhaustible quarry of humours, vanities, jealousies, whims, absurd enthusiasms, absurd mortifications. He was able, as he said, to sit at his ease in the side-scene and see himself jigging on the stage in motley or the tragic sock--see himself as a lover, and cry aloud in delight at the mad persistence of the fool he appeared; see himself directing the affairs of the nation, and be ready to die of laughing at himself for pretending to be serious, and at his countrymen for thinking him so. He loved art and spent large sums upon his collection; yet, said he, "I should grudge the money for other occasions did it not furnish me with the entrancing spectacle of a middle-aged statesman panting after masterpieces, fingering this or that painted board, and staking his position in this world and the next upon the momentous question, Is this ear in the manner of Fra Angelico? or, Could Mantegna have so foreshortened a leg? I tell you, Don Francis, there is no more outrageous comedy, no more fantastic extravaganza playing in Venice at this hour than every moment of my own life can furnish me with. What! I hold in my hand the destinies of a million of souls, and the iron enters into mine--not because those others are in danger, not because those others are enslaved--no! but because at Donna Violante's card-table the Marchesa Serafina disregards my call for trumps! I rise up from my escritoire, where lie papers of State--a threat from the King of Spain, declaration of war from the Emperor, a petition of right from some poor devil who has been shamefully used by one of my Ministers; I rise, I say, and leave them lying--and for what? To dangle at some faded opera, which I have heard a thousand times, behind the chair of some fine lady whose person I could possess (if I wanted it) for the writing of a billet. Is it not incredible? But there is more to come. My future master, the Grand Prince, is more of a fool than I am, because he doesn't know it. Yet I read more consequence out of some petulant freak of his than from all the despair of a nation starving to death; and I know very well which would disturb my department the more effectually-- whether it would be a revolution or his being late for Mass. Is not this a humorous state of affairs? Does not this tickle your sense of the ridiculous? I assure you I have never regretted for a moment my having been involved in the business of the State. I can laugh at myself day in and day out."
The whimsicality of this kind of talk robbed it of its sting; but what is really curious about the count was that he was perfectly serious.
He gave the princes--both him who reigned and him who hoped to reign-- very bad characters, but said that for purposes of government he preferred a vicious to a bigoted fool. The first, he said, will be ruled by minions, who can be paid. This makes administration a simple matter of finance. The second sort of princes are ruled by the frati, who pay themselves. The distinction is material. "The Grand Duke Cosimo," he said on another occasion, "is living of fright." "Do you not mean dying of it?" I asked him. "No," said he, "he is living of it. The frati have been at him for years; and now he is so terrified lest he may make a bad death that he has forgotten to die at all. But, of course, his fears will wear out in time, and then he will perish like any ordinary man of sense. As for my future master, Don Gastone, he will live just so long as his zest for iniquity endures. When, like some Alexander of the stews, he has no more vices to conquer, he will die of ennui. It is surprising how few are the changes you can ring upon the human appetite. Gluttony, drunkenness--"
"Spare me the catalogue, count," I begged him.
"I was enumerating for my own convenience," he said, "as I frequently do, to see if I cannot discover one new variety. Don Gastone has not yet exhausted acquisition. He has become a numismatist, and ploughed up a populous village the other day in the search for a penny of Charlemagne's, supposed to have been dropped there in passing. Then there is horticulture--which is one of my own vices; and, of course, I do not forget piety; but things are not so bad as that just yet. It is important that he should survive his father, because he is the last of the line of Medici, and I foresee troubles ahead. We shall have an Austrian prince who will make soldiers of us, or a revolution, when our throats will be cut. An unpleasant alternative--to kill or be killed!" With these and similar reflections he now dazzled and now depressed, but always interested me.
Count Giraldi had three palaces in or near Florence, or rather, he had four. He himself