In the Villa San Giorgio, most of all in the society of its graceful chatelaine, I had my fill of poetry and the other ornamental arts. Wit, love, philosophy, literature, bric-a-brac, religion--each had its petit- maitre, and each its sparkling Muse. It was before the day of Arcadia and shepherdesses, those flowers of our more jaded years; women were still called divine, but it was very possible, or we used to think it so, to discuss matters which you did not understand, and express sentiments which you did not feel without the prop of a crook, or garters of blue ribbon. At my impressionable age, with my impressionable habit, I took kindly to all this; I discussed love with Donna Giulia, and puzzled her sadly; I expressed my feelings upon religion to the Abbe Loisic, the count's bookbinder, and bored him to extinction. One day I was presented to a tall cadaverous gentleman with red eyelashes and eyes so pale as to seem almost white. I had a suspicion that I had seen him in some former existence, and so soon as the name of the Marchese Semifonte was mentioned, remembered Prato with horror. The marchese may well have thought me reserved, for it is true that I could barely be civil to him. He argued from that, as I learned afterwards from Donna Giulia, that I was of a ducal family, and in proportion as I froze, so did he thaw. As I receded, so did he advance. He pressed invitations upon me, all of which I could not decline; it was proper that I should offer him some hospitality in return--and I did. He supped with me once or twice in my lodgings, lost money to me at cards and so had some grounds for believing himself "my friend." Presuming upon this, he was not long in discovering himself to me for the monomaniac he was, one of those miserable men devoured by a passion which may lift us to the stars or souse us in the deepest slime of the pit. He made proposals to me, tentatively at first, then with increasing fervency, at last with importunity which would have wearied me inexpressibly if it had not disgusted me beyond endurance--proposals, I mean, to share his depraved excursions. Outraged as I was, loathing the man (as I had good reason) from the bottom of my heart, I was driven to confide in Count Giraldi something of my knowledge of him. I had the good sense, it is true, to withhold the fact that Virginia, his intended victim, was in Florence; but that is the extent of my prudence. It might have served me, but for the accident which I must relate in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXII
I WORK FOR AURELIA, AND HEAR OF HER
It was to the sympathetic ears of Donna Giulia, first of all, that I imparted the state of my feelings, my hopes, fears and prayers with regard to Aurelia. There was that about Count Giraldi, a diamantine brilliancy, a something hard and crystalline, a positiveness, an incisiveness of view and reflection, which on first acquaintance decided me not to take him into my confidence. When I came to know him better, or to think that I did, I followed my natural bent and talked to him unreservedly; but in the lady, from the beginning, I found a very interested listener. She led me on from stage to stage of my story until she had it all, and gave me the sum of her thoughts freely and with candour. "I agree with you, Don Francis," she said, "that your lady will be in Florence before long. A wounded bird makes straight for the nest, and only puts into a thicket on the way to recover itself for the longer flight. You will have to make the most of your time here, for I do not believe that even your eloquence--and you are most eloquent--will hold her from her mother's arms, as things are now. You will be sure to follow her to Siena, and can there make your arrangements at ease."
"My arrangements, dear madam, are very simple," said I. "Pardon is all I ask, and leave to serve her. She may give me these in Florence as well as in Siena."
"Pardon you may be certain of," said Donna Giulia.
"What has she to pardon you but the fact that you admired her, and told her so? I assure you we don't think that an irremediable sin in Italy. Permission to serve her, in other words, permission to prove your admiration by deeds (not words), is another affair. She will certainly wish to consult her mother about that."
"Her husband too, madam," said I; "this is the real difficulty of the case." She gave me a queer look.
"It is unusual to consult the husband," she said. "It puts him in a difficult position."
"It is my fault," said I ruefully, "that he has been put there already."
"Undoubtedly it is," returned Donna Giulia. "You should have remained in the cupboard. Why, the fact that she put you there is proof of that. She has given you all possible encouragement."
I said no more on the subject just then, but a few days afterwards, being out with the count on horseback, he himself spoke to me about my business, frankly owning that it was none of his. "Donna Giulia mentioned it to me in secrecy," he said, "in the charitable hope that I might be of use to you. Need I say that all my abilities are at your service in an affair of the sort? I have had a good deal of experience: are you inclined to make use of me? Let me add, that if you are not, I am discretion itself. I shall understand your reticence, and even take it as a compliment; for if you think I am not the kind of man whom you would care to interest in your mistress, it will be a gratifying proof that I am younger than I venture to think myself."
My reply to this frankly stated case was to put before him the tale of the fair Aurelia, the cupboard and the pilgrimage of penitence. Count Giraldi, greatly to his credit, listened without the alteration of a muscle, and expressed at the close of my blushing narrative his convictions that Aurelia must be a charming lady, and that I should prove an equally charming damerino when I had learned the rules of the game, "One of which," he added with mock severity, "One of which is that while the husband must know everything, he is to be told nothing. To break that rule is to outrage society." It may be that something of bewilderment and pain upon my face told him that he had overstepped his path. He changed the conversation rapidly, encouraged me to talk of Aurelia's perfections and of my own shortcomings as I would, reserving, no doubt, his private view of each; and ended the conversation by promising me to put all his interest at my service. "I will do what I can, and welcome," he said. "I will make friends with the doctor, and perhaps find a place for him under this Government; I will introduce the doctor's wife to Donna Giulia, and listen to your reading of your poetry at least as readily as she will. More, I will make you acquainted with my personal bookbinder, the Abbe Loisic, a truly great virtuoso. If Donna Aurelia won't accept your sonnets in the dress of his providing, you may give up the case as hopeless. In a word, my dear Francis," he said laughing, "there shall be only one thing wanting to complete your felicity, and even that I may be able to afford you. You will have your mistress at hand, her husband accommodated, and will only need a rival, it seems to me, to stimulate you to a pleasant exertion of your powers. There ought not to be much difficulty in finding one in Florence." He was silent awhile, then said, as if musing on the absurdity, "Semifonte, for example!" I begged