When the painter and Ginevra thought themselves alone, Servin rapped in
a peculiar manner on the door of the dark garret, which turned at once
on its rusty and creaking hinges. Ginevra then saw a tall and well-made
young man, whose Imperial uniform set her heart to beating. The officer
had one arm in a sling, and the pallor of his face revealed sharp
suffering. Seeing an unknown woman, he recoiled.
Amelie, who was unable to look into the room, the door being closed, was
afraid to stay longer; she was satisfied with having heard the opening
of the garret door, and departed noiselessly.
“Fear nothing,” said the painter to the officer. “Mademoiselle is the
daughter of a most faithful friend of the Emperor, the Baron di Piombo.”
The young soldier retained no doubts as to Ginevra’s patriotism as soon
as he saw her.
“You are wounded,” she said.
“Oh! it is nothing, mademoiselle,” he replied; “the wound is healing.”
Just at this moment the loud cries of the vendors of newspapers came
up from the street: “Condemned to death!” They all trembled, and the
soldier was the first to hear a name that turned him pale.
“Labedoyere!” he cried, falling on a stool.
They looked at each other in silence. Drops gathered on the livid
forehead of the young man; he seized the black tufts of his hair in one
hand with a gesture of despair, and rested his elbow on Ginevra’s easel.
“After all,” he said, rising abruptly, “Labedoyere and I knew what we
were doing. We were certain of the fate that awaited us, whether from
triumph or defeat. He dies for the Cause, and here am I, hiding myself!”
He rushed toward the door of the studio; but, quicker than he, Ginevra
reached it, and barred his way.
“Can you restore the Emperor?” she said. “Do you expect to raise that
giant who could not maintain himself?”
“But what can I do?” said the young man, addressing the two friends whom
chance had sent to him. “I have not a relation in the world. Labedoyere
was my protector and my friend; without him, I am alone. To-morrow I
myself may be condemned; my only fortune was my pay. I spent my last
penny to come here and try to snatch Labedoyere from his fate; death
is, therefore, a necessity for me. When a man decides to die he ought
to know how to sell his life to the executioner. I was thinking just now
that the life of an honest man is worth that of two traitors, and the
blow of a dagger well placed may give immortality.”
This spasm of despair alarmed the painter, and even Ginevra, whose own
nature comprehended that of the young man. She admired his handsome face
and his delightful voice, the sweetness of which was scarcely lessened
by its tones of fury. Then, all of a sudden, she poured a balm upon the
wounds of the unfortunate man:--
“Monsieur,” she said, “as for your pecuniary distress, permit me to
offer you my savings. My father is rich; I am his only child; he loves
me, and I am sure he will never blame me. Have no scruple in accepting
my offer; our property is derived from the Emperor; we do not own a
penny that is not the result of his munificence. Is it not gratitude
to him to assist his faithful soldiers? Take the sums you need as
indifferently as I offer them. It is only money!” she added, in a tone
of contempt. “Now, as for friends,--those you shall have.”
She raised her head proudly, and her eyes shone with dazzling
brilliancy.
“The head which falls to-morrow before a dozen muskets will save yours,”
she went on. “Wait till the storm is over; you can then escape and take
service in foreign countries if you are not forgotten here; or in the
French army, if you are.”
In the comfort that women give there is always a delicacy which has
something maternal, foreseeing, and complete about it. But when
the words of hope and peace are said with grace of gesture and that
eloquence of tone which comes from the heart, and when, above all, the
benefactress is beautiful, a young man does not resist. The prisoner
breathed in love through all his senses. A rosy tinge colored his white
cheeks; his eyes lost something of the sadness that dulled them, and he
said, in a peculiar tone of voice:--
“You are an angle of goodness--But Labedoyere!” he added. “Oh,
Labedoyere!”
At this cry they all three looked at one another in silence, each
comprehending the others’ thoughts. No longer friends of twenty minutes
only, they were friends of twenty years.
“Dear friend,” said Servin, “can you save him?”
“I can avenge him.”
Ginevra quivered. Though the stranger was handsome, his appearance had
not influenced her; the soft pity in a woman’s heart for miseries that
are not ignoble had stifled in Ginevra all other emotions; but to hear
a cry of vengeance, to find in that proscribed being an Italian soul,
devotion to Napoleon, Corsican generosity!--ah! that was, indeed, too
much for her. She looked at the officer with a respectful emotion which
shook his heart. For the first time in her life a man had caused her a
keen emotion. She now, like other women, put the soul of the stranger on
a par with the noble beauty of his features and the happy proportions of
his figure, which she admired as an artist. Led by accidental curiosity
to pity, from pity to a powerful interest, she came, through that
interest, to such profound sensations that she felt she was in danger if
she stayed there longer.
“Until to-morrow, then,” she said, giving the officer a gentle smile by
way of a parting consolation.
Seeing that smile, which threw a new light on Ginevra’s features, the
stranger forgot all else for an instant.
“To-morrow,” he said, sadly; “but to-morrow, Labedoyere--”
Ginevra turned, put a finger on her lips, and looked at him, as if to
say: “Be calm, be prudent.”
And the young man cried out in his own language:
“Ah! Dio! che non vorrei vivere dopo averla veduta?--who would not wish
to live after seeing her?”
The peculiar accent with which he pronounced the words made Ginevra
quiver.
“Are you Corsican?” she cried, returning toward him with a beating
heart.
“I was born in Corsica,” he replied; “but I was brought, while very
young, to Genoa, and as soon as I was old enough for military service I
enlisted.”
The beauty of the young man, the mighty charm lent to him by his
attachment to the Emperor, his wound, his misfortunes, his danger,
all disappeared to Ginevra’s mind, or, rather, all were blended in one
sentiment,--a new and delightful sentiment. This persecuted man was
a child of Corsica; he spoke its cherished language! She stood, for a
moment, motionless; held by a magical sensation; before her eyes was a
living picture, to which all human sentiments, united by chance, gave
vivid colors. By Servin’s invitation, the officer had seated himself on
a divan, and the painter, after removing the sling which supported the
arm of his guest, was undoing the bandages in order to dress the wound.
Ginevra shuddered when she saw the long, broad gash made by the blade of
a sabre on the young man’s forearm, and a moan escaped her. The stranger
raised his head and smiled to her. There was something touching which
went to the soul, in the care with which Servin lifted the lint and
touched the lacerated flesh, while the face of the wounded man, though
pale and sickly, expressed, as he looked at the girl, more pleasure than
suffering. An artist would have admired, involuntarily, this opposition
of sentiments, together with the contrasts produced by the whiteness of
the linen and the bared arm to the red and blue uniform of the officer.
At this moment a soft half-light pervaded the studio; but a parting ray
of the evening sunlight suddenly illuminated the spot where the soldier
sat, so that his noble, blanched face, his black hair, and his clothes
were bathed in its glow. The effect was simple enough, but to the girl’s
Italian imagination it was a happy omen. The stranger seemed to her a
celestial messenger, speaking the language of her own country. He thus
unconsciously put her under the spell of childhood’s memories, while
in her heart there dawned another feeling as fresh, as pure as her
own innocence. For a short, very short moment, she was motionless
and dreamy, as though she were plunged in boundless thought. Then she
blushed at having allowed her absorption to be noticed, exchanged one
soft and rapid glance with the wounded man, and fled with the vision of
him still before her eyes.
The next day was not a class-day, but Ginevra came to the studio, and
the prisoner was free to sit beside her easel. Servin, who had a sketch
to finish, played the part of mentor to the two young people, who talked
to each other chiefly in Corsican. The soldier related the sufferings of
the retreat from Moscow; for, at nineteen years of age, he had made
the passage of the Beresins, and was almost the last man left of
his regiment. He described, in words of fire, the great disaster of
Waterloo. His voice was music itself to the Italian girl. Brought up as
a Corsican, Ginevra was, in some sense, a child of Nature; falseness
was a thing unknown to her; she gave herself up without reserve to her
impressions; she acknowledged them, or, rather, allowed them to be
seen without the affectations of petty and calculating coquetry,
characteristic of Parisian girlhood. During this day she sat more than
once with her palette in one hand, her brushes in another, without
touching a color. With her eyes fastened on the officer, and her lips
slightly apart, she listened, in the attitude of painting a stroke which
was never painted. She was not surprised to see such softness in the
eyes of the young man, for she felt that her own were soft in spite
of her will to keep them stern and calm. After periods like this she
painted diligently, without raising her head, for he was there, near
her, watching her work. The first time he sat down beside her to
contemplate her silently, she said, in a voice of some emotion, after a
long pause:--
“Does it amuse you to see me paint?”
That day she learned that his name was Luigi. Before separating, it was
agreed between them that if, on class-days when they could not see each
other, any important political event occurred, Ginevra was to inform him
by singing certain Corsican melodies then agreed upon.
The following day Mademoiselle Thirion informed all the members of the
class, under pledge of secrecy that Ginevra di Piombo had a lover,
a young man who came during the hours for the lesson, and concealed
himself in the garret beyond the studio.
“You, who take her part,” she said to Mademoiselle Roguin, “watch her
carefully, and you will see how she spends her time.”
Ginevra was, therefore, observed with diabolical attention. They
listened to her songs, they watched her glances. At times, when she
supposed that no one saw her, a dozen pairs of eyes were furtively
upon her. Thus enlightened, the girls were able to interpret truly
the emotions that crossed the features of the beautiful Italian,--her
gestures, the peculiar tones in which she hummed a tune, and the
attention with which they saw her listen to sounds which only she could
hear through the partition.
By the end of a week, Laure was the only one of Servin’s fifteen pupils
who had resisted the temptation of looking at Luigi through the crevice
of the partition; and she, through an instinct of weakness, still
defended her beautiful friend. Mademoiselle Roguin endeavored to make
her wait on the staircase after the class dispersed, that she might
prove to her the intimacy of Ginevra and the young man by entering the
studio and surprising them together. But Laure refused to condescend to
an act of espial which no curiosity could justify, and she consequently
became the object of much reprobation.
Before long Mademoiselle Thirion made known that she thought it improper
to attend the classes of a painter whose opinions were tainted with
patriotism and Bonapartism (in those days the terms were synonymous),
and she ceased her attendance at the studio. But, although she herself
forgot Ginevra, the harm she had planted bore fruit. Little by little,
the other young girls revealed to their mothers the strange events which
were happening at the studio. One day Matilde Roguin did not come; the
next day another girl was missing, and so on, till the last three or
four who were left came no more. Ginevra and Laure, her little friend,
were the sole occupants of the deserted studio for three or four days.
Ginevra did not observe this falling off, nor ask the cause of her
companions’ absence. As soon as she had invented means of communication
with Luigi she lived in the studio in a delightful solitude, alone
amid her own world, thinking only of the officer and the dangers that
threatened him. Though a sincere admirer of noble characters that never
betray their political faiths, she nevertheless urged Luigi to submit
himself to the royal authority, that he might be released from his
present life and remain in France. But to this he would not consent.
If passions are born and nourished, as they say, under the influence of
romantic causes, never did so many circumstances of that kind concur in
uniting two young souls by one and the same sentiment. The friendship of
Ginevra for Luigi and that of Luigi for Ginevra made more progress in a
month than a friendship in society would make in ten years. Adversity
is the touchstone of character. Ginevra was able, therefore, to study
Luigi, to know him; and before long they mutually esteemed each other.
The girl, who was older than Luigi, found a charm in being courted by
a youth already so grand, so tried by fate,--a youth who joined to the
experience of a man the graces of adolescence. Luigi, on his side, felt
an unspeakable pleasure in allowing himself to be apparently protected
by a woman, now twenty-five years of age. Was it not a proof of love?
The union of gentleness and pride, strength and weakness in Ginevra
were, to him, irresistible attractions, and he was utterly subjugated
by her. In short, before long, they loved each other so profoundly
that they felt no need of denying to each other their love, nor yet of
telling it.
One day, towards evening, Ginevra heard the accustomed signal. Luigi
scratched with a pin on the woodwork in a manner that produced no more
noise than a spider might make as he fastened his thread. The signal
meant that he wished to come out of his retreat.
Ginevra glanced around the studio, and not seeing Laure, opened the
door; but as she did so Luigi caught sight of the little pupil and
abruptly retired. Surprised at his action, Ginevra looked round, saw
Laure, and said, as she went up to the girl’s easel:--
“You are staying late, my dear. That head seems to me finished; you only
want a high-light,--see! on that knot of hair.”
“You would do me a great kindness,” said Laure, in a trembling voice,
“if you would give this copy a few touches; for then I could carry away
with me something to remind me of you.”
“Willingly,” said Ginevra, painting a few strokes on the picture. “But I
thought it was a long way from your home to the studio, and it is late.”
“Oh! Ginevra, I am going away, never to return,” cried the poor girl,
sadly.
“You mean to leave Monsieur Servin!” exclaimed Ginevra, less affected,
however, by this news than she would have been a month earlier.
“Haven’t you noticed, Ginevra, that for some days past you and I have
been alone in the studio?”
“True,” said Ginevra, as if struck by a sudden recollection. “Are all
those young ladies ill, or going to be married, or are their fathers on
duty at court?”
“They have left Monsieur Servin,” replied Laure.
“Why?”
“On your account, Ginevra.”
“My account!” repeated the Corsican, springing up, with a threatening
brow and her eyes flashing.
“Oh! don’t be angry, my kind Ginevra,” cried Laure, in deep distress.
“My mother insists on my leaving the studio. The young ladies say that
you have some intrigue, and that Monsieur Servin allows the young man
whom you love to stay in the dark attic. I have never believed these
calumnies nor said a word to my mother about them. But last night Madame
Roguin met her at a ball and asked her if she still sent me here. When
my mother answered yes, Madame Roguin told her the falsehoods of those
young ladies. Mamma scolded me severely; she said I must have known
it all, and that I had failed in proper confidence between mother and
daughter by not telling her. Oh! my dear Ginevra! I, who took you for my
model, oh! how grieved I am that I can’t be your companion any longer.”
“We shall meet again in life; girls marry--” said Ginevra.
“When they are rich,” signed Laure.
“Come and see me; my father has a fortune--”
“Ginevra,” continued Laure, tenderly. “Madame Roguin and my mother are
coming to see Monsieur Servin to-morrow and reproach him; hadn’t you
better warn him.”
A thunderbolt falling at Ginevra’s feet could not have astonished her
more than this revelation.
“What matter is it to them?” she asked, naively.
“Everybody thinks it very wrong. Mamma says it is immoral.”
“And you, Laure, what do you say?”
The young girl looked up at Ginevra, and their thoughts united. Laure
could no longer keep back her tears; she flung herself on her friend’s
breast and sobbed. At this moment Servin came into the studio.
“Mademoiselle Ginevra,” he cried, with enthusiasm, “I have finished my
picture! it is now being varnished. What have you been doing, meanwhile?
Where are the young ladies; are they taking a holiday, or are they in
the country?”
Laure dried her tears, bowed to Monsieur Servin, and went away.
“The studio has been deserted for some days,” replied Ginevra, “and the
young ladies are not coming back.”
“Pooh!”
“Oh! don’t laugh,” said Ginevra. “Listen: I am the involuntary cause of
the loss of your reputation--”
The artist smiled, and said, interrupting his pupil:--
“My reputation? Why, in a few days my picture will make it at the
Exposition.”
“That relates to your talent,” replied the girl. “I am speaking of your
morality. Those young ladies have told their mothers that Luigi was shut
up here, and that you lent yourself--to--our love.”
“There is some truth in that, mademoiselle,” replied the professor.
“The mothers of those young ladies are foolish women; if they had come
straight to me I should have explained the matter. But I don’t care a
straw about it! Life is short, anyhow.”
And the painter snapped his fingers above his head. Luigi, who had heard
part of the conversation, came in.
“You have lost all your scholars,” he cried. “I have ruined you!”
The artist took Luigi’s hand and that of Ginevra, and joined them.
“Marry one another, my children,” he said, with fatherly kindness.
They both dropped their eyes, and their silence was the first avowal
they had made to each other of their love.
“You will surely be happy,” said Servin. “There is nothing in life to
equal the happiness of two beings like yourselves when bound together in
love.”
Luigi pressed the hand of his protector without at first being able to
utter a word; but presently he said, in a voice of emotion:--
“To you I owe it all.”
“Be happy! I bless and wed you,” said the painter, with comic unction,
laying his hands upon the heads of the lovers.
This little jest put an end to their strained emotion. All three looked
at one another and laughed merrily. Ginevra pressed Luigi’s hand in a
strong clasp, with a simplicity of action worthy of the customs of her
native land.
“Ah ca, my dear children,” resumed Servin, “you think that all will go
right now, but you are much mistaken.”
The lovers looked at him in astonishment.
“Don’t be anxious. I’m the only one that your romance will harm. But the
fact is, Madame Servin is a little straitlaced; and I don’t really see
how we are to settle it with her.”
“Heavens! and I forgot to tell you,” exclaimed Ginevra, “that Madame
Roguin and Laure’s mother are coming here to-morrow to--”
“I understand,” said the painter.
“But you can easily justify yourself,” continued the girl, with a proud
movement of her head. “Monsieur Luigi,” she added, turning to him with
an arch look, “will no longer object to entering the royal service.
Well, then,” after receiving a smile from the young man, “to-morrow
morning I will send a petition to one of the most influential persons at
the ministry of War,--a man who will refuse nothing to the daughter of
the Baron di Piombo. We shall obtain a ‘tacit’ pardon for Captain Luigi,
for, of course, they will not allow him the rank of major. And then,”
she added, addressing Servin, “you can confound the mothers of my
charitable companions by telling them the truth.”
“You are an angel!” cried Servin.
While this scene was passing at the studio the father and mother of
Ginevra were becoming impatient at her non-return.
“It is six o’clock, and Ginevra not yet home!” cried Bartolomeo.
“She was never so late before,” said his wife.
The two old people looked at each other with an anxiety that was not
usual with them. Too anxious to remain in one place, Bartolomeo rose
and walked about the salon with an active step for a man who was over
seventy-seven years of age. Thanks to his robust constitution, he had
changed but little since the day of his arrival in Paris, and, despite
his tall figure, he walked erect. His hair, now white and sparse, left
uncovered a broad and protuberant skull, which gave a strong idea of his
character and firmness. His face, seamed with deep wrinkles, had taken,
with age, a nobler expression, preserving the pallid tones which inspire
veneration. The ardor of passions still lived in the fire of his eyes,
while the eyebrows, which were not wholly whitened, retained their
terrible mobility. The aspect of the head was stern, but it conveyed
the impression that Piombo had a right to be so. His kindness, his
gentleness were known only to his wife and daughter. In his functions,
or in presence of strangers, he never laid aside the majesty that time
had impressed upon his person; and the habit of frowning with his heavy
eyebrows, contracting the wrinkles of his face, and giving to his eyes a
Napoleonic fixity, made his manner of accosting others icy.
During the course of his political life he had been so generally feared
that he was thought unsocial, and it is not difficult to explain the
causes of that opinion. The life, morals, and fidelity of Piombo made
him obnoxious to most courtiers. In spite of the fact that delicate
missions were constantly intrusted to his discretion which to any other
man about the court would have proved lucrative, he possessed an income
of not more than thirty thousand francs from an investment in the Grand
Livre. If we recall the cheapness of government securities under the
Empire, and the liberality of Napoleon towards those of his faithful
servants who knew how to ask for it, we can readily see that the Baron
di Piombo must have been a man of stern integrity. He owed his plumage
as baron to the necessity Napoleon felt of giving him a title before
sending him on missions to foreign courts.
Bartolomeo had always professed a hatred to the traitors with whom
Napoleon surrounded himself, expecting to bind them to his cause by dint
of victories. It was he of whom it is told that he made three steps to
the door of the Emperor’s cabinet after advising him to get rid of three
men in France on the eve of Napoleon’s departure for his celebrated
and admirable campaign of 1814. After the second return of the Bourbons
Bartolomeo ceased to wear the decoration of the Legion of honor. No man
offered a finer image of those old Republicans, incorruptible friends
to the Empire, who remained the living relics of the two most energetic
governments the world has ever seen. Though the Baron di Piombo
displeased mere courtiers, he had the Darus, Drouots, and Carnots with
him as friends. As for the rest of the politicians, he cared not a whiff
of his cigar’s smoke for them, especially since Waterloo.
Bartolomeo di Piombo had bought, for the very moderate sum which Madame
Mere, the Emperor’s mother, had paid him for his estates in Corsica, the
old mansion of the Portenduere family, in which he had made no changes.
Lodged, usually, at the cost of the government, he did not occupy this
house until after the catastrophe of Fontainebleau. Following the habits
of simple persons of strict virtue, the baron and his wife gave no heed
to external splendor; their furniture was that which they bought with
the mansion. The grand apartments, lofty, sombre, and bare, the wide
mirrors in gilded frames that were almost black, the furniture of the
period of Louis XIV. were in keeping with Bartolomeo and his wife,
personages worthy of antiquity.
Under the Empire, and during the Hundred Days, while exercising
functions that were liberally rewarded, the old Corsican had maintained
a great establishment, more for the purpose of doing honor to his office
than from any desire to shine himself. His life and that of his wife
were so frugal, so tranquil, that their modest fortune sufficed for all
their wants. To them, their daughter Ginevra was more precious than the
wealth of the whole world. When, therefore, in May, 1814, the Baron di
Piombo resigned his office, dismissed his crowd of servants, and closed
his stable door, Ginevra, quiet, simple and unpretending like her
parents, saw nothing to regret in the change. Like all great souls, she
found her luxury in strength of feeling, and derived her happiness from
quietness and work. These three beings loved each other too well for the
externals of existence to be of value in their eyes.
Often, and especially after the second dreadful fall of Napoleon,
Bartolomeo and his wife passed delightful evenings alone with their
daughter, listening while she sang and played. To them there was a vast
secret pleasure in the presence, in the slightest word of that child;
their eyes followed her with tender anxiety; they heard her step in the
court-yard, lightly as she trod. Like lovers, the three would often
sit silently together, understanding thus, better than by speech, the
eloquence of their souls. This profound sentiment, the life itself of
the two old people, animated their every thought. Here were not three
existences, but one,--one only, which, like the flame on the hearth,
divided itself into three tongues of fire. If, occasionally, some memory
of Napoleon’s benefits and misfortunes, if the public events of the
moment distracted the minds of the old people from this source of their
constant solicitude, they could always talk of those interests without
affecting their community of thought, for Ginevra shared their political
passions. What more natural, therefore, than the ardor with which they
found a refuge in the heart of their only child?
Until now the occupations of public life had absorbed the energy of the
Baron di Piombo; but after leaving those employments he felt the need of
casting that energy into the last sentiment that remained to him. Apart
from the ties of parentage, there may have been, unknown to these three
despotic souls, another powerful reason for the intensity of their
reciprocal love: it was love undivided. Ginevra’s whole heart belonged
to her father, as Piombo’s whole heart belonged to his child; and if it
be true that we are bound to one another more by our defects than by
our virtues, Ginevra echoed in a marvellous manner the passions of her
father. There lay the sole imperfection of this triple life. Ginevra was
born unyielding of will, vindictive, and passionate, like her father in
his youth.
The Corsican had taken pleasure in developing these savage sentiments in
the heart of his daughter, precisely as a lion teaches the lion-cubs to
spring upon their prey. But this apprenticeship to vengeance having
no means of action in their family life, it came to pass that Ginevra
turned the principle against her father; as a child she forgave him
nothing, and he was forced to yield to her. Piombo saw nothing more than
childish nonsense in these fictitious quarrels, but the child was
all the while acquiring a habit of ruling her parents. In the midst,
however, of the tempests which the father was fond of exciting, a look,
a word of tenderness, sufficed to pacify their angry souls, and often
they were never so near to a kiss as when they were threatening each
other vehemently.
Nevertheless, for the last five years, Ginevra, grown wiser than her
father, avoided such scenes. Her faithfulness, her devotion, the love
which filled her every thought, and her admirable good sense had got
the better of her temper. And yet, for all that, a very great evil had
resulted from her training; Ginevra lived with her father and mother on
the footing of an equality which is always dangerous.
Piombo and his wife, persons without education, had allowed Ginevra to
study as she pleased. Following her caprices as a young girl, she had
studied all things for a time, and then abandoned them,--taking up and
leaving each train of thought at will, until, at last, painting had
proved to be her dominant passion. Ginevra would have made a noble woman
had her mother been capable of guiding her studies, of enlightening her
mind, and bringing into harmony her gifts of nature; her defects came
from the fatal education which the old Corsican had found delight in
giving her.
After marching up and down the room for some time, Piombo rang the bell;
a servant entered.
“Go and meet Mademoiselle Ginevra,” said his master.
“I always regret our carriage on her account,” remarked the baroness.
“She said she did not want one,” replied Piombo, looking at his wife,
who, accustomed for forty years to habits of obedience, lowered her eyes
and said no more.
Already a septuagenarian, tall, withered, pale, and wrinkled, the
baroness exactly resembled those old women whom Schnetz puts into the
Italian scenes of his “genre” pictures. She was so habitually
silent that she might have been taken for another Mrs. Shandy; but,
occasionally, a word, look, or gesture betrayed that her feelings still
retained all the vigor and the freshness of their youth. Her dress,
devoid of coquetry, was often in bad taste. She usually sat passive,
buried in a low sofa, like a Sultana Valide, awaiting or admiring her
Ginevra, her pride, her life. The beauty, toilet, and grace of her
daughter seemed to have become her own. All was well with her if Ginevra
was happy. Her hair was white, and a few strands only were seen above
her white and wrinkled forehead, or beside her hollow cheeks.
“It is now fifteen days,” she said, “since Ginevra made a practice of
being late.”
“Jean is so slow!” cried the impatient old man, buttoning up his blue
coat and seizing his hat, which he dashed upon his head as he took his
cane and departed.
“You will not get far,” said his wife, calling after him.
As she spoke, the porte-cochere was opened and shut, and the old mother
heard the steps of her Ginevra in the court-yard. Bartolomeo almost
instantly reappeared, carrying his daughter, who struggled in his arms.