I was twenty-three years old when I set out for Rome. My father gave me
a dozen letters of introduction, one of which, four pages long, was
sealed. It was addressed: "To the Marquise Aldobrandi."
"You must write and tell me if the Marquise is still beautiful," said my
father.
Now, from my earliest childhood, I had seen over the mantelpiece in his
study a miniature of a very lovely woman, with powdered hair crowned
with ivy, and a tiger skin over her shoulder. Underneath was the
inscription, "_Roma_, 18--." The dress struck me as so strange that I
had many times asked who the lady was.
"It is a bacchante," was the only answer given me.
But this reply hardly satisfied me. I even suspected a secret beneath
it, for, at this simple question, my mother would press her lips
together, and my father look very serious.
This time, when giving me the sealed letter, he looked stealthily at the
portrait; involuntarily I did the same, and the idea came into my head
that the powdered bacchante might perhaps be the Marquise Aldobrandi.
As I had begun to understand the world I drew all kinds of conclusions
from my mother's expression and my father's looks.
When I reached Rome, the first letter I delivered was the one to the
Marquise. She lived in a beautiful palace close to the square of
Saint-Mark.
I gave my letter and my card to a servant in yellow livery, who showed
me into a vast room, dark and gloomy, and badly furnished. But in all
Roman palaces there are pictures by the old masters. This room contained
a great number of them, and several were very remarkable.
The first one I examined was a portrait of a woman which I thought was a
Leonardo da Vinci. By the magnificence of the frame, and the rosewood
easel on which it rested, there was no doubt it was the chief gem of the
collection. As the Marquise was long in coming I had plenty of time to
look at it. I even carried it to a window to see it in a more favourable
light. It was evidently a portrait and not a fancy study, for such a
face could not have been imagined: she was a beautiful woman, with
rather thick lips, eyebrows nearly joined, and an expression that was
both haughty and endearing. Underneath was her coat of arms, surmounted
by a ducal coronet. But what struck me most was the dress, which even to
the powder was like that of my father's bacchante.