And there I met a pretty maid
Who dropt to me a curtsy.
I gave her cakes, I gave her wine,
I gave her sugar-candy;
But oh! the little naughty girl,
She asked me for some brandy.’
“Now turn ‘Cranbourne Lane’ into Pisan acquaintances, which I am sure are dirty enough, and ‘brandy’ into the wherewithal to buy brandy, and you have the whole story of Shelley’s Italian Platonics.”
And Shelley added: “I cannot look at my poem! The person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno. . . . I think one is always in love with something or other; the error—and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it—consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal.”
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CAVALIER’ SIRVENTE
During the early days which followed her departure from Venice, Claire had received news of Allegra fairly often through the Hoppners. The child suffered from the cold. She had become quiet and grave as a little old woman. Mr. Hoppner thought it would be better to remove her from Venice. But it was impossible to have a conversation to any purpose with her father who was sinking deeper and deeper into debauchery.