The scene was already sufficiently disagreeable, and, supported by my English friend, I made my way to another part of the Cascine, with visions of a Florentine court and jail floating through my mind.
"That is one of the stock tricks of these gamins," she explained. "It would have been all right if you had given him the half lira at once, but with the whole lira in his hand there came the temptation to keep it all. These people see so little money, a lira is quite a fortune to them."
The grilli had certainly brought me no luck, and I now carefully avoid looking at a cage, although I do want one of the pretty little wire ones to take home with me. Perhaps Ludovico will get me one. When he joined me later and heard of my experience, he was so indignant that if he could have laid hands on that small actor it is doubtful whether his histrionic powers would have been allowed to develop to maturity. The humor of the situation did not appeal to him, as it did to Angela and Zelphine.
May 16th.
As Ludovico and Count B. do not speak of leaving Florence soon, we conclude that the military affairs that keep them here must be of a rather protracted nature. They do not, however, complain of the delay, nor do we. To be escorted by two devoted cavaliers through palaces and villas and gardens of delight is an experience that one might wish to prolong indefinitely. Halcyon days are these, truly, and if storms and rain come, it is only at night, as we awake each morning to find the sun shining upon the rose-garden beneath our windows and a new day of pleasure beckoning us on.
We have had some charming afternoons in the villas near Florence. Yesterday we went to Sesto in a tram that starts from the Piazza del Duomo, and from Sesto a short walk brought us to Castello. This royal villa, which once belonged to the Medici, is full of family portraits, and some of its beautiful rooms look really home-like—"as if one could live in them," Angela said, which remark seemed greatly to amuse Count B., who has, I fancy, spent all his days in such cold, formal apartments as are to be found in most of these palaces. It was in the gardens, however, that we were tempted to linger. Those of Castello are elaborately laid out and adorned with fountains and statues, and now with the orange and lemon trees in blossom are filled with delicious fragrance. We stopped so long on the terrace under the great ilexes and beeches that the twilight had begun to fall and the nightingales to sing before we started homeward. Usignuoli Ludovico calls these birds of the night. He and the Count were so pleased with Zelphine's delight over Castello and its nightingales that they insisted upon taking us this afternoon to Petraja, an even more elaborate villa on the heights above Castello. In this villa, which is on the southern slope of the Apennines, Scipione Ammirato wrote his celebrated history of Florence. In the last century Petraja was elaborately fitted up by Victor Emmanuel II. for Madame Mirafiore, for which reason, probably, it has not been a favorite residence of the royal family of Italy, and its lovely gardens and terraces are enjoyed only by tourists and occasional visitors.
XVI
FIESOLE
Fiesole, Tuesday, May 17th.