Allowances, it was clear (to the ladies), must be made for a man (or at all events for a milord and a poet) who, even when passing from the arms of a draper’s to a baker’s wife, could thus search for, even if he could not “set up,”
“a mark of everlasting light
Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow.”
They made the allowances, therefore, showing that, even if they sometimes disapproved, they were always ready to forgive when the footman threw open the door and announced the return of the prodigal. To Countess Albrizzi, on these occasions, “his face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine Spring morning,” while his hands “were as beautiful as if they had been works of art,” and his eyes “of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin.” This, though Countess Albrizzi was nearly sixty years of age; so that one can readily imagine the impression made upon Countess Guiccioli, whose husband was sixty, but who was herself little more than seventeen.
“I became acquainted with Lord Byron,” she wrote to Moore, “in the April of 1819; he was introduced to me at Venice by the Countess Benzoni at one of that lady’s parties. This introduction, which had so much influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. For myself, more fatigued than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at Venice, I went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to Count Guiccioli. Lord Byron, too, who was averse to forming new acquaintances—alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences—on being requested by the Countess Benzoni to allow himself to be presented to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. His noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him so different and so superior a being to any whom I had hitherto seen that it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression upon me. From that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at Venice, we met every day.”
Countess Guiccioli.
The girl Countess’s maiden name was Teresa Gamba; and she had been married to her elderly husband for his money. He was in his sixtieth year, and was worth about £12,000 a year. In his youth he had collaborated with Alfieri in the establishment of a national theatre. Now his principal interests were political—as were also those of the Gamba family—and the police had their eyes on them in consequence. His principal establishment was at Ravenna; and he was on the point of starting for Ravenna, breaking the journey at various mansions which he possessed upon the road, on the evening on which his wife, acting “purely in obedience,” to his instructions, attended the reception at which she lost her heart.
He removed her from Venice a very few days afterwards; but by that time the mischief was done, and it was not the heart only that had been lost. Byron had pressed his suit with impetuous precipitation, and Countess Guiocioli had yielded—without, as it would seem, the least idea that there could be any harm in her doing so.
Morality, as has been said, is a matter partly of geography and partly of chronology; and, in the Italy of those days, no woman got credit for fidelity unless she had a lover, as well as a husband, to be faithful to. So Madame Guiccioli punctuated her departure with fainting fits, and then wrote Byron appealing letters, begging him to follow her as soon as she had prepared the minds of her relatives to receive him.
To do so occupied her until the first days of June; and the further development of events may be best related in extracts from Byron’s letters: