“Can you tell an honest man from a rogue?”
“I think I can.”
“Then tell me, my friend, tell me truly, what do you think of my face?”
I pushed back my hair from my forehead, as I asked the kind old Italian this odd question; and he looked at me rather quizzically for a second, as if to ascertain whether I was in earnest, or seeking to make game of him; being assured, I suppose, by the grave expression of my countenance, that I was serious, he answered:
“You have a frank, talented, amorous expression of face, such as many of your countrymen, whom I have seen, possessed.”
“Amorous, is it possible you have made such a dreadful mistake?—you, a man of so much penetration, to say such a thing as that; why my dear Signor, I am as cold as the eternal snows of Russia’s mountains. I follow the fashionable plan, and invariably treat all womankind with polite rudeness; in fact, I think I hate women: the sexes are, of course, natural enemies to each other.”
“You cold, about as cold as the crater of Mount Etna; how can you sit there, and presume to tell me such shocking stories?” Carrara laughed; he seldom laughed, or even smiled, but when he did, his face lighted up with a sunny glow. I was about to deny this accusation flatly, merely for the sake of a laughing argument, when, in looking for a stray engraving I was copying, which had fallen on the floor, I knocked down an unfinished picture, which stood with its face to the wall; I glanced at it, and was about to replace it in its original position, when Carrara observed, glancing at it as he spoke,
“Talking of variety of character, that woman certainly was an oddity in her way: I never saw a more singular person.”
“The original of this picture, do you mean?” I asked, as I set it back again.
“Yes,” replied the artist; “she was the friend of Prince Monteolene. I painted a half length portrait for her, and began this one, but the prince parted from her, after having lived with her three or four years, and she left the city, leaving this picture unfinished on my hands.”