"'I am nothing at all in myself; but I should be even less had I not a venerable past to lean upon. I am overborne by the apathy natural to minds devoid of inspiration; but my father taught me one thing which passed from his blood into mine: that I come of a distinguished family, and that if I could do nothing to renew its splendor, I should, at all events, abstain from tastes and ideas which might tarnish it. In default of genius, I have respect for family tradition, and, having no ground for pride in myself, I repair the wrong which my nullity might inflict upon my ancestors by bestowing a sort of adoration upon them. I should be a hundred times more guilty if, caring naught for my ignorance, I should shatter their images and profane their memory by airs of contempt. To deny one's father because one cannot equal him is the act of a fool or a dastard. On the other hand, it is a pious duty to invoke his memory in order to obtain forgiveness for being less eminent than he; and the artists with whom I consort and to whom I have no works of my own to show, listen to me with interest, at all events, when I speak to them of the works of my ancestors.'
"That is the answer you would make to me, Michel, and do you think that it would have no effect upon me? It seems to me that if I were the poor, abandoned child that I have imagined, I should fall into profound melancholy, and should complain of fate for having dropped me upon the earth alone, and, so to speak, without sponsors.
"But I pass to a less ponderous apologue, and one better adapted to your artistic imagination, which, however, I beg you will interrupt immediately if you have already heard it. The anecdote has been attributed to several persons cut after the pattern of Don Juan, and as old stories are rejuvenated from generation to generation, it has been told recently of Cæsar de Castro-Reale, the Destatore, the famous brigand, who was no ordinary man either in good or evil.
"At Palermo, in the days when he sought to deaden his faculties in wild dissipation, uncertain whether he should succeed in making a perfect brute of himself, or should decide to raise the standard of rebellion, it is said that he went one evening to visit a venerable palace which he had just lost at play, and which he wished to see once more before leaving it never to return. It was the last remnant of his fortune, and perhaps the only thing which caused him the slightest regret; for it was there that he had passed his early years, there that his parents had died, there that the portraits of his ancestors were buried in the dust of long neglect.
"He went there to notify his steward to receive on the morrow, as the proprietor of the estate, the nobleman who had won it on a cast of the dice.—'What,' said the steward, who, like Master Barbagallo, had a profound respect for family traditions and portraits; 'you have staked everything, even your father's grave, even the portraits of your ancestors?'
"'Staked and lost everything,' replied Castro-Reale, heedlessly. 'However, there are a few articles which I am able to redeem, and my successful adversary will not haggle over them. Let us look at these family portraits! I have forgotten all about them. I used to admire them at a time when I knew nothing about such things. If there are some which have merit, I will set them aside and make some arrangement with their new owner. Take a light and follow me.'
"The steward, agitated and trembling, followed his master through the dark and deserted palace. Castro-Reale strode before, with arrogant assurance; but they say that he had drunk immoderately on arriving at his palace, in order to provide himself with a store of stoicism or recklessness that should last to the end. He himself opened the rusty door, and seeing that the hand trembled in which the old majordomo held the light, he took it in his own and held it on a level with the face of the first portrait in the gallery. It was a fierce warrior armed from top to toe, with a broad ruffle of Flemish lace over his iron cuirass. See! here he is, Michel, for the same pictures which play a part in my narrative are here before your eyes; they are the same which were sent from Palermo to me, as the last heir of the family."
Michel looked at the old warrior and was impressed by his masculine features, his bristling moustache, and his stern appearance.
"Well, your excellency," he said, "that decidedly unamiable and ungenial face gave the dissoluto food for reflection, I doubt not?"
"Especially," replied the marquis, "as the face became animated, the eyes rolled angrily in their dark orbits, and the lips uttered these words in a sepulchral voice: 'I am not pleased with you!' Castro-Reale shuddered and recoiled in terror; but, deeming himself the dupe of his own imagination, he passed to the next portrait and looked it in the face with an insolence bordering on madness. It was an ancient and venerable abbess of the Ursulines of Palermo, a great-great-aunt, who died in the odor of sanctity. You can see her, Michel, yonder on your right, with her veil, her gold cross, her yellow face wrinkled like parchment, her piercing and imperious eyes. I fancy that she says nothing to you; but when Castro-Reale raised the candle to her face, she blinked her eyes as if dazzled by the sudden light, and said to him in a strident voice: 'I am not pleased with you!'