“Are two old fools, and shall be more at peace under ground than above it. Rank Guelph as thou art, I married thee before I was a Ghibelline; so now I must eat from the same platter with the enemy of Manfred, and make shoes for Guelphs, instead of following the fortunes of Corradino, and sending them, my battle-axe in my hand, to buy their shoes in Bologna.”
“Hush! hush! good man, talk not so loud of thy party; hearest thou not that some one knocks?”
Cincolo went to open the door with the air of a man who thinks himself ill-used at being interrupted in his discourse, and is disposed to be angry with the intruder, however innocent he might be of any intention of breaking in upon his eloquent complaint. The appearance of his visitor calmed his indignant feelings. He was a youth whose countenance and person showed that he could not be more than sixteen; but there was a self-possession in his demeanour, and a dignity in his physiognomy, that belonged to a more advanced age. His figure was slight, and his countenance, though beautiful, was pale as monumental marble; the thick and curling locks of his chestnut hair clustered over his brow and round his fair throat; his cap was drawn far down on his forehead. Cincolo was about to usher him with deference into his humble room, but the youth stayed him with his hand, and uttered the words “Swabia, Cavalieri!” the words by which the Ghibellines were accustomed to recognise each other. He continued in a low and hurried tone: “Your wife is within?”
“She is.”
“Enough. Although I am a stranger to you, I come from an old friend. Harbour me until nightfall; we will then go out, and I will explain to you the motives of my intrusion. Call me Ricciardo de’ Rossini of Milan, travelling to Rome. I leave Florence this evening.”
Having said these words, without giving Cincolo time to reply, he motioned that they should enter the room. Monna Gegia had fixed her eyes on the door from the moment he had opened it, with a look of impatient curiosity; when she saw the youth enter, she could not refrain from exclaiming, “Gesu Maria!”—so different was he from any one she had expected to see.
“A friend from Milan,” said Cincolo.
“More likely from Lucca,” replied his wife, gazing on her visitant. “You are doubtless one of the banished men, and you are more daring than wise to enter this town; however, if you be not a spy, you are safe with me.”
Ricciardo smiled and thanked her in a low, sweet voice. “If you do not turn me out,” he said, “I shall remain under your roof nearly all the time I remain in Florence, and I leave it soon after dusk.”
Gegia again gazed on her guest, nor did Cincolo scrutinize him with less curiosity. His black cloth tunic reached below his knees, and was confined by a black leather girdle at the waist. He had on trousers of coarse scarlet stuff, over which were drawn short boots; a cloak of common fox’s fur, unlined, hung from his shoulder. But, although his dress was thus simple, it was such as was then worn by the young Florentine nobility. At that time the Italians were simple in their private habits: the French army led by Charles d’Anjou into Italy, first introduced luxury into the palaces of the Cisalpines. Manfred was a magnificent prince, but it was his saintly rival who was the author of that trifling foppery of dress and ornaments which degrades a nation, and is a sure precursor of their downfall. But of Ricciardo—his countenance had all the regularity of a Grecian head; and his blue eyes, shaded by very long, dark eyelashes, were soft, yet full of expression. When he looked up, the heavy lids, as it were, unveiled the gentle light beneath, and then again closed over them, as shading what was too brilliant to behold. His lips expressed the deepest sensibility, and something perhaps of timidity, had not the placid confidence of his demeanour forbidden such an idea.