“Is there anything I can do for you in the studio, Signore, before their excellencies arrive?” he asked.
“You know this gentleman?” demanded the guardia suspiciously.
“Know him! I have known him all my life! It is the gentleman who occupies the studio in the rear of the palace.”
“A thousand pardons, Signore,” said the guardia, with a magnificent military salute. J. had to thank the porter for not having been detained as “a suspicious person” during the time of the Queen’s visit to his studio.
A minute or two before the appointed hour we all went down into the vestibule. There was an odd hushed feeling in the street: a watering cart had just passed, the square gray cobble-stones were still wet, the air moist. Pietro had found time to pull up the weeds and grass from the pavement (worn into ruts by centuries of cart-wheels) in front of our door, and to clear away the bits of water-melon rind which the boys of the Borgo use as roller skates, in a game that I believe is indigenous to our quarter. Just as the bells of the Castle Sant’ Angelo were ringing six, we heard the jingling of chains and the sound of tramping horses. We were all on the sidewalk as the carriage with the scarlet liveries drew up before the studio. The proud young porter, his hand on the knob of the studio door, made the most sumptuous bow as the footman opened the door of the landeau. Lord Curry handed out the Queen,
Dante
From a pastel drawing in the Collection of Mrs. David Kimball
From a Copley Print. Copyright, 1899, by Curtis & Cameron, Publishers, Boston.