From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Milano, to the Prince Piero di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, Luton, Bedfordshire, England.
Caro mio Pierino,—
Are you sure you have an angel? People have a trick of always calling very commonplace women angels. "She is an angel" is a polite way of saying, "She is a bore." I am not sure, either, that I should care to live with a veritable angel. One would see too much of the wings, as you say; and even a guardian angel must be the terzo incommodo sometimes. Why would you marry an English girl? I dare say she is so good-tempered that she never contradicts you, and you grow peevish out of sheer weariness at having everything your own way. If you had married Nicoletta, as I wanted you to do, she would have flown at you like a little tigress a dozen times a week, and kept you on the qui vive to please her. We know what our own men want. I have half a mind to write to your wife and tell her that no Italian is comfortable unless he has his ears boxed twice a day. If your wife would be a little disagreeable, probably you would adore her. But it is a great mistake, Pierino mio, to confuse marriage and love. In reality, they have no more to do with one another than a horse-chestnut and a chestnut horse—than the zuccone that means a vegetable and the zuccone that means a simpleton. I should imagine that your wet English bird's-nest will force you to realize this truth with lamentable rapidity.
From the Princess di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, Luton, Bedfordshire, to Lady Gwendolen Dormer, British Embassy, Vienna.
Dearest Gwen,—
I did promise, I know, to write to you at once and tell you everything; and a whole week is gone, and I couldn't do it, I really couldn't; and even now I don't know where to begin. I suppose I am dreadfully vieux jeu. I suppose you will only laugh at me, and say "spoons." How glad I am Piero cannot say a word of English, and so I never hear that dreadful jargon, which I do think so ugly and so vulgar, though you are all so fond of it. I ought not to have come to Coombe-Bysset: at least, they all said it was silly. Nessie Fitzgerald was back in London before the week was out, and doing a play. To be sure, she was married in October, and she didn't care a bit about him; and I suppose that made all the difference. To me it seems so much more natural to shut one's self up, and Piero thought so too; but I am half afraid he finds it a little dull now. You see, we knew very little of one another. He came for a month of the London season, and he met me at Ranelagh, and he danced the cotillon with me at a good many houses, and we cared for one another in a week, and were married in a month, as you know. Papa hated it because it wasn't Burlington or Lord Hampshire. But he couldn't really object, because the San Zenone are such a great Roman family, and all the world knows them; and they are Spanish dukes as well as Italian princes. And Piero is such a grand gentleman, and made quite superb settlements,—much more, papa said, than he could have expected, so poor as we are. But what I meant was, meeting like that in the rush of the season, at balls, and dinners, and garden-parties, and luncheons at Hurlingham, and being married to one another just before Ascot, we really knew nothing at all of each other's tastes, or habits, or character. And when, on the first morning at Coombe, we realized that we were together for life, I think we both felt very odd. We adored one another, but we didn't know what to talk about; we never had talked to each other; we never had time. And I am afraid there is something of this feeling with him. I am afraid he is dreadfully bored, and I told him so, and he answered, "Angelina mia, your admirable countrymen are not bored in the country because they are always eating. They eat a big breakfast, they eat a big luncheon, they eat a big dinner, they are always eating. Myself, I have not that resource. Give me a little coffee and a little wine, and let me eat only once a day. You never told me I was expected to absorb food like the crocodiles." What would he say if he saw a hunting-breakfast in the shires? I suppose life is very material in England. I think it is why there is so much typhus fever. Do you know, he wasn't going to dress for dinner because we were alone. As if that was any reason! I told him it would look so odd to the servants if he didn't dress, so he has done so since. But he says it is a seccatura (this means, I believe, a bore), and he told me we English sacrifice our whole lives to fuss, form, and the outside of things. There is a good deal of truth in this. What numbers of people one knows who are ever so poor, and who yet, for the sake of the look of the thing, get into debt over their ears! And, then, quantities of them go to church for the form of the thing, when they don't believe one atom; they will tell you at luncheon that they don't. I fancy Italians are much more honest than we are in this sort of way. Piero says if they are poor they don't mind saying so, and if they have no religion they don't pretend to have any. He declares we English spoil all our lives because we fancy it is our duty to pretend to be something we are not. Now, isn't that really very true? I am sure you would delight in all he says. He is so original, so unconventional. Our people think him ignorant because he doesn't read and doesn't care a straw about politics. But I assure you he is as clever as anything can be; and he doesn't get his ideas out of newspapers, nor repeat like a parrot what his chief of party tells him. I do wish you could have come over and could have seen him. It was so unkind of you to be ill just at the very time of my marriage. You know that it is only to you that I ever say quite what I feel about things. The girls are too young, and mamma doesn't understand. She never could see why I would not marry poor Hampshire. She always said that I should care for him in time. I don't think mamma can ever have been in love with anybody. I wonder what she married for: don't you?
From the Prince Piero di San Zenone, Coombe-Bysset, to the Count Zazzari, Italian Legation, London.
Caro Gigi,—