“Raphael?” replied Maitland.... “Do you wish me to tell you what Raphael really was? A sublime builder. And Titian? A sublime upholsterer. It is true, I admired the Sienese very much,” he added, turning toward Dorsenne. “I spent three months in copying the Simone Martini of the municipality, the Guido Riccio, who rides between two strongholds on a gray heath, where there is not a sign of a tree or a house, but only lances and towers. Do I remember Lorenzetti? Above all, the fresco at San Francesco, in which Saint Francois presents his order to the Pope, that was his best work.... Then, there is a cardinal, with his fingers on his lips, thus!” another gesture. “Well, I remember it, you see, because there is an anecdote. It is portrayed on a wall—oh, a grand portrayal, but without the subject, flutt!”.... and he made a hissing sound with his lips, “while Pier della Francesca, Carnevale, Melozzo,”.... he paused to find a word which would express the very complicated thought in his head, and he concluded: “That is painting.”
“But the Assumption by Titian, and the Transfiguration by Raphael,” resumed the Countess, who added in Italian, with an accent of enthusiasm: “Ah, the bellezza!”
“Do not worry, Countess,” said Dorsenne, laughing heartily, “those are an artist’s opinions. Ten years ago, I said that Victor Hugo was an amateur and Alfred de Musset a bourgeois. But,” he added, “as I am not descended from the Doges nor the Pilgrim Fathers, I, a poor, degenerate Gallo-Roman, fear the dampness on account of my rheumatism, and ask your permission to reenter the house.” Then, as he passed through the door of the salon: “Raphael, a builder! Titian, an upholsterer! Lorenzetti, a reproducer!” he repeated to himself. “And the descendant of the Doges, who listened seriously to those speeches, her ideal should be a madonna en chromo! Of the first order! As for Gorka, if he had not made me lose my entire day yesterday, I should think I had been dreaming, so little is there any question of him.... And Ardea, who continues to laugh at his ruin. He is not bad for an Italian. But he talks too much about his affairs, and it is in bad taste!”.... Indeed, as he turned toward the group assembled in a corner of the salon, he heard the Prince relating a story about Cavalier Fossati, to whom was entrusted the charge of the sale:
“How much do you think will be realized on all?” I asked him, finally. “Oh,” he replied, “very little.... But a little and a little more end by making a great deal. With what an air he added: ‘E gia il moschino e conte’—Already the gnat is a count.’ The gnat was himself. ‘A few more sales like yours, my Prince, and my son, the Count of Fossati, will have half a million. He will enter the club and address you with the familiar ‘thou’ when playing ‘goffo’ against you. That is what there is in this gia (already).... On my honor, I have not been happier than since I have, not a sou.”
“You are an optimist, Prince,” said Hafner, “and whatsoever our friend Dorsenne here present may claim, it is necessary to be optimistic.”
“You are attacking him again, father,” interrupted Fanny, in a tone of respectful reproach.
“Not the man,” returned the Baron, “but his ideas—yes, and above all those of his school.... Yes, yes,” he continued, either wishing to change the conversation, which Ardea persisted in turning upon his ruin, or finding very well organized a world in which strokes like that of the Credit Austro-Dalmate are possible, he really felt a deep aversion to the melancholy and pessimism with which Julien’s works were tinged. And he continued: “On listening to you, Ardea, just now, and on seeing this great writer enter, I am reminded by contrast of the fashion now in vogue of seeing life in a gloomy light.”
“Do you find it very gay?” asked Alba, brusquely.
“Good,” said Hafner; “I was sure that, in talking against pessimism, I should make the Contessina talk.... Very gay?” he continued. “No. But when I think of the misfortunes which might have come to all of us here, for instance, I find it very tolerable. Better than living in another epoch, for example. One hundred and fifty years ago, Contessina, in Venice, you would have been liable to arrest any day under a warrant of the Council of Ten.... And you, Dorsenne, would have been exposed to the cudgel like Monsieur de Voltaire, by some jealous lord.... And Prince d’Ardea would have run the risk of being assassinated or beheaded at each change of Pope. And I, in my quality of Protestant, should have been driven from France, persecuted in Austria, molested in Italy, burned in Spain.”
As can be seen, he took care to choose between his two inheritances. He had done so with an enigmatical good-nature which was almost ironical. He paused, in order not to mention what might have come to Madame Maitland before the suppression of slavery. He knew that the very pretty and elegant young lady shared the prejudices of her American compatriots against negro blood, and that she made every effort to hide the blemish upon her birth to the point of never removing her gloves. It may, however, in justice be added, that the slightly olive tinge in her complexion, her wavy hair, and a vague bluish reflection in the whites of her eyes would scarcely have betrayed the mixture of race. She did not seem to have heeded the Baron’s pause, but she arranged, with an absent air, the folds of her mauve gown, while Dorsenne replied: “It is a fine and specious argument.... Its only fault is that it has no foundation. For I defy you to imagine yourself what you would have been in the epoch of which you speak. We say frequently, ‘If I had lived a hundred years ago.’ We forget that a hundred years ago we should not have been the same; that we should not have had the same ideas, the same tastes, nor the same requirements. It is almost the same as imagining that you could think like a bird or a serpent.”