“Good-bye, bambino. Have a good rest. Put on your black suit to come to the table.”
“Very well.” Cæsar stretched himself on the bed, slept off and on, somewhat feverish from fatigue, and at about twelve he woke at the noise they made in bringing his luggage into the room. He got up to open the trunks, washed and dressed, and when the customary gong resounded, he presented himself in the salon.
Laura was chatting with two young ladies and an older lady, the Countess of San Martino and her daughters. They were in Rome for the season and lived regularly in Venice.
Laura introduced her brother to these ladies, and the Countess pressed Cæsar’s hand between both of hers, very affectionately.
The Countess was tiny and dried-up: a mummy with the face of a grey-hound, her skin close to her bones, her lips painted, little penetrating blue eyes, and great vivacity in her movements. She dressed in a showy manner; wore jewels on her bosom, on her head, on her fingers.
The daughters looked like two little blond princesses: with rosy cheeks, eyebrows like two golden brush-strokes, almost colourless, clear blue eyes of a heavenly blue, and such small red lips, that on seeing them, the classical simile of cherries came at once to one’s mind.
The Countess of San Martino asked Cæsar like a shot if he was married and if he hadn’t a sweetheart. Cæsar replied that he was a bachelor and that he had no sweetheart, and then the Countess came back by asking if he felt no vocation for matrimony.
“No, I believe I don’t,” responded Cæsar.
The two young women smiled, and their mother said, with truly diverting familiarity, that men were becoming impossible. Afterwards she added that she was anxious for her daughters to marry.
“When one of these children is married and has a bambino, I shall be more contented! If God sent me a cheru-bino del cielo, I shouldn’t be more so.”