In spite of the Marquise's warnings, perhaps even because of them, my next most pressing concern was to find out the lodging of a painter I knew, and I spent an hour with him at his studio talking over the legitimate or dubious ways of enjoying oneself that Rome could provide. I led him to the subject of the Aldobrandi.
The Marquise, he said, after being excessively frivolous became highly devotional when she recognised that she was too old for further conquests. Her eldest son was a fool, who spent his time hunting and receiving the rents of the farms on his vast estates. They were going the right way to make an idiot of the second son, Don Ottavio; he was to be a cardinal some day. Until then he was given up to the Jesuits. He never went out alone; he was forbidden to look at a woman, or to take a single step without a priest at his heels, who had educated him for God's service, and who, after having been the Marquise's last amico, now ruled her house with almost despotic authority.
The next day Don Ottavio, followed by the Abbé Negroni, he who had taken me for his pupil the previous evening, came to take me out in a carriage and to offer his services as cicerone.
The first public building we stopped at was a church. Following his priest's example, Don Ottavio knelt down, beat his breast, and made endless signs of the cross. After he had got up he showed me the frescoes and statues, and talked like a man of sense and taste. This was an agreeable surprise to me; we began to talk, and his conversation pleased me. For some time we conversed in Italian, but suddenly he said to me in French—
"My director does not understand a word of your language; let us talk French, and we shall feel freer."
It might be said that change of idiom transformed the young man. There was nothing that smacked of the priest in his talk. I could have imagined him one of our own liberal-minded men. I noticed that he said everything in an even, monotonous tone of voice, which often contrasted strangely with the vivacity of his sentiments. It was, apparently, a ruse to put Negroni off the scent, who from time to time asked us to explain what we were talking about. I need hardly say that our translation was extremely free.
A young man in violet stockings passed us.
"That is one of our modern patricians," said Don Ottavio. "Wretched livery! and it will be mine in a few months! What happiness," he added after a moment's silence—"what happiness to live in a country like yours! If I were French I might perhaps one day have become a deputy."
This high ambition made me feel strongly inclined to laugh, and as the Abbé noticed it, I had to explain that we were talking of the error of an archaeologist who mistook a statue by Bernini for an antique.
We dined at the Aldobrandi palace. Directly after the coffee the Marquise asked me to excuse her son, who was obliged to retire to his room to fulfil certain pious duties. I remained alone with her, and the Abbé Negroni leant back in his chair and slept the sleep of the just.