“Triple brute of a German, I spit upon you!”
“Silence, sir!”
“Silence yourself!”
During this animated dialogue I sat apart, softly rubbing my hands. What a happy dispensation it would be, I could not help thinking, if these two old madmen were to exterminate each other, like the Kilkenny cats! Anyhow, their attention was effectually diverted from my humble person, and that was something to be thankful for.
Never before had I been privileged to listen to so rich a vocabulary of vituperation. Each disputant had expressed himself, after the first few words, in his own language, and between them they were now making hubbub enough to bring the old house down about their ears. Up came the padrona to see the fun; up came her fat husband, in his shirt-sleeves and slippers; and her long-legged sons, and her tousle-headed daughters, and the maid-servant, and the cook, and the ostler—the whole establishment, in fact, collected at the open folding-doors, and watched with delight the progress of this battle of words. Last of all, a poor little trembling figure, with pale face and eyes big with fright, crept in, and stood, hand on heart, a little in advance of the group. I slipped to her side, and offered her a chair, but she neither answered me nor noticed my presence. She was staring at her father as a bird stares at a snake, and seemed unable to realise anything except the terrible fact that he had followed and found her.
Presently the old man wheeled round, and became aware of his daughter.
“Unhappy girl!” he exclaimed, “what is this that you have done?”
I greatly fear that the marchese’s paternal corrections must have sometimes taken a more practical shape than mere verbal upbraidings; for poor Bianca shrank back, throwing up one arm, as if to shield her face, and, with a wild cry of “Alberto! come to me!” fell into the arms of that tardy lover, who at that appropriate moment had made his appearance, unobserved, upon the scene.
The polyglot disturbance that ensued baffles all description. Indeed, I should be puzzled to say exactly what took place, or after how many commands, defiances, threats, protestations, insults, and explanations, a semblance of peace was finally restored. I only know that, at the expiration of a certain time, three of us were sitting by the open window, in a softened and subdued frame of mind, considerately turning our backs upon the other two, who were bidding each other farewell at the farther end of the room.
It was the faithless Johann, as I gathered, who was responsible for this catastrophe. His heart, it appeared, had failed him when he had discovered that nothing less than a bona-fide marriage was to be the outcome of the meetings he had shown so much skill in contriving, and, full of penitence and alarm, he had written to his old master, divulging the whole project. It so happened that a recent storm in the mountains had interrupted telegraphic communication, for the time, between Austria and Venice, and the only course that had seemed open to Herr von Rosenau was to start post-haste for the latter place, where, indeed, he would have arrived a day too late had not Albrecht’s colonel seen fit to postpone his leave. In this latter circumstance also the hand of Johann seemed discernible. As for the marchese, I suppose he must have returned rather sooner than had been expected from Padua, and finding his daughter gone, must have extorted the truth from his housekeeper. He did not volunteer any explanation of his presence, nor were any of us bold enough to question him.