It was thus Fleurange, kneeling on the pavement, holding her closed book in her hand, meditated, looked around, and prayed. Among the thoughts floating in her mind, there was one especially which seemed to harmonize with everything around her: it was the remembrance of the cloister of Santa Maria, and the friend of her early childhood, whose features at this moment seemed to beam out of some of the holy faces on the walls around her. She was once more beneath the same sky, and sufficiently near to cherish a hope of seeing her. At this thought her eyes overflowed with tears. The remembrance of her childhood prevailed over all others, and rendered her prayer more concentrated and more fervent.
Mild and saintly Madre Maddalena!—perhaps at this same hour you, too, were praying—praying for the child that was still dear to you: perhaps, afar off, you echoed her prayer and made it more efficacious—the oft-recurring prayer now on Fleurange’s lips as she was about to leave the church: “Our Father, ... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!”
XVII.
For the first time since her illness, the princess rose above her languor, and resumed the faculty of talking of something besides herself. As they drew near the end of their journey, Fleurange perceived she knew how to converse, and that the indifference she sometimes manifested to what seemed most worthy of interest was not the result of ignorance, but simply a preference for something else. Like other people, she admired monuments, galleries, splendid churches, and museums, but she preferred the shops where she could procure the rarities she had a taste for, and liked to adorn her house with for the admiration of others. She enjoyed the brilliant sky of Italy and the comfort of its mild climate, so necessary to her health; but, if these advantages had not been accompanied by a sumptuous palace and a large circle of fashionable acquaintances, she would have regarded her expatriation as an exile, and found it but slightly mitigated by all the wonders of nature and art by which she was surrounded.
Their journey at last came to an end. The princess descended from her carriage at the foot of the magnificent entrance to her palace, so overjoyed at finding herself once more at home that the last traces of her recent malady disappeared as if by enchantment.
Numerous servants relieved Fleurange from the care of the light baggage with which the princess’ carriage was always encumbered, and she hastily followed her protectress up the broad steps of white marble that led to the first story. Here a vast hall ornamented with statues opened into apartments whose splendor surprised the young girl. She had already visited more than one palace in Italy with a similar display of grand proportions, frescoes, ceilings richly painted and gilded, but she had never seen anything comparable to the luxury of the furniture and the richness of the long suite of rooms through which they passed. When the princess came to the last, she stopped. This salon, smaller than the others, opened, as well as the one next it, upon a large covered terrace with frescoed arches, which, filled with flowers, rare plants, and seats of all forms and sizes, resembled a garden screened from the sun, and formed an appendage to the elegant apartment they had just entered, which was the princess’ private sitting-room. A table loaded with fruit-cake and ices stood in the centre of the room. The princess threw herself on a chaise longue. “We dine late,” said she. “I will take a biscuit and an ice. Eat something also yourself. But first take off your hat, lay down your satchel, and rest yourself. It is exceedingly warm.”
Fleurange attended to the princess’ wants, and then very willingly took a slight repast, which the heat of the mid-day hour made quite acceptable. While she stood taking an ice, the princess opened the pile of notes and letters on a small table near her. She read the notes first.
“Well, there are more people here than I expected. So much the better! Let me look over my cards.”