The bell rang, and we hastily took leave of each other. It was dusk when I left her. She assured me I could make her a similar visit every week, and this prospect made me happy. I was happy to have seen her—happy to feel she could still descend to my level from the holier region she inhabited, and that there was nothing to hinder me from enjoying in the future the sweet intercourse of the past.
But however fully I opened my heart to Livia, I should have considered it profaning the purity of the air I breathed in her presence to utter the name of Faustina Reali. And, without knowing why, neither did I mention the name of Gilbert de Kergy.
XXIV.
Naples at that time was styled by some one “a small capital and a large city,” and this designation was correct. The society, though on a small scale, was of the very highest grade, consisting of an aristocracy exempt from the least haughtiness, and retaining all the habits and manners of bygone times. However frivolous this society might be in appearance, its defects were somewhat redeemed by an originality and lack of affectation which wholly excluded the vexatious and insupportable ennui produced by frivolity and pretension when, as often happens, they are found together. With a few exceptions, devoid of great talents or very profound acquirements, it had wit in abundance, as well as a singular aptitude for seizing and comprehending everything. If to all this we add the most cordial reception and the readiest, warmest welcome, it will at once be seen that those who were admitted to this circle could not help carrying away an ineffaceable remembrance of it.
But the special, characteristic trait which distinguished Naples from every other city, large or small, was, strange to say, and yet true, the utter absence of all gossip, slander, or ridicule. The women unanimously defended one another, and no man, under the penalty of being considered ill-bred, ever ventured to speak ill of one of their number, unless perhaps by one of those slight movements of the features which constitute, in that country, a language apart—very eloquent, it is true, and perfectly understood by every one, but which never produces the same effect as actual words. It was generally said, and almost always with truth, whenever there was any new gossip in circulation, which sometimes happened, that “no doubt some stranger had a finger in it”! To complete this picture, we will add that there was a circle of ladies in Neapolitan society who fully equalled in beauty and grace the generation before them, which was celebrated in this respect throughout Italy.
It may be affirmed, therefore, without fear of denial on the part of any contemporary, that the general result of all this was to produce a kind of beau-ideal of gay society.
Among these ladies was one I particularly remarked, and who speedily became my friend. Lorenzo had predicted this the day (afterwards so fatally memorable to me) when for the first time the name of the Contessa Stella di San Giulio met my eyes. To tell the truth, this remembrance at first took away all desire to make her acquaintance. It seemed to me (yielding no doubt to a local superstition) that the day on which I first heard the name of Faustina could bring me no luck. But this prejudice was soon overcome. It was sufficient to see her to feel at once attracted towards her. At first sight, however, there was something imposing in her features and manner, but this impression immediately changed. As soon as she began to converse, her eyes, the pleasing outline of her face, and her whole person, were lit up by an enchanting smile on her half-open lips—a smile that the pencil of Leonardo da Vinci alone could depict. It is among the women who served as models to this great, incomparable master that a likeness to Stella must be sought. It [pg 204] is by studying the faces of which he has left us the inimitable type we recognize, notwithstanding their smiling expression, a certain firmness and energy which exclude all idea of weakness, nonchalance, or indolence. Stella's physiognomy, too, expressed courage and patience, and they were predominant traits in her character. She was, however, vivacious, versatile, and so lively as to seem at times to take too light a view of everything; but, when better known, no one could help admiring the rare faculty with which heaven enabled her to bear cheerfully the heavy trials of life, and feeling that her gayety was courage in its most attractive aspect.
Married at eighteen, she had seen this union, with which convenience had more to do than inclination, dissolved at the end of two years: her husband died soon after the birth of her only child. From that time family circumstances obliged her to live with an uncle, who was the guardian of her child, and had, in this capacity, the right to meddle with everything relating to both mother and daughter—a right which his wife, a woman of difficult and imperious temper, likewise arrogated in a manner that would have exhausted the patience of any one else; but Stella's never failed her. Feeling it important for the future interests of her little Angiolina to accept the condition imposed by her widowhood, she submitted to it courageously without asking if there was any merit in so doing. Her liveliness, which had been so long subdued, returned beneath the smiles of her child, and, as often happens to those who are young, nature gained the ascendency and triumphed over all there was to depress her. Angiolina was now five years old, and was growing up without perceiving the gloomy atmosphere that surrounded the nest of affection and joy in which her mother sheltered her, and the latter found her child so sweet a resource that she no longer seemed to feel anything was wanting in her lot.
This intimacy added much to the happiness of a life which began to please me far beyond my expectations. The gay world, with which I thought myself so completely disgusted, took a new and more subtle aspect in my eyes than that I had so soon become weary of. But in yielding to this charm it seemed to me I was pleasing Lorenzo and seconding his desire to make our house one of the most brilliant in Naples. Nevertheless, he resumed his labors, and passed whole hours in his studio, where he seemed wholly absorbed, as formerly, in his art. I found him there more than anywhere else, as he was before our fatal journey. He had begun again with renewed ardor on his Vestal, which was now nearly completed, and was considered the most perfect work that ever issued from his hands. He attributed the honor of his success to his model, and, though formerly more annoyed than flattered by suffrages of this kind, I now welcomed the compliment as a presage of days like those of former times.
The first time I entered the studio after my return I sought with jealous anxiety some trace of the remembrance that haunted me, and seemed to find it on every hand. In a Sappho whose passionate, tragical expression alone had struck me before, and the Bacchante which seemed at once beautiful and repulsive, I imagined I could trace the features, alas! too perfect not [pg 205] to be graven in the imagination of a sculptor in spite of himself.... I saw them, above all, in a Proserpine, hidden by accident, or on purpose, in an obscure corner of the studio, which struck me as a sudden apparition of her fatal beauty. Finally, I saw them also in the other Vestal, to which the one I sat for was the pendant. It was then only I remembered with pleasure he said when he first began it that no one before me had realized the ideal he was trying to embody.