The lady Antonia appeared at Rome before the commencement of the carnival, and, as she was rich and a celebrated beauty, her arrival at the eternal city was soon known and talked about. Even the English at Rome were infected by the general enthusiasm, and forgot their national taciturnity when they saw the Gazella in her open carriage on the Corso. She was the theme of general admiration. Artists and officers, counts and cardinals, Britons and Americans, sounded the praises of the fair Contessa, and not a few of the impoverished nobility, fortune-hunters by profession, ranked themselves in the train of the lovely Antonia.
But cold was the maid, and though legions advanced,
All drilled by Ovidean art,
Though they languished and ogled, protested and danced,
Like shadows they came, and like shadows they glanced
From the cold polished ice of her heart.
In fact the beautiful Contessa turned a deaf ear to every compliment; and if she listened for a moment to the Baron Von Konigsmarke, a lieutenant colonel of Austrian hussars, it was because the haughty noble professed to be actuated by a pure friendship; and, moreover, being a man of repulsive manners and a dead shot, served to keep more troublesome admirers at a distance. But even the Baron Von Konigsmarke, handsome, talented, mustachioed, and blazing with orders, was forced to give way, at the opening of the carnival, to a nameless mask, who attached himself inseparably to the lovely lady.
In no other Italian city does the carnival effect so great a revolution as it does in Rome. From whatever causes it arises—whether from the effect of dissipation, the force of superstition, or the daily contemplation of vast and venerable ruins—the dwellers in the Holy City are grave to a proverb, except during the brief saturnalia licensed by the Romish Church. Then, indeed, they rush to the opposite extreme of the wildest gaiety and the utmost extravagance. The carnival presents the singular spectacle of a whole city systematically mad. It is a festa for the noble, a “beggar’s opera” for the mendicants—and it is hard to say which of the two classes enjoy it most. Fiddling, fluting, dancing, drinking, driving, racing, intrigue, and pelting with comfits, are a few of the most innocent and intellectual enjoyments of the reign of misrule.
The commencement of the saturnalia brought an unfeigned pleasure to the gay Antonia, not only because she entered heartily into the fun of the practical jests, but because she knew that there beat beside her in her carriage that to which no passionate Italian is indifferent—a youthful and noble heart, warm, happy, and devoted to herself. It is needless to say that the companion of her festive hours was the Count Carriale. The gaieties opened with brighter auspices than ever; for not one wretched criminal had been led to the block, to pour out his life for the edification of the assembled gazers, according to the tender edict of the sovereign pontiff, who wished, by the wholesome terror of an execution, to withhold the multitude from the perpetration of those crimes to which the license of a carnival might lead them. His holiness, we are credibly informed, was much chagrined to think that no felon was in prison whom, by a little extension of pontifical justice, he could send in safety to the guillotine. Unfortunately for his wishes, the pleasures began without the zest of a single death by the axe; they did not close, however, without a serious accident.