three hours later, under the copse of the Giardino Zampieri, I saw him still there. He was precisely in the same position, leaning against a great pine, which rises above the copse of laurels--but this detail I am afraid will be found too simple and pointless. He came up to me with tears in his eyes, asking me not to go telling people of his trance. I was touched, and suggested retracing my steps and going with him to spend the day in the country. At the end of two hours he had told me everything. His is a fine soul, [Pg 101] but oh! the coldness of these pages, compared to his story. Furthermore, he thinks his love is not returned--which is not my opinion. In the fair marble face of the Contessa Ghigi, with whom we spent the evening, one can read nothing. Only now and then a light and sudden blush, which she cannot check, just betrays the emotions of that soul, which the most exalted feminine pride disputes with deeper emotions. You see the colour spread over her neck of alabaster and as much as one catches of those lovely shoulders, worthy of Canova. She somehow finds a way of diverting her black and sombre eyes from the observation of those, whose penetration alarms her woman's delicacy; but last night, at something which Delfante was saying and of which she disapproved, I saw a sudden blush spread all over her. Her lofty soul found him less worthy of her. But when all is said, even if I were mistaken in my conjectures on the happiness of Delfante, vanity apart, I think him happier than I, in my indifference, although I am in a thoroughly happy position, in appearance and in reality. Bologna, _August 3rd_, 1818. [1] Mary Stuart speaking of Leicester, after the interview with Elizabeth, where she had just met her doom. (Schiller.) [2] It is well known that that celebrated woman was the author, probably in company with M. de la Rochefoucauld, of the novel, _La Princesse de Clèves_, and that the two authors passed together in perfect friendship the last twenty years of their life. That is exactly love _à l'Italienne_. [Pg 102] CHAPTER XXX A PECULIAR AND MOURNFUL SPECTACLE Women with their feminine pride visit the iniquities of the fools upon the men of sense, and those of the prosaic, prosperous and brutal upon the noble-minded. A very pretty result--you'll agree!