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Though his business with Monna Vittoria was thus, and thus far, proved a failure, Simone had another matter to attend to which yielded a more successful issue. Messer Simone wished to ascertain how far his standing in the city had been injured by recent events, and how far he might count on the support of those that had always hitherto been reckoned as his friends.
I have sometimes wondered since if Madonna Vittoria, in her willingness to help Dante, was not also more than a little willing to please herself with the society of one that could write such incomparable love-verses.
The "Numancia" hoisted her boats and stood to the westward. Shortly afterward she exchanged signals with the "Zaragoza," "Arapiles" and "Vittoria." The war-vessels drew together, the transports came alongside of them, and fresh supplies of coal and provisions were delivered. Then the transports headed to the south, and the men-of-war laid their course for New York.
The tradition that they used to meet often in the little Church of Saint Sylvester, behind the Colonna gardens, rests upon the fact that they once held a consultation there in the presence of Francesco d'Olanda, a Portuguese artist, when Vittoria was planning the Convent of Saint Catherine, which she afterwards built not very far away.
Outwardly, this new arrangement seemed to portend peace: but it is significant that on June 28th Napoleon wrote to Eugène that all the probabilities appeared for war; and on June 30th he wrote his father-in-law a cold and almost threatening letter. Late on that very evening came to hand the first report of the disaster of Vittoria.
He was many times overwhelmed at the thought of her death, and used to be as one out of his mind." It seems, from reading the sonnets, that some of those which are addressed to women must belong to a period anterior to his friendship with Vittoria. This appears from the internal evidence of style and feeling, as well as by references in the later sonnets.
Wilfrid said to Vittoria: "I can do nothing beyond what I have done, I fear." She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew better; she said: "I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to the barracks." Wilfrid bowed: "I may be able to serve you in that quarter." He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friend could reasonably suppose that a man would ever endure being thanked in public.
He was a tall and courtly man, who had one face for his friends and another for the reverse party; which is to say, that his manners could be bad. Count Lenkenstein was accompanied by Count Serabiglione, who brought Laura's children with their Roman nurse, Assunta. Laura kissed her little ones, and sent them out of her sight. Vittoria found her home in their play and prattle.
"No," Pericles replied while writing and humming over his pencil; "my ear is a pelican-pouch, my friend; it and Irma is her enemy also? it takes and keeps, but does not swallow till it wants. I shall hear you, and I shall hear my Sandra Vittoria, and I shall not know you have spoken, when by-and-by I tinkle, tinkle, a bell of my brain, and your word walks in, 'quite well? 'very well!
Myra Nell came once, bringing Bernie with her, much to the sick man's relief; his other friends began to visit him in rapidly increasing numbers; he gradually took up the threads of his every-day life which had been so rudely severed. Meanwhile, he had ample time to think over his situation. He could not persuade himself that Vittoria had been right in her reading of Myra Nell.
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