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What mystery was here? What necessity compelled an elderly professor to receive his scientific friends like a band of political conspirators? How above all, in the light of the girl's presence, was Odo to interpret Alfieri's extravagant allusions to the nature of their visit?
Surely, if we admit that to see liberty degraded by its association with revolutionary horrors must have been unbearably bitter to the nobler portion of Alfieri's nature, we must admit that to see Alfieri himself, Alfieri so proud of his former ferocious love of liberty, turned into a mere ranting renegade, is an unendurable spectacle also; we should like to wash our hands of him as he tried to wash his hands of the Revolution.
Then after the first ten days of rain, which seemed to refer us fatally to Alfieri's 'piove e ripiove' came as perpetual a divine sunshine, such cloudless, exquisite weather that we ask whether it may not be June instead of November. Every day I am out walking while the golden oranges look at me over the walls, and when I am tired Robert and I sit down on a stone to watch the lizards.
A highly intellectual, literary mind, a pure temperament, a passive, rather characterless character, taking the impress of its surroundings; passionate when Alfieri was passionate, depressed when Alfieri was depressed; cheerful when Alfieri's successors, Fabre and mankind and womankind in general, were cheerful.
The revision and printing of Alfieri's works had been brought to an end; but neither he nor the Countess seems to have contemplated a return to Italy. The fact was that they were both of them retained by money matters.
"They are running away, they are noble and rich; take them to the Hotel de Ville to be judged!" at last Alfieri's vociferations and gesticulations wearied even the Paris mob, the crowd became quieter, the National Guards gave the sign for departure, and Alfieri, jumping into the carriage where Mme. d'Albany was sitting more dead than alive, shouted to the postillions to gallop off.
A father above sixty, 'noble, wealthy, and respectable, who died before his son had reached the age of one year old. A mother devoted to religion, the widow of one marquis, and after the death of a second husband, Alfieri's father, married for the third time to a nobleman of ancient birth. These were Alfieri's parents.
All this political atrabiliousness did not improve Alfieri's temper; and could not have made it easier or more agreeable to live with him. The Countess of Albany naturally disliked the Revolution and the French, after all the grief and inconvenience which she owed them; she naturally, also, disliked everything that Alfieri disliked.
Alfieri's were like lion's whelps brought forth with difficulty, and at long intervals; Goldoni's, like the brood of a hare many, frequent, and as agile as their parent. Alfieri amassed knowledge scrupulously, but with infinite toil. He mastered Greek and Hebrew when he was past forty.
Unarmed men have saved their lives by boldly attacking lions, but that is no argument in favor of an unarmed man going out of his way to search for the king of beasts. And the measure of Alfieri's hate was supplied by his daring attempt to capture her. She shuddered to think of the result had he been successful, yet she nerved herself now to out-maneuver him.
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