United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Among the details of the Count of Monte-Cristo's plan for the rehabilitation of Giovanni Massetti was a visit to Annunziata Solara at the Refuge in Civita Vecchia. This visit he made one morning in company with Zuleika and M. and Mme. Morrel. Madame de Rancogne was delighted to see the Count and cordially welcomed him and his party.
Maria Dolores bit her lip and vouchsafed no answer; and again for a minute or two Annunziata lay silent. But presently, "Have you ever waked up in the middle of the night, and felt terribly frightened?" she asked. "Yes, dear, sometimes. I suppose every one has," said Maria Dolores. "Well, do you know why people feel so frightened when they wake like that?" pursued the child.
It was hardly likely that Annunziata would recognize in Massetti and himself the two youthful gallants she had encountered but for a moment amid the gay throng and crush of the brilliant Piazza del Popolo. While these thoughts went flashing through his mind, the young Viscount, leaning heavily upon his arm, had not taken his eyes from the handsome, tempting girl before him.
"Do you mean to assert that this wretched old man had base designs against his own daughter?" said the Count, his visage expressing all the horror he felt. "Exactly," answered Peppino, coolly. "Old Solara, miserable miser as he is, had for a very large sum of the gold he so ardently coveted sold his own child, his beautiful daughter Annunziata, to the bandit chief Luigi Vampa!"
He had his castle, his pictures, his garden, he had the hills and valley, the birds, the flowers, the clouds, the sun, he had the Rampio, he had Annunziata, he even had Annunziata's uncle; and with all this he had a sense of having stepped out of a world that he knew by heart, that he knew to satiety, a world that was stale and stuffy and threadbare, with its gilt rubbed off and its colours tarnished, into a world where everything was fresh and undiscovered and full of savour, a great cool blue and green world that from minute to minute opened up new perspectives, made new promises, brought to pass new surprises.
I ask myself again and again, trying to put myself behind your eyes. She has nothing, at any rate, in common with the beauties we have down here, or with those my aunt bade me admire in London last May. The face has a strong Italian look, but not Italian of to-day. Do you remember the Ghirlandajo frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, or the side groups in Andrea's frescoes at the Annunziata?
It is wicked of you." "Then, if I am wicked, I should go to Hell?" inquired Annunziata, looking alertly up. Maria Dolores looked about her, looked across the river, down the valley, as one in distress scanning the prospect for aid. "Of course you would not," she said. "My dear child, can't we find something else to talk of?"
You will suppose that, apart from my annoyance, I was vastly perplexed. Why should he pursue me so? Who was he? What was he after? And for enlightenment I addressed myself to Annunziata. 'Who is the hideous old man who always kneels beside me? I asked her. She had not noticed any one kneeling beside me, she said; she had noticed, on the contrary, that I always knelt alone, at a distance.
A more distant pilgrimage to the shrine of S. Jago of Compostella in Spain, which Ercole had planned in 1487, had to be abandoned, owing to the opposition of Pope Innocent VIII.; but eight years later the duke paid another visit to Florence, on the pretence of discharging a vow which he had made to Our Lady of the Annunziata.
What is Divo Pan?" "Don't you know what a divo is?" asked Annunziata, her clear grey eyes surprised. "Oh, a divo?" said Maria Dolores, getting a glimmer of light. "Ah, yes, a divo is a saint, I think? "Not exactly," Annunziata discriminated, "but something like one. The saints, you see, are always very good, and divi are sometimes bad. But they are powerful, like saints.
Word Of The Day