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Updated: June 13, 2025
She left me and returned soon, saying that Bellino had gone to bed, but that if I would postpone my departure for one day only he promised to satisfy me on the morrow. "Tell me the truth, Cecilia, and I will give you six sequins." "I cannot earn them, for I have never seen him naked, and I cannot swear to his being a girl.
After many compliments and a thousand thanks, we took leave of the grand Spaniard, and went to my room, where the mystery was at last to be unravelled. I called upon Bellino to keep his word, or I threatened to leave him alone the next morning at day-break. I took him by the hand, and we seated ourselves near the fire. I dismissed Cecilia and Marina, and I said to him,
"Are you satisfied," I said to Don Sancio, "that Bellino is a woman?" "Woman or man, what do I care! I think he is a very pretty 'castrato', and 'I have seen many as good-looking as he is." "But are you sure he is a 'castrato'?" "'Valgame Dios'!" answered the grave Castilian, "I have not the slightest wish to ascertain the truth." Oh, how widely different our thoughts were!
I might easily have put a stop to Bellino's perplexity, and rectified the mistake he was labouring under; but such a confession would not have ministered to my self-love, and I held my peace, for, if Bellino happened to be a girl, as I suspected, I wanted her to be convinced that I attached, after all, but very little importance to the great affair, and that it was not worth while employing cunning expedients to obtain it.
I went to bed thinking of Bellino and of the impression he had made upon me; I was sorry to go away without having proved to him that I was not the dupe of his disguise. Accordingly, I was well pleased to see him enter my room in the morning as soon as I had opened my door.
The next morning I started with Bellino, who, believing me to be undeceived, could suppose that I would not shew any more curiosity about him, but we had not been a quarter of an hour together when he found out his mistake, for I could not let my looks fall upon his splendid eyes without feeling in me a fire which the sight of a man could not have ignited.
The young lady was ugly; my journey was a rather tedious one. My Short But Rather Too Gay Visit To Ancona Cecilia, Marina, Bellino the Greek Slave of the Lazzaretto Bellino Discovers Himself I arrived in Ancona on the 25th of February, 1744, and put up at the best inn.
Now, Gian Bellino and the other masters of that country, not having the habit of studying the antique, were accustomed to copy only what they saw before them, and that in a dry, hard, labored manner, which Titian also acquired; but about the year 1507, Giorgione da Castel Franco, not being satisfied with that mode of proceeding, began to give to his works an unwonted softness and relief, painting them in a very beautiful manner; yet he by no means neglected to draw from the life, or to copy nature with his colors as closely as he could; and in doing the latter he shaded with colder or warmer tints as the living object might demand, but without first making a drawing; since he held that, to paint with the colors only, without any drawing on paper, was the best mode of proceeding, and most perfectly in accord with the true principles of design.
The reader may guess my delight and surprise when I recognised in the prima donna Therese, the false Bellino, whom I had left at Rimini in the year 1744; that charming Therese whom I should certainly have married if M. de Gages had not put me under arrest. I had not seen her for seventeen years, but she looked as beautiful and ravishing as ever as she came forward on the stage.
Bellino, such was the name of the castrato, yielding to the entreaties of Don Sancio, rose from the table, went to the harpiscord, and sang with the voice of an angel and with delightful grace. The Castilian listened with his eyes closed in an ecstasy of enjoyment, but I, far from closing my eyes, gazed into Bellino's, which seemed to dart amorous lightnings upon me.
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