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Updated: May 31, 2025
Says the heavily laden contadina: ‘The old way was the shortest;’ says the artist: ‘It was infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful eye-sore;’ says the archaeologist: ‘It had the merit of antiquity; it is not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred generations.’ Even those whose every step in the olden time was accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very inferior wine tasted on reaching Ana-Capri.”
"Thou, Gigio, tell the good padre!" says the bright-eyed young contadina, pulling the gray sleeve of her fisherman who stands stolidly beside her.
The scene opens with a long array of cavalry, who ride through the Corso, preceded by a large band, playing loudly on their brazen instruments. . . . . There were some splendid dresses, particularly contadina costumes of scarlet and gold, which seem to be actually the festal attire of that class of people, and must needs be so expensive that one must serve for a lifetime, if indeed it be not an inheritance. . . . .
I have seen washerwomen in the Trastevere who were perhaps as handsome as she; but even the head-dress of the Roman contadina con- tributes less to the dignity of the person born to wear it than the sweet and stately Arlesian cap, which sits at once aloft and on the back of the head; which is accompanied with a wide black bow covering a con- siderable part of the crown; and which, finally, accom- modates itself indescribably well to the manner in which the tresses of the front are pushed behind the cars.
"We will see," said Tito aloud; and to himself he said, "Here is a little contadina who might inspire a better idyl than Lorenzo de' Medici's `Nencia da Barberino, that Nello's friends rave about; if I were only a Theocritus, or had time to cultivate the necessary experience by unseasonable walks of this sort!
Tito was afraid of something worse than ridicule, if he were seen in the Via de' Bardi with a girlish contadina looking pathetically at him. It was a street of high silent-looking dwellings, not of traffic; but Bernardo del Nero, or some one almost as dangerous, might come up at any moment. Even if it had not been the day of his betrothal, the incident would have been awkward and annoying.
The contadina still lurched from the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood furniture.
"It is new for a maiden of the people to know such pride," she answered, scornfully. "It is because none are like her, and her soul is beautiful as her face! My mother, there are none prouder in all this palace; the little Contessa Beata is a contadina beside her! Yet, it is not pride, I think, but love and care for my happiness," he added, grown suddenly bold.
Stray there! think of the gentle contadina diffusing happiness around her! then think of her as she supports the youth she loves as she clasps his faint form and drinks in a poisonous contagion from his pallid lip.
Gino wheeled suddenly, and saw that a grinning harlequin was playing his antics in the place where he had expected to find the stranger. "And thy eyes, bella contadina, are as dull as a mole's." He ceased speaking; for, deceived in his person, she who had saluted him was no longer visible.
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