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Mamma Letitia was there, tearful, but smiling, with Eliza, and Pauline, and Baby Lucien; so were Uncle Lucien the canon, and Aunt Manuccia, who had been their mother's housekeeper, with Nurse Saveria, and Nurse Ilaria, whom Napoleon called foster-mother, and even little Panoria, to whom Napoleon cried "Good-by, Giacommeta mia! I'll come back some day."
Left to himself the rest of the day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the common people amongst whom he strays at will, he listens to the conversation of sailors or of shepherds assembled on the public square, and their simple exclamations, their frank admiration of well-planned ambuscades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on him, often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has already learned at home.
Ursula as, twenty-four years earlier, he had fallen in love with the statue of Ilaria at Lucca; and she became, as time after time he revisited Venice for her sake, a personality, a spiritual presence, a living ideal, exactly as the Queen of the Air might have been to the sincere Athenian in the pagan age of faith.
"Devoted British colporteurs have philanthropically scattered a few art primers and tracts, and there is a possibility that in the near future, our people may search the maps for Orvieto, and the dictionaries for Campo Santo, to compass the mysteries of the 'Triumph of Death', and of 'Symmetria Prisca'. Some of us have even heard of 'Aucassin et Nicolette', and of 'Nencia da Barberino', picking salad in her garden; and I am almost sure a Vassar girl once spoke to me of Delia Quercia's Ilaria; but with all my national pride, candor compels me to admit that it is a 'far cry' to the day when we can devoutly fall on our knees before the bronze Devil of Giovanni da Bologna.
With her he naturally falls in love; and the tragedy lies, or ought to lie, in the conflict between this earthly passion and his heavenly calling and election. But the author has taken pains to make the obstacle between Andrea and Ilaria absolutely unreal. The fact that Andrea has as yet taken no irrevocable vow is not the essence of the matter.
St. Guy answered that for his reward he prayed he might be sent back to the island of Ilaria, with a bishop and a sufficient company of priests, there to spread the pure light of the Faith among the unfortunate natives. Whereupon the Pope created him Count and Governor of the country, the heathen name of which he changed to St.
But, Ilaria, you knew well what gave colour to the faint and worn old words about Fior di spin giallo, or O Dea fatale, or "O Dio de' Dei! La piu bellina mi parete voi; O quanto sete cara agli occhi miei!" And so the days passed in your square corner palace, until the plague came down with the North wind, and you bowed your proud neck before it like a mountain pine.
Scorner of love, now Death is at hand, with the bats' wings and wet scythe they give him in the Piazza, when your lord comes triumphing or God's Body takes the air: what of him, Madonna? Let him come, says Ilaria, with raised eyebrows and a wintry smile. Yet she fought: her thin hands held off the scythe at arms' length; she set her teeth and battled with the winged beast.
Young to die, young to die and leave the pleasant ways of Lucca, the green ramparts, the grassy walks in the pastures where the hawks fly and the shadows fleet over the green and gold of early May. Young enough, Ilaria.
The sepulchral portrait of Medea, daughter of the great Condottiere, has a grace almost beyond that of Della Quercia's "Ilaria." Much, no doubt, is due to the peculiarly fragile beauty of the girl herself, who lies asleep with little crisp curls clustering upon her forehead, and with a string of pearls around her slender throat.
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