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Accordingly she received Zaffirino reclining on a sofa which had been placed in the great ballroom of the Villa of Mistra, and beneath the princely canopy; for the Vendramins, who had intermarried with the house of Mantua, possessed imperial fiefs and were princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Zaffirino saluted her with the most profound respect, but not a word passed between them.
Finally, a story, of course containing plenty about his illustrious family: "My great grand-aunt, the Procuratessa Vendramin, from whom we have inherited our estate of Mistra, on the Brenta" a hopelessly muddled story, apparently, fully of digressions, but of which that singer Zaffirino is the hero.
The stranger has to put his whole soul into it, hasn't he?" "Ah, the whole soul! It is too fatiguing," Count Filgiatti assented. He glanced at me uncertainly, and rose. "Kindly may I ask that you give my deepest afflictions to Mistra and Madame Wick for their health?" "Oh," I said, "if you must! But I'm here, you know." I put no hauteur into my tone, because I saw that it was a misunderstanding.
But this time it was plain that the voice did not come, as I had imagined, from the garden, but from the house itself, from some corner of this rambling old villa of Mistra. Mistra Mistra! The name rang in my ears, and I began at length to grasp its significance, which seems to have escaped me till then. "Yes," I said to myself, "it is quite natural."
You are each his own vegetable. Yes? Ah, how much better than the poor Italian! But Mistra and Madame Wick, they have not, I hope, the indisposition?" "Well, I'm afraid they have, Count something like that. They said I was to ask you to excuse them. You see they've been sight-seeing the whole morning, and that's something that can't be done by halves in your city.
From the theater I made a sketch of the valley, with the dazzling ridge of Taygetus in the rear, and Mistra, the medieval Sparta, hanging on the steep sides of one of his gorges. The sun was intensely hot, and we were glad to descend again, making our way through tall wheat, past walls of Roman brickwork and scattering blocks of the older city, to the tomb of Leonidas.
Mistra the name sent a shiver all down me. I was about to decline the invitation, when a thought suddenly loomed vaguely in my mind. "Yes, dear Count," I answered; "I accept your invitation with gratitude and pleasure. I will start tomorrow for Mistra." The next day found me at Padua, on my way to the Villa of Mistra. It seemed as if I had left an intolerable burden behind me.
As we passed out into the smooth-toned talkative darkness, Count Filgiatti said in my ear, "Mistra and Madame Wick have kindly consented to receive my visit at the hotel to-morrow. Is it agreeable to you also that I come?" And I said, "Why, certainly!" We descended next morning to realise how original we were in being in the plains of Italy in July. The Fulda people and the Miss Binghams and Mrs.
That old idler, Count Alvise, who had insisted on accompanying me to the physician's, immediately suggested that I should go and stay with his son, who was boring himself to death superintending the maize harvest on the mainland: he could promise me excellent air, plenty of horses, and all the peaceful surroundings and the delightful occupations of a rural life "Be sensible, my dear Magnus, and just go quietly to Mistra."
And with this odd impression of naturalness was mixed a feverish, impatient pleasure. It was as if I had come to Mistra on purpose, and that I was about to meet the object of my long and weary hopes.
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