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Updated: June 19, 2025
If you had given him a whole loaf he would soon have eaten it up. Coco had for stable companions three fine Swiss cows. Their names were La Blonde, Blanchotte, and Nera. You know what the colours were for the names, don't you? Petit-Jacques, the stable boy, took care of them. On fine days he led them to pasture into a bog paddock near the farm up against a pretty wood of silver beeches.
"Now go, and find your partner," said Trenta, not heeding this little speech. "I am about to have the chairs arranged. Go and find your partner." "Now what could make Nobili object to dance with Nera Boccarini?" Trenta asked himself, when Nobili was gone, striking his stick loudly on the floor, as a sign for the music to cease. There was an instant silence.
The strain is too great, Nera lets fall the ring. The cavaliere claps his hands. Each gentleman rushes toward the lady wearing a rosette matching his ribbon. Nera rises. Already she is encircled by Nobili's arm. He draws her to him; she makes one step forward.
Here, in the Cappella Sassetti, Domenico Ghirlandajo has painted the Life of S. Francis; but it is not with his commonplace treatment, often irrelevant enough, of a subject which Giotto had already used with genius, that we are concerned, but perhaps with the fresco above the altar, and certainly with the marvellous portraits of Sassetti and Nera Cosi his wife, on either side.
Nera did not speak then, but when they had finished, she rose from the sofa and stood before Nobili drawn up to her full height, radiant in sovereign beauty. "I have to thank you most." As Nera spoke, her cheeks flushed, and she dropped her hand into his. It was a simple act, but full of purpose as Nera did it. Nera intended it should be so. She reseated herself.
Nera watched it all. She read Nobili like a book. "How cunning Enrica Guinigi must be! very cunning!" Nera repeated as if the idea had just struck her. "The marchesa's tool! They are so poor! Her niece! Chè vuole! The family blood! Anyhow, Enrica has caught you, Nobili." Nera leaned back, drew out a fan from behind a cushion, and swayed it to and fro. "Not yet," gasped Nobili "not yet."
"I beg pardon, count," answered the urbane Trenta, remembering Nobili's liberal politics "I mean no society. Society, as a system, has ceased to exist in Italy. But we must think of the cotillon. It is now twelve o'clock. There will be supper. Then we must soon begin. You, count, are to dance with Nera Boccarini. You came so late we were obliged to arrange it for you." Nobili colored crimson.
It must be done at any price, or Nera would never forgive her. "You have been so agreeably occupied, too," Nera said, in a firm, full voice. "No wonder, Count Nobili, you had no time to visit us." There was a mute reproach in these few words that made Nobili wince. "I have been absent," he replied, much confused. "Yes, absent in mind and body," and Nera laughed a cruel little laugh.
Nera has already decided what she will say to him touching the Orsetti ball that evening and the cotillon, which she means to dance with him if she can. But Nobili, with whom they come up under the portico, merely responds to their salutation with a low bow, raises his hat, and stands aside to make way for them. He does not even offer to hand them to their carriage. They pass, and are gone.
"Love me a little, Nera," he pleaded, and he laid her warm, full hand upon his throbbing heart. Nera trembled. She rose hastily from her chair, and raised Nobili up also. To-morrow I will tell you more about myself." "To-morrow, Nera! Why not to-night?" Spite of himself Nobili was shocked at her reserve. She was so self-possessed. He had flung his all upon the die.
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