Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
Ortensia obeyed his gesture and passed through the door into a large hall where a quantity of fragments of antique statues were lying on the stone floor, or were propped upright against the walls, while half-a-dozen of the best were already set up on Corinthian capitals, or ancient altars, which served as pedestals.
Ortensia went on to the sitting-room, still almost unconscious of being tired; but she had hardly entered, followed closely by Cucurullo, when her knees suddenly gave way under her, her head swam, and she had barely time to stagger to the long sofa before she fainted away, utterly worn out with fatigue and emotion.
But Cucurullo himself, good soul, was pleased at having forced Tommaso to slacken his pace and listen to him. 'I come of my own intention, dear friend, he said, 'because I am in constant anxiety about the Lady Ortensia.
It was not out of friendship for your husband, I confess it frankly, it was for love of you, it was because you have turned my blood to fire and my heart to flame 'Hush! Ortensia laid one hand warningly upon his arm, and at the same time she drew herself up with great dignity, and her face was proud and cold. 'I give no man the right to speak of love to me 'Wait! interrupted Altieri.
Even Ortensia, who had heard all, could not believe her ears, though she knew her husband's genius well. 'Signor piet
and his nephews, said Ortensia, completing the sentence as he hesitated; 'and one of those nephews is Don Alberto Altieri, who pays himself for his patronage by forcing himself upon my privacy when you are gone out! That is the short of a very long story!
Ortensia herself was certainly not worth so much, in his estimation, for the sake of her beauty, seeing that he could buy a Georgian girl almost or quite as pretty, in the Fondaco dei Turchi, for much less. Besides, though Stradella would be dead and buried, it would always be humiliating to feel that she had belonged to him first, though the truth need never be known in Venice.
'No one would laugh at him if he had you assassinated, he said. 'I am not afraid of that! Ortensia smiled at the mere idea of such a thing. 'Why are you standing? Come, bring that chair and sit down beside me, for we are alone at last!
The murderous splinters gleamed in the sunshine, and the men set them so near together that one could hardly have laid a finger anywhere between them. Ortensia watched the work, and now and then she looked at the top of the cypress-tree, half-unconsciously wondering how many days would pass before she saw it for the last time.
Though she and Pina had left Venice with no baggage but a piece of white Spanish soap, a comb, and a little yellow leather work-case, Ortensia now had enough linen and gowns, and laces and ribbons, to fill two respectable trunks, and Pina was well provided with all that a serving-woman needed in the way of clothes.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking