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He found himself therefore saying, with gaiety, even to Fanny Assingham, for their common, concerned glance at Eaton Square, the glance that was so markedly never, as it might have been, a glance at Portland Place: "What WOULD our cari sposi have made of it here? what would they, you know, really?" which overflow would have been reckless if, already, and surprisingly perhaps even to himself, he had not got used to thinking of this friend as a person in whom the element of protest had of late been unmistakably allayed.
'Oh! some of the books were for the minister, and some for his daughter. 'I thought the Italian books were for her. 'Yes! Fancy her trying at Dante for her first book in Italian! I had a capital novel by Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi, just the thing for a beginner; and if she must still puzzle out Dante, my dictionary is far better than hers.
"A braver festa never honored an Italian corso," continued the Neapolitan, whose head was running on his own fancies, without troubling itself about the apprehensions and wishes of others. "A gallant array and a fair bride! Send us wine, felicissimi sposi, that we may drink to your eternal fame and happiness!
And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow's cap. Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards her young acquaintance. "Oh, Cecil!" she exclaimed "oh, Cecil, do tell me!" "I promessi sposi," said he. They stared at him anxiously.
'Ah, that won't do, observed Jack, with a shake of the head. 'But stay, said he, 'there are some books over yonder, pointing to the top of an Indian cabinet, and squinting in a totally different direction. 'Let's see what they are, added he, rising, and stumping away to where they stood. I Promessi Sposi, read he off the back of one. 'What can that mean! Ah, it's Latin, said he, opening the volume. Contes
The first words which struck her eye were the dreaded whispers of last night; the paragraph was as follows: "In a few days will be published the Memoirs of the late Colonel D' , comprising anecdotes, and original love-letters; which will explain the mysterious allusions lately made in certain papers to 'La belle Fiancee, and 'I promessi sposi." "What!" exclaimed Helen; "the letters! published!"
Then no sooner had we turned into the narrow road leading up to the little mountain hamlet than our intentions became the property of every passer-by, every peasant, every worker from the wire factories. "I Promessi Sposi," they would say to each other in a matter-of-course way, with an accompanying nod that settled our destination without a loophole of doubt.
The great house was full of people, of possible new combinations, of the quickened play of possible propinquity, and no appearance, of course, was less to be cultivated than that of his having sought an opportunity to foregather with his friend at a safe distance from their respective sposi.
At once, and as fast as she could speak, Lady Cecilia poured out her business about Helen Stanley. She told of the ill-bred manner in which Helen had been received last night; inquired why the words promessi sposi and belle fiancee were so oddly repeated, as if they had been watchwords, and asked what was meant by all those strange whisperings in the sanctum sanctorum.
Perhaps I'd better mention only the very greatest, like Don Quixote, and Gil Blas, and Wilhelm Meister, and The Vicar of Wakefield, and Clarissa Harlowe, and Emma, and Pride and Prejudice, and The Bride of Lammermoor, and I Promessi Sposi, and Belinda, and Frankenstein, and Chartreuse de Parme, and César Birotteau, and The Last Days of Pompeii, and David Copperfield, and Pendennis, and The Scarlet Letter, and Blithedale Romance, and The Cloister and the Hearth, and Middlemarch, and Smoke, and Fathers and Sons, and A Nest of Nobles, and War and Peace, and Anna Karénina, and Resurrection, and Dona Perfecta, and Marta y Maria, and I Malavoglia, and The Return of the Native, and L'Assomoir, and Madame Bovary, and The Awkward Age, and The Grandissimes and most of the other books of the same authors.
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