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Updated: June 16, 2025
I made the acquaintance of Venosta, an Italian Artillery officer attached to the Battery. He was from Milan, a member of a well-known Lombard family, and had a soft and quiet way with him and a certain supple charm. At ordinary times he preferred to take things easily, and was imperturbable by anything which he thought unimportant.
Accordingly, in his deepest nasal intonation, and withdrawing his eyes from the ceiling, he began: "You have not asked, sir, after the signorina, or as we popularly call her, Mademoiselle Cicogna?" "Have I not? I hope she is quite well, and her lively companion, Signora Venosta." "They are not sick, sir; or at least they were not so last night when my wife and I had the pleasure to see them.
Morley was extremely put out by this untoward result of the diplomacy she had intrusted to the Colonel; and when, the next day, came a very courteous letter from Graham, thanking her gratefully for the kindness of her invitation, and expressing his regret briefly, though cordially, at his inability to profit by it, without the most distant allusion to the subject which the Colonel had brought on the tapis, or even requesting his compliments to the Signoras Venosta and Cicogna, she was more than put out, more than resentful, she was deeply grieved.
The Venosta ran on in praise of Paris and the Parisians; of Louvier and his soiree and the pistachio ice; of the Americans, and a certain creme de maraschino which she hoped the Signor Inglese had not failed to taste, the creme de maraschino led her thoughts back to Italy. Then she grew mournful. How she missed the native beau ciel!
The Venosta wept at the thought of missing some lively soiree, and Savarin laughed at her shrinking fastidiousness as that of a child's ignorance of the world. Insensibly to herself the tone of this work had changed as it proceeded. It had begun seriously indeed, but in the seriousness there was a certain latent joy.
In the mean while, Isaura, on her return to her apartment at the wintry nightfall, found a cart stationed at the door, and the Venosta on the threshold, superintending the removal of various articles of furniture indeed, all such articles as were not absolutely required. "Oh, Piccola!" she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, "I did not expect thee back so soon. Hush!
A little time after I thus met him he changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving as a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by that pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie." Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and she repeated, "Mademoiselle Julie!
I would not, if I could, confute the beautiful belief that belongs to youth, fusing into one rainbow all the tints that can colour the world. But the Signora Venosta will acknowledge the truth of an old saying expressed in every civilised language, but best, perhaps in that of the Florentine 'You might as well physic the dead as instruct the old."
It seems to me to want intelligence of the subtler feelings, the under-current of emotion which constitutes the chief beauty of the situation and the character. Am I jealous when I say this? Read on and judge. On our return that night, when I had seen the Venosta to bed, I went into my own room, opened the window, and looked out.
The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to feed and warm there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy, and had not the heart now to dismiss to the 'certainty of famine.
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