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A few "your excellencies," whom scandal reports to be in the habit of carrying home their frugal dinner from the market in their senatorial caps, entered our house as beggars, and left it with well-lined purses. Civitella pointed them out to me. "Look," said he, "how many poor devils make their fortunes by one great man taking a whim into his head. This is what I like to see.
She needed a saint to accomplish these reforms. It was therefore necessary that he should come to Rome, and there his saintly gifts would also enable him to render a service to the Duchess di Civitella, here present. She ended her discourse thus: "Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou! Quittez-le bientôt! Bientôt!"
It was necessary to occupy the attention of the people in order to lull their suspicions, and to amuse the prince with the view of diverting his mind from its all-engrossing object. In this emergency Civitella hit upon play; and, for the purpose of driving away most of the visitors, proposed that the stakes should be high.
You may readily suppose that Civitella has not reminded him of his debt; the prince's memory is, however, all the more faithful. Yesterday morning at length brought an answer from the seat of government. We had shortly before concluded a new arrangement with the master of our hotel, and the prince had publicly announced his intention to remain here sometime longer.
I left you, as you know, to see the church, respecting which Civitella had raised my curiosity, and which had already attracted my attention. As neither you nor he were at hand, I walked the short distance alone, and ordered Biondello to wait for me at the door. The church was quite empty; a dim and solemn light surrounded me as I entered from the blazing sultry day without.
"Requiesca'!" exclaimed Annetta, sitting down. "Amen," responded Sor Tommaso. "You are so beautiful to-day," he continued, looking at her flowered bodice and new apron; "where have you been?" "Where should I go? To Civitella. There was the fair. We ate certain chickens tough! But the air of the mountain consumes. There were also fireworks." "What? Have you walked?" asked Sor Tommaso.
Our party, which was not very numerous, soon dispersed in various directions; and Civitella, who had been waiting all day for an opportunity of speaking to me privately, took me aside into an arbor. "You are a friend to the prince," he began, "from whom he is accustomed to keep no secrets, as I know from very good authority.
Exhausted with the unequal combat, the wounded man sunk half fainting into the arms of the prince; his companion informed my master that the man whose life he had saved was the Marquis Civitella, a nephew of the Cardinal A . As the marquis' wounds bled freely, Biondello acted as surgeon to the best of his ability, and the prince took care to have him conveyed to the palace of his uncle, which was near at hand, and whither he himself accompanied him.
Civitella was to keep out of the way altogether, as his reputation among the women of Venice was so bad that his presence could not have failed to excite the suspicions of the lady. You see, dear count, it was not through any want of precaution on our part that the fair unknown escaped us.
I will give it you in his own words; but the lively spirit which he infuses into all he tells will be lost in my narration. "In the spring of last year," began Civitella, "I had the misfortune to embroil myself with the Spanish ambassador, a gentleman who, in his seventieth year, had been guilty of the folly of wishing to marry a Roman girl of eighteen.
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