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Half-a-dozen hungry Countesses, their lean admirers, a superannuated abate or two, and a flock of threadbare ecclesiastics, made up Donna Laura's circle; and even her cicisbeo, selected in family council under the direction of her confessor, was an austere gentleman of middle age, who collected ancient coins and was engaged in composing an essay on the Martellian verse.
We both were waiting for our carriages. "'Ah! so you are living yet? "That was the meaning of her smile, and probably of the spiteful words she murmured in the ear of her cicisbeo, telling him my history no doubt, rating mine as a common love affair. She was deceived, yet she was applauding her perspicacity.
For my part, I would rather be condemned for life to the gallies, than exercise the office of a cicisbeo, exposed to the intolerable caprices and dangerous resentment of an Italian virago.
And who are you that talk to me of dishonour? you that come straying here out of the night with your cicisbeo at your heels? You, with the dew on you and your dress bedraggled, arrive straight from companioning in the woods and prate to me of shame of the blood of the Colonne!"
'Charlotte' he wrote to Koerner, 'is a grand, exceptional, womanly soul, a real study for me and worthy to occupy a greater mind than mine. With each forward step in our intercourse I discover in her new manifestations that surprise and delight me like beautiful spots in a broad landscape. For several months he played this unwholesome role of cicisbeo to Charlotte von Kalb.
His account of the cicisbeo and his duties, whether in Nice, Florence, or Rome, is certainly one of the most interesting that we have. Before Smollett and his almost contemporary travel correspondent, Samuel Sharp, it would probably be hard to find any mention of the cicisbeo in England, though the word was consecrated by Sheridan a few years later.
Cantapresto, in a new black coat and ruffles, was conspicuously taking snuff from the tortoiseshell box which the Countess's cicisbeo had given him; but Odo saw that he took less pleasure in the spectacle than in the fact of accompanying the heir-presumptive of Pianura to a gala performance at the royal theatre; and the lads about them were for the most part engaged either with their own dress and appearance, or in exchanging greetings with the royal pages and the older students.
The very best families with few exceptions are satisfied with shutting up their daughters in a convent for several years till the time comes for them to marry some man whom they never see till the eve or the day of their marriage. As a consequence we have the 'cicisbeo', and in Italy as in France the idea that our nobles are the sons of their nominal fathers is a purely conventional one.
She sees this wedded or widowed profligate received in the highest ranks; flourishing without a reproach, if she has the means of keeping an opera-box, or giving suppers; every soul round her acquainted with every point of her history, yet none shrinking from her association. If she has one Cicisbeo, or ten, the whole affair is selon les règles.
Here you may perceive the noblesse stretched in pairs upon logs of wood, like so many seals upon the rocks by moon-light, each dame with her cicisbeo: for, you must understand, this Italian fashion prevails at Nice among all ranks of people; and there is not such a passion as jealousy known.
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