Don Orsino | Page 5

noble conception. The execution of the scheme has not been without
faults, and some of these faults have brought about deplorable, even
disastrous, consequences, such as to endanger the stability of the new
order. The worst of these attendant errors has been the sudden
imposition of a most superficial and vicious culture, under the name of
enlightenment and education. The least of the new Government's
mistakes has been a squandering of the public money, which, when
considered with reference to the country's resources, has perhaps no
parallel in the history of nations.
Yet the first idea was large, patriotic, even grand. The men who first
steered the ship of the state were honourable, disinterested,
devoted--men like Minghetti, who will not soon be forgotten--loyal,
conservative monarchists, whose thoughts were free from exaggeration,
save that they believed almost too blindly in the power of a constitution
to build up a kingdom, and credited their fellows almost too readily
with a purpose as pure and blameless as their own. Can more be said
for these? I think not. They rest in honourable graves, their doings live
in honoured remembrance--would that there had been such another
generation to succeed them.
And having said thus much, let us return to the individuals who have
played a part in the history of the Saracinesca. They have grown older,
some gracefully, some under protest, some most unbecomingly.
In the end of the year 1887 old Leone Saracinesca is still alive, being
eighty-two years of age. His massive head has sunk a little between his
slightly rounded shoulders, and his white beard is no longer cut short
and square, but flows majestically down upon his broad breast. His step
is slow, but firm still, and when he looks up suddenly from under his
wrinkled lids, the fire is not even yet all gone from his eyes. He is still
contradictory by nature, but he has mellowed like rare wine in the long
years of prosperity and peace. When the change came in Rome he was
in the mountains at Saracinesca, with his daughter-in-law, Corona and
her children. His son Giovanni, generally known as Prince of Sant'
Ilario, was among the volunteers at the last and sat for half a day upon

his horse in the Pincio, listening to the bullets that sang over his head
while his men fired stray shots from the parapets of the public garden
into the road below. Giovanni is fifty-two years old, but though his hair
is grey at the temples and his figure a trifle sturdier and broader than of
old, he is little changed. His son, Orsino, who will soon be of age,
overtops him by a head and shoulders, a dark youth, slender still, but
strong and active, the chief person in this portion of my chronicle.
Orsino has three brothers of ranging ages, of whom the youngest is
scarcely twelve years old. Not one girl child has been given to
Giovanni and Corona and they almost wish that one of the sturdy little
lads had been a daughter. But old Saracinesca laughs and shakes his
head and says he will not die till his four grandsons are strong enough
to bear him to his grave upon their shoulders.
Corona is still beautiful, still dark, still magnificent, though she has
reached the age beyond which no woman ever goes until after death.
There are few lines in the noble face and such as are there are not the
scars of heart wounds. Her life, too, has been peaceful and undisturbed
by great events these many years. There is, indeed, one perpetual
anxiety in her existence, for the old prince is an aged man and she loves
him dearly. The tough strength must give way some day and there will
be a great mourning in the house of Saracinesca, nor will any mourn
the dead more sincerely than Corona. And there is a shade of bitterness
in the knowledge that her marvellous beauty is waning. Can she be
blamed for that? She has been beautiful so long. What woman who has
been first for a quarter of a century can give up her place without a sigh?
But much has been given to her to soften the years of transition, and
she knows that also, when she looks from her husband to her four boys.
Then, too, it seems more easy to grow old when she catches a glimpse
from time to time of Donna Tullia Del Ferice, who wears her years
ungracefully, and who was once so near to becoming Giovanni
Saracinesca's wife. Donna Tullia is fat and fiery of complexion,
uneasily vivacious and unsure of herself. Her disagreeable blue eyes
have not softened, nor has the metallic tone of her voice lost its
sharpness. Yet she should not be a