Florence to Trieste | Page 5

the chevalier was gone I betook myself to my studies again, but I
supped every night with Madame Denis, who had formerly been a

dancer in the King of Prussia's service, and had retired to Florence.
She was about my age, and therefore not young, but still she had
sufficient remains of her beauty to inspire a tender passion; she did not
look more than thirty. She was as fresh as a young girl, had excellent
manners, and was extremely intelligent. Besides all these advantages,
she had a comfortable apartment on the first floor of one of the largest
cafes in Florence. In front of her room was a balcony where it was
delicious to sit and enjoy the cool of the evening.
The reader may remember how I had become her friend at Berlin in
1764, and when we met again at Florence our old flames were
rekindled.
The chief boarder in the house where she lived was Madame Brigonzi,
whom I had met at Memel. This lady, who pretended that she had been
my mistress twenty-five years before, often came into Madame Denis's
rooms with an old lover of hers named Marquis Capponi.
He was an agreeable and well-educated man; and noticing that he
seemed to enjoy my conversation I called on him, and he called on me,
leaving his card as I was not at home.
I returned the visit, and he introduced me to his family and invited me
to dinner. For the first time since I had come to Florence I dressed
myself with elegance and wore my jewels.
At the Marquis Capponi's I made the acquaintance of Corilla's lover,
the Marquis Gennori, who took me to a house where I met my fate. I
fell in love with Madame a young widow, who had been spending a
few months in Paris. This visit had added to her other attractions the
charm of a good manner, which always counts for so much.
This unhappy love made the three months longer which I spent in
Florence painful to me.
It was at the beginning of October, and about that time Count Medini
arrived at Florence without a penny in his pocket, and without being
able to pay his vetturino, who had arrested him.
The wretched man, who seemed to follow me wherever I went, had
taken up his abode in the house of a poor Irishman.
I do not know how Medini found out that I was at Florence, but he
wrote me a letter begging me to come and deliver him from the police,
who besieged his room and talked of taking him to prison. He said he
only wanted me to go bail for him, and protested that I should not run

any risk, as he was sure of being able to pay in a few days.
My readers will be aware that I had good reason for not liking Medini,
but in spite of our quarrel I could not despise his entreaty. I even felt
inclined to become his surety, if he could prove his capability of paying
the sum for which he had been arrested. I imagined that the sum must
be a small one, and could not understand why the landlord did not
answer for him. My surprise ceased, however, when I entered his room.
As soon as I appeared he ran to embrace me, begging me to forget the
past, and to extract him from the painful position in which he found
himself.
I cast a rapid glance over the room, and saw three trunks almost empty,
their contents being scattered about the floor. There was his mistress,
whom I knew, and who had her reasons for not liking me; her young
sister, who wept; and her mother, who swore, and called Medini a
rogue, saying that she would complain of him to the magistrate, and
that she was not going to allow her dresses and her daughter's dresses
to be seized for his debts.
I asked the landlord why he did not go bail, as he had these persons and
their effects as security.
"The whole lot," he answered, "won't pay the vetturino, and the sooner
they are out of my house the better I shall be pleased."
I was astonished, and could not understand how the bill could amount
to more than the value of all the clothes I saw on the floor, so I asked
the vetturino to tell me the extent of the debt.
He gave me a paper with Medini's signature; the amount was two
hundred and forty crowns.
"How in the world," I exclaimed, "could he contract this enormous
debt?"
I wondered no longer when the vetturino told me that he had served
them for the last six weeks, having conducted the count and the three