Nisida | Page 5

their gun-stocks.
"By the blood of my patron saint," cried a stentorian voice, "if I catch
you between my finger and thumb, I will straighten your back for the
rest of your days."
"Who are you falling out with, Gennaro?"
"With this accursed hunchback, who has been worrying my back for
the last hour, as though he could see through it."
"It is a shame," returned the hunchback in a tone of lamentation; "I
have been here since last night, I slept out of doors to keep my place,
and here is this abominable giant comes to stick himself in front of me
like an obelisk."
The hunchback was lying like a Jew, but the crowd rose unanimously
against the obelisk. He was, in one way, their superior, and majorities
are always made up of pigmies.
"Hi! Come down from your stand!"
"Hi! get off your pedestal!"
"Off with your hat!"
"Down with your head!"
"Sit down!"
"Lie down!"
This revival of curiosity expressing itself in invectives evidently
betokened the crisis of the show. And indeed the chapters of canons,
the clergy and bishops, the pages and chamberlains, the representatives
of the city, and the gentlemen of the king's chamber now appeared, and
finally the king himself, who, bare-headed and carrying a taper,
followed the magnificent statue of the Virgin. The contrast was striking:
after the grey-headed monks and pale novices came brilliant young
captains, affronting heaven with the points of their moustaches,
riddling the latticed windows with killing glances, following the
procession in an absent-minded way, and interrupting the holy hymns
with scraps of most unorthodox conversation.
"Did you notice, my dear Doria, how like a monkey the old Marchesa
d'Acquasparta takes her raspberry ice?"
"Her nose takes the colour of the ice. What fine bird is showing off to
her?"
"It is the Cyrenian."
"I beg your pardon! I have not seen that name in the Golden Book."

"He helps the poor marquis to bear his cross."
The officer's profane allusion was lost in the prolonged murmur of
admiration that suddenly rose from the crowd, and every gaze was
turned upon one of the young girls who was strewing flowers before
the holy Madonna. She was an exquisite creature. Her head glowing in
the sun shine, her feet hidden amid roses and broom-blossom, she rose,
tall and fair, from a pale cloud of incense, like some seraphic apparition.
Her hair, of velvet blackness, fell in curls half-way down her shoulders;
her brow, white as alabaster and polished as a mirror, reflected the rays
of the sun; her beautiful and finely arched black eye-brows melted into
the opal of her temples; her eyelids were fast down, and the curled
black fringe of lashes veiled a glowing and liquid glance of divine
emotion; the nose, straight, slender, and cut by two easy nostrils, gave
to her profile that character of antique beauty which is vanishing day by
day from the earth. A calm and serene smile, one of those smiles that
have already left the soul and not yet reached the lips, lifted the corners
of her mouth with a pure expression of infinite beatitude and gentleness.
Nothing could be more perfect than the chin that completed the
faultless oval of this radiant countenance; her neck of a dead white,
joined her bosom in a delicious curve, and supported her head
gracefully like the stalk of a flower moved by a gentle breeze. A bodice
of crimson velvet spotted with gold outlined her delicate and finely
curved figure, and held in by means of a handsome gold lace the
countless folds of a full and flowing skirt, that fell to her feet like those
severe robes in which the Byzantine painters preferred to drape their
angels. She was indeed a marvel, and so rare and modest of beauty had
not been seen within the memory of man.
Among those who had gazed most persistently at her was observed the
young Prince of Brancaleone, one of the foremost nobles of the
kingdom. Handsome, rich, and brave, he had, at five-and-twenty,
outdone the lists of all known Don Juans. Fashionable young women
spoke very ill of him and adored him in secret; the most virtuous made
it their rule to fly from him, so impossible did resistance appear. All the
young madcaps had chosen him for their model; for his triumphs
robbed many a Miltiades of sleep, and with better cause. In short, to get
an idea of this lucky individual, it will be enough to know that as a
seducer he was the most perfect thing that the devil had succeeded in

inventing in this progressive century. The prince was dressed out for
the occasion in a sufficiently grotesque costume, which he wore with
ironic gravity and cavalier ease. A black satin doublet,