The Diary of a Man of Fifty | Page 5

murmured the child, with an air of small dismay.
"I mean, have you seen her?"
"Yes, I have seen her." And then, in a moment, with a sudden soft
smile--"E bella!" said the little girl. She was beautiful herself as she
said it.
"Precisely; and is she fair or dark?"

The child kept gazing at me. "Bionda--bionda," she answered, looking
about into the golden sunshine for a comparison.
"And is she young?"
"She is not young--like me. But she is not old like--like--"
"Like me, eh? And is she married?"
The little girl began to look wise. "I have never seen the Signor Conte."
"And she lives in Via Ghibellina?"
"Sicuro. In a beautiful palace."
I had one more question to ask, and I pointed it with certain copper
coins. "Tell me a little--is she good?"
The child inspected a moment the contents of her little brown fist. "It's
you who are good," she answered.
"Ah, but the Countess?" I repeated.
My informant lowered her big brown eyes, with an air of conscientious
meditation that was inexpressibly quaint. "To me she appears so," she
said at last, looking up.
"Ah, then, she must be so," I said, "because, for your age, you are very
intelligent." And having delivered myself of this compliment I walked
away and left the little girl counting her soldi.
I walked back to the hotel, wondering how I could learn something
about the Contessa Salvi-Scarabelli. In the doorway I found the
innkeeper, and near him stood a young man whom I immediately
perceived to be a compatriot, and with whom, apparently, he had been
in conversation.
"I wonder whether you can give me a piece of information," I said to
the landlord. "Do you know anything about the Count Salvi-
Scarabelli?"
The landlord looked down at his boots, then slowly raised his shoulders,
with a melancholy smile. "I have many regrets, dear sir-- "
"You don't know the name?"
"I know the name, assuredly. But I don't know the gentleman."
I saw that my question had attracted the attention of the young
Englishman, who looked at me with a good deal of earnestness. He was
apparently satisfied with what he saw, for he presently decided to
speak.
"The Count Scarabelli is dead," he said, very gravely.
I looked at him a moment; he was a pleasing young fellow. "And his

widow lives," I observed, "in Via Ghibellina?"
"I daresay that is the name of the street." He was a handsome young
Englishman, but he was also an awkward one; he wondered who I was
and what I wanted, and he did me the honour to perceive that, as
regards these points, my appearance was reassuring. But he hesitated,
very properly, to talk with a perfect stranger about a lady whom he
knew, and he had not the art to conceal his hesitation. I instantly felt it
to be singular that though he regarded me as a perfect stranger, I had
not the same feeling about him. Whether it was that I had seen him
before, or simply that I was struck with his agreeable young face--at
any rate, I felt myself, as they say here, in sympathy with him. If I have
seen him before I don't remember the occasion, and neither, apparently,
does he; I suppose it's only a part of the feeling I have had the last three
days about everything. It was this feeling that made me suddenly act as
if I had known him a long time.
"Do you know the Countess Salvi?" I asked.
He looked at me a little, and then, without resenting the freedom of my
question--"The Countess Scarabelli, you mean," he said.
"Yes," I answered; "she's the daughter."
"The daughter is a little girl."
"She must be grown up now. She must be--let me see--close upon
thirty."
My young Englishman began to smile. "Of whom are you speaking?"
"I was speaking of the daughter," I said, understanding his smile. "But I
was thinking of the mother."
"Of the mother?"
"Of a person I knew twenty-seven years ago--the most charming
woman I have ever known. She was the Countess Salvi--she lived in a
wonderful old house in Via Ghibellina."
"A wonderful old house!" my young Englishman repeated.
"She had a little girl," I went on; "and the little girl was very fair, like
her mother; and the mother and daughter had the same name- -Bianca."
I stopped and looked at my companion, and he blushed a little. "And
Bianca Salvi," I continued, "was the most charming woman in the
world." He blushed a little more, and I laid my hand on his shoulder.
"Do you know why I tell you this? Because you remind me of what I
was when I knew her--when I loved her." My poor young Englishman

gazed at