The Italians | Page 5

sparrows. But they can neither hunt, nor fish, nor row. They are ready of tongue and easy of offense. They can fight duels (with swords), generally a harmless exercise. They can dance. They can hold strong opinions on subjects on which they are crassly ignorant, and yield neither to fact nor argument where their mediaeval usages are concerned. All this the golden youths of Young Italy can do, and do it well.
Yet from such stuff as this are to come the future ministers, prefects, deputies, financiers, diplomatists, and senators, who are to regenerate the world's old mistress! Alas, poor Italy!
The Guinigi Palace opposite forms a striking contrast to Count Nobili's abode. It is as silent as the grave. Every shutter is closed. The great wooden door to the street is locked; a heavy chain is drawn across it. The Marchesa Guinigi has strictly commanded that it should be so. She will have nothing to do with the festival of the Holy Countenance. She will take no part in it whatever. Indeed, she has come to Lucca on purpose to see that her orders are obeyed to the very letter, else that rascal of a secretary might have hung out something in spite of her. The marchesa, who has been for many years a widow, and is absolute possessor of the palace and lands, calls herself a liberal. But she is in practice the most thorough-going aristocrat alive. In one respect she is a liberal. She despises priests, laughs at miracles, and detests festivals. "A loss of time, and, if of time, of money," she says. If the peasants and the people complain of the taxes, and won't work six days in the week, "Let them starve," says the marchesa--"let them starve; so much the better!"
In her opinion, the legend of the Holy Countenance is a lie, got up by priests for money; so she comes into the city from Corellia, and shuts up her palace, publicly to show her opinion. As far as she is concerned, she believes neither in St. Nicodemus nor in idleness.
A good deal of this, be it said, en passant, is sheer obstinacy. The marchesa is obstinate to folly, and full of contradictions. Besides, there is another powerful motive that influences her--she hates Count Nobili. Not that he has ever done any thing personally to offend her; of this he is incapable--indeed, he has his own reasons for desiring passionately to be on good terms with her--but he has, in her opinion, injured her by purchasing the second Guinigi Palace. That she should have been obliged to sell one of her ancestral palaces at all is to her a bitter misfortune; but that any one connected with trade should possess what had been inherited generation after generation by the Guinigi, is intolerable.
That a parvenu, the son of a banker, should live opposite to her, that he should abound in money, which he flings about recklessly, while she can with difficulty eke out the slender rents from the greatly-reduced patrimony of the Guinigi, is more than she can bear. His popularity and his liberality (and she cannot come to Lucca without hearing of both), even that comely young face of his, which she sees when she passes the club on the way to her afternoon drive on the ramparts, are dire offenses in her eyes. Whatever Count Nobili does, she (the Marchesa Guinigi) will do the reverse. He has opened his house for the festival. Hers shall be closed. She is thoroughly exceptional, however, in such conduct. Every one in Lucca save herself, rich and poor, noble and villain, join heart and soul in the national festival. Every one lays aside on this auspicious day differences of politics, family feuds, and social animosities. Even enemies join hands and kneel side by side at the same altar. It is the mediaeval "God's truce" celebrated in the nineteenth century.
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It is now eleven o'clock. A great deal of sausage and garlic, washed down by new wine and light beer, has been by this time consumed in eating-shops and on street tables; much coffee, liqueurs, cake, and bonbons, inside the palaces.
Suddenly all the church-bells, which have rung out since daybreak like mad, stop; only the deep-toned cathedral-bell booms out from its snowy campanile in half-minute strokes. There is an instant lull, the din and clatter of the streets cease, the crowd surges, separates, and disappears, the palace windows and balconies empty themselves, the street forms are vacant. The procession in honor of the Holy Countenance is forming; every one has rushed off to the cathedral.
CHAPTER II.
THE CATHEDRAL OF LUCCA.
Martino, the cathedral of Lucca, stands on one side of a small piazza behind the principal square. At the first glance, its venerable aspect, vast proportions, and dignity of