“After the return of the family,” said Marietta, “the public will no longer be admitted. Meantime--”
“Upon presentation of my card, the porter will conduct me from disenchantment to disenchantment. No, thank you. Now, if it were the other way round, it would be different. If it were the castle and the park that had gone to Rome, and if the family could be visited on presentation of my card, I might be tempted.”
“But that would be impossible, Signorino,” said Marietta.
Beatrice walking with a priest--ay, I am not sure it would n't be more accurate to say conspiring with a priest: but you shall judge.
They were in a room of the Palazzo Udeschini, at Rome--a reception room, on the piano nobile. Therefore you see it: for are not all reception-rooms in Roman palaces alike?
Vast, lofty, sombre; the walls hung with dark-green tapestry--a pattern of vertical stripes, dark green and darker green; here and there a great dark painting, a Crucifixion, a Holy Family, in a massive dim-gold frame; dark-hued rugs on the tiled floor; dark pieces of furniture, tables, cabinets, dark and heavy; and tall windows, bare of curtains at this season, opening upon a court--a wide stone-eaved court, planted with fantastic-leaved eucalyptus-trees, in the midst of which a brown old fountain, indefatigable, played its sibilant monotone.
In the streets there were the smells, the noises, the heat, the glare of August of August in Rome, “the most Roman of the months,” they say; certainly the hottest, noisiest, noisomest, and most glaring. But here all was shadow, coolness, stillness, fragrance-the fragrance of the clean air coming in from among the eucalyptus-trees.
Beatrice, critical-eyed, stood before a pier-glass, between two of the tall windows, turning her head from side to side, craning her neck a little--examining (if I must confess it) the effect of a new hat. It was a very stunning hat--if a man's opinion hath any pertinence; it was beyond doubt very complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim; there was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant white aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were glints of red.
The priest sat in an arm-chair--one of those stiff, upright Roman arm-chairs, which no one would ever dream of calling easy-chairs, high-backed, covered with hard leather, studded with steel nails--and watched her, smiling amusement, indulgence.