Such was the tale of Colonna's brief, but trying and calamitous career. Deeply as I lamented his approaching departure, I felt too much interested in his success to withhold my active co-operation, and I pledged myself to promote his views as far as I could, without openly compromising myself with the Foscari family; but I entreated him to relinquish his design of painting the portraits of Laura and Barozzo, from an apprehension that a lover so fervent and demonstrative would, in some unguarded moment, excite suspicion, and frustrate the accomplishment of his ultimate views. He thanked me for the ready zeal with which I had entered into his feelings, and assured me that he had no intention of proceeding beyond the outlines of the governor's portrait; but that, as a lover and an artist, he could not deny himself the gratification of portraying the matchless form and features of the woman he adored.
The day was declining when we quitted our cool retreat to ascend the mountain behind us, and inhale the pure breezes which played around its summit. We gazed with long and lingering delight upon the bright landscapes of Lombardy, as they glowed beneath us in the parting sunbeams, and the shades of night were fast falling around us when we crossed the lake on our return to the villa.
Early on the following morning, the younger brother of Laura called to request the promised attendance of Colonna at the Villa Foscari, and I determined to accompany him, hoping, by my presence, to remind the young painter of the necessity of exercising a vigilant control over his feelings. The precaution was, however, unnecessary. He sustained, with singular self-mastery, the demeanour of an artist and a stranger; and appeared, while sketching the form and features of his lovely mistress, to have no other object than to seize the most important and characteristic peculiarities of his model. He requested that she would occasionally walk round the saloon, and freely indulge in familiar converse with her friends, as if no artist were present. His object was, he added, to accomplish, not a tame and lifeless copy, but a portrait, stamped with those peculiar attributes and graces which are best elicited by a free and unconstrained movement of limb and feature.