Shelley had not finished his poem before he learnt that Emilia was married.
“Emilia has married Biondi; we hear that she leads him and his mother—to use a vulgarism—a devil of a life. The conclusion of our friendship, _à la Italiana_, puts me in mind of a nursery rhyme which runs thus:
‘As I was going down Cranbourne Lane, Cranbourne Lane was dirty, And there I met a pretty maid Who dropt to me a curtsy. I gave her cakes, I gave her wine, I gave her sugar-candy; But oh! the little naughty girl, She asked me for some brandy.’
“Now turn ‘Cranbourne Lane’ into Pisan acquaintances, which I am sure are dirty enough, and ‘brandy’ into the wherewithal to buy brandy, and you have the whole story of Shelley’s Italian Platonics.”
And Shelley added: “I cannot look at my poem! The person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno. . . . I think one is always in love with something or other; the error—and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it—consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal.”
During the early days which followed her departure from Venice, Claire had received news of Allegra fairly often through the Hoppners. The child suffered from the cold. She had become quiet and grave as a little old woman. Mr. Hoppner thought it would be better to remove her from Venice. But it was impossible to have a conversation to any purpose with her father who was sinking deeper and deeper into debauchery.
Some months went by without any news. Claire, very anxious, wrote letter after letter to the Hoppners, who did not reply. Then she learnt that a great change had taken place in Byron’s existence. It had begun by his being seriously ill and obliged to keep his bed. Hoppner, who came to chat with him, had told him that his love affairs, far from scandalizing the Venetians any longer as he believed and hoped, now merely amused the _conversazioni_ at his expense. He was spoken of as the prey of artful trollops who stole from him, tricked him, and then made fun of him in their Venetian dialect. Don Juan fell into a red-hot rage, and instantly all the priestesses of the Palazzo Mocenigo were turned out of doors, and sent back, each to her midden.