ather, who had just
recovered from a long illness, was not with us, but we had his father's
sister, who was older than Mario. She was known, under her theatrical
name of Flaminia, in the literary world by several translations, but I
had a great wish to make her acquaintance less on that account than in
consequence of the story, known throughout Italy, of the stay that three
literary men of great fame had made in Paris. Those three literati were
the Marquis Maffei, the Abbe Conti, and Pierre Jacques Martelli, who
became enemies, according to public rumour, owing to the belief
entertained by each of them that he possessed the favours of the actress,
and, being men of learning, they fought with the pen. Martelli composed a
satire against Maffei, in which he designated him by the anagram of
Femia.

I had been announced to Flaminia as a candidate for literary fame, and
she thought she honoured me by addressing me at all, but she was wrong,
for she displeased me greatly by her face, her manners, her style, even
by the sound of her voice. Without saying it positively, she made me
understand that, being herself an illustrious member of the republic of
letters, she was well aware that she was speaking to an insect. She
seemed as if she wanted to dictate to everybody around her, and she very
likely thought that she had the right to do so at the age of sixty,
particularly towards a young novice only twenty-five years old, who had
not yet contributed anything to the literary treasury. In order to please
her, I spoke to her of the Abbe Conti, and I had occasion to quote two
lines of that profound writer. Madam corrected me with a patronizing air
for my pronunciation of the word 'scevra', which means divided, saying
that it ought to be pronounced 'sceura', and she added that I ought to be
very glad to have learned so much on the first day of my arrival in
Paris, telling me that it would be an important day in my life.

"Madam, I came here to learn and not to unlearn. You will kindly allow me
to tell you that the pronunciation of that word 'scevra' with a v, and
not 'sceura' with a u, because it is a contraction of 'sceverra'."

"It remains to be seen which of us is wrong."

"You, madam, according to Ariosto, who makes 'scevra' rhyme with
'persevra', and the rhyme would be false with 'sceura', which is not an
Italian word."

She would have kept up the discussion, but her husband, a man eighty
years of age, told her that she was w