ur, tried to prevent our entry. The Italian and he had a
fearful row on the staircase. We were all dotted about on the winding
stairs dimly lighted by the dying gas, ill at ease, uncomfortable,
hardly knowing if we ought not to come down again.

"Come, quick, let us go up," said the poet in a low tone, and we
followed him silently, while, leaning over the banisters that shook
under her weight and anger, the Italian let fly a volley of abuse in
which Roman imprecations alternated with the vocabulary of the
back slums. What a return home for the poet who had just roused the
admiration of artistic Paris, and still retained in his fevered eyes
the dazzling intoxication of his first performance! What a humiliating
recall to every-day life!

It was only by the fireside in his little sitting room that the icy
chill caused by this silly adventure was dispelled, and we should soon
have completely forgotten it, had it not been for the piercing voice and
bursts of laughter of the signora whom we heard in the kitchen telling
her maid how soundly she had rated that _choulato!_ When the table was
laid and supper ready, she came and seated herself amongst us, having
taken off her shawl, bonnet and veil, and I was able to examine her at
my leisure. She was no longer handsome. The square face, the broad heavy
jaw, the coarse hair turning grey, and above all the vulgar expression
of the mouth, contrasted singularly with the eternal and meaningless
reverie of the dreamy gaze. Resting her elbows on the table, familiar
and shapeless, she joined in the conversation without for an instant
losing sight of her plate. Just over her head, proud amid all the
melancholy rubbish of the drawing-room, a large portrait signed by an
illustrious name, stood out of the surrounding shade,--it was Maria
Assunta at twenty. The purple costume, the milky white of the pleated
wimple, the bright gold of the over-abundant imitation jewelry, set off
magnificently the brilliancy of a sunny complexion, the velvety shades
of the thick hair growing low on the forehead, which seemed to be united
by an almost imperceptible down to the superb and straight line of
the eyebrows. How could such an exuberance of life and beauty have
deteriorated and become such a mass of vulgarity? And curiously while
the Transteverina talked, I interrogated her lovely eyes, so deep and
soft on the canvas.

[Illustration: p068-079]

The excitement of the meal had put her in a good humour