at I despise to my heart's core? Say no more
about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better
callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse
me occasional admittance."

The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted
it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in
artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and
gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial
proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known
works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a
quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career
of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from
a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never
came.

The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility
of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became
court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years
no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude
of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that
the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young
court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the
husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became
known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an
intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty
passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to
set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and,
plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a
wanderer up and down the continent of Europe.

It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but
a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that
Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact
became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian
ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with
liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his
master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in
return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe
were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the
occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roma