Officers in uniforms gleaming
with gold, ladies with handkerchiefs over their heads instead of hats,
the mild warmth, the brown eyes, brought it home to me at every step
that I was in a new country.
I hurried up to Costanza Blanchetti. _Madame la comtesse est a la
campagne. Monsieur le comte est sorti._ Next morning, as I was
sitting in my room in the Hotel Trombetta, Blanchetti rushed in, pressed
me to his bosom, kissed me on both cheeks, would not let me go, but
insisted on carrying me off with him to the country.
We drove round the town first, then went by rail to Alpignano, where
Costanza was staying with a relative of the family, Count Buglioni di
Monale. Here I was received like a son, and shown straight to my room,
where there stood a little bed with silk hangings, and where, on the
pillow, there lay a little, folded-up thing, likewise of white silk,
which was an enigma to me till, on unfolding it, I found it was a night-
cap, the classical night-cap, tapering to a point, which you see at the
theatre in old comedies. The Buglionis were gentle, good-natured people,
rugged and yet refined, an old, aristocratic country gentleman and his
wife. Nowhere have I thought grapes so heavy and sweet and aromatic as
there. The perfume from the garden was so strong and fragrant.
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