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Don Orsino by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
page 28 of 574 (04%)
"Not yet. I will wait as long as possible, before I do. It is not every
one who has your luck."

"There was something more than luck in my marriage. We loved each other,
it is true, but there were difficulties--you have no idea what
difficulties there were. But Faustina was brave and I caught a little
courage from her. Do you know that when the Serristori barracks were
blown up she ran out alone to find me merely because she thought I might
have been killed? I found her in the ruins, praying for me. It was
sublime."

"I have heard that. She was very brave--"

"And I a poor Zonave--and a poorer painter. Are there such women
nowadays? Bah! I have not known them. We used to meet at churches and
exchange two words while her maid was gone to get her a chair. Oh, the
good old time! And then the separations--the taking of Rome, when the
old Princess carried all the family off to England and stayed there
while we were fighting for poor France--and the coming back and the
months of waiting, and the notes dropped from her window at midnight and
the great quarrel with her family when we took advantage of the new law.
And then the marriage itself--what a scandal in Rome! But for the
Princess, your mother, I do not know what we should have done. She
brought Faustina to the church and drove us to the station in her own
carriage--in the face of society. They say that Ascanio Bellegra hung
about the door of the church while we were being married, but he had not
the courage to come in, for fear of his mother. We went to Naples and
lived on salad and love--and we had very little else for a year or two.
I was not much known, then, except in Rome, and Roman society refused to
have its portrait painted by the adventurer who had run away with a
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