"No; but I hope I may some day be happy with Massimilla."

"Well," replied Marco, "then you will be the most envied man on earth.
The Duchess is the most perfect woman in Italy. To me, seeing things
as I do through the dazzling medium of opium, she seems the very
highest expression of art; for nature, without knowing it, has made
her a Raphael picture. Your passion gives no umbrage to Cataneo, who
has handed over to me a thousand crowns, which I am to give to you."

"Well," added Emilio, "whatever you may hear said, I sleep every night
at your house. Come, for every minute spent away from her, when I
might be with her, is torment."

Emilio took his seat at the back of the box and remained there in
silence, listening to the Duchess, enchanted by her wit and beauty. It
was for him, and not out of vanity, that Massimilla lavished the
charms of her conversation bright with Italian wit, in which sarcasm
lashed things but not persons, laughter attacked nothing that was not
laughable, mere trifles were seasoned with Attic salt.

Anywhere else she might have been tiresome. The Italians, an eminently
intelligent race, have no fancy for displaying their talents where
they are not in demand; their chat is perfectly simple and effortless,
it never makes play, as in France, under the lead of a fencing master,
each one flourishing his foil, or, if he has nothing to say, sitting
humiliated.

Conversation sparkles with a delicate and subtle satire that plays
gracefully with familiar facts; and instead of a compromising epigram
an Italian has a glance or a smile of unutterable meaning. They think