two years he might return to his native land without danger.

After rhyming _crudeli affanni_ with _i miei tiranni_ in a dozen or so
of sonnets, and maintaining as many hapless Italian refugees out of
his own purse, Count Andrea, who was so unlucky as to be a poet,
thought himself released from patriotic obligations. So, ever since
his arrival, he had given himself up recklessly to the pleasures of
every kind which Paris offers _gratis_ to those who can pay for them.
His talents and his handsome person won him success among women, whom
he adored collectively as beseemed his years, but among whom he had
not as yet distinguished a chosen one. And indeed this taste was, in
him, subordinate to those for music and poetry which he had cultivated
from his childhood; and he thought success in these both more
difficult and more glorious to achieve than in affairs of gallantry,
since nature had not inflicted on him the obstacles men take most
pride in defying.

A man, like many another, of complex nature, he was easily fascinated
by the comfort of luxury, without which he could hardly have lived;
and, in the same way, he clung to the social distinctions which his
principles contemned. Thus his theories as an artist, a thinker, and a
poet were in frequent antagonism with his tastes, his feelings, and
his habits as a man of rank and wealth; but he comforted himself for
his inconsistencies by recognizing them in many Parisians, like
himself liberal by policy and aristocrats by nature.

Hence it was not without some uneasiness that he found himself,
on December 31, 1830, under a Paris thaw, following at the heels
of a woman whose dress betrayed the most abject, inveterate, and
long-accustomed poverty, who was no handsomer than a hundred others