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Vittoria — Volume 3 by George Meredith
page 37 of 77 (48%)
and whirl of the hour struck his head, for to-morrow they might be
wrestling with that living engine which had marched past, and surely all
the hate he could muster should be turned upon the outer enemy. He
gained his mother's residence with clearer feelings.




CHAPTER XVI

COUNTESS AMMIANI

Countess Ammiani was a Venetian lady of a famous House, the name of which
is as a trumpet sounding from the inner pages of the Republic. Her face
was like a leaf torn from an antique volume; the hereditary features told
the story of her days. The face was sallow and fireless; life had faded
like a painted cloth upon the imperishable moulding. She had neither
fire in her eyes nor colour on her skin. The thin close multitudinous
wrinkles ran up accurately ruled from the chin to the forehead's centre,
and touched faintly once or twice beyond, as you observe the ocean
ripples run in threads confused to smoothness within a space of the grey
horizon sky. But the chin was firm, the mouth and nose were firm, the
forehead sat calmly above these shows of decay. It was a most noble
face; a fortress face; strong and massive, and honourable in ruin, though
stripped of every flower.

This lady in her girlhood had been the one lamb of the family dedicated
to heaven. Paolo, the General, her lover, had wrenched her from that
fate to share with him a life of turbulent sorrows till she should behold
the blood upon his grave. She, like Laura Fiaveni, had bent her head
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