hack to whom his master has thrown the reins. Apart from the desperate
perturbation of his soul, he thought of the Guidascarpi, whom he knew,
and was allied to, and of the Lenkensteins, whom he knew likewise, or had
known in the days when Giacomo Piaveni lived, and Bianca von Lenkenstein,
Laura's sister, visited among the people of her country. Countess Anna
and Countess Lena von Lenkenstein were the German beauties of Milan,
lively little women, and sweet. Between himself and Countess Lena there
had been tender dealings about the age when sweetmeats have lost their
attraction, and the charm has to be supplied. She was rich, passionate
for Austria, romantic concerning Italy, a vixen in temper, but with a
pearly light about her temples that kept her picture in his memory. And
besides, during those days when women are bountiful to us as Goddesses,
give they never so little, she had deigned to fondle hands with him; had
set the universe rocking with a visible heave of her bosom; jingled all
the keys of mystery; and had once (as to embalm herself in his
recollection), once had surrendered her lips to him. Countess Lena would
have espoused Ammiani, believing in her power to make an Austrian out of
such Italian material. The Piaveni revolt had stopped that and all their
intercourse by the division of the White Hand, as it was called;
otherwise, the hand of the corpse. Ammiani had known also Count Paul von
Lenkenstein. To his mind, death did not mean much, however pleasant life
might be: his father and his friend had gone to it gaily; and he himself
stood ready for the summons: but the contemplation of a domestic judicial
execution, which the Guidascarpi seemed to have done upon Count Paul,
affrighted him, and put an end to his temporary capacity for labour. He
felt as if a spent shot were striking on his ribs; it was the unknown
sensation of fear. Changeing, it became pity. 'Horrible deaths these
Austrians die!' he said.

For a while he regarded their lot as the hardest. A shaft of sunlight