In
speaking, he nearly always addressed himself to me, not at all with the
air of imparting instruction, but as if discussing the pictures with a
person as familiar with the subject as he was himself; and, at the
bottom of my heart, I was conscious of a sense of complacency mingled
with gratitude. Whenever I exclaimed in admiration, he looked at me with
a smile which I can still see, but cannot define. Two or three times,
Francesca rested her arm on his shoulder in unconscious familiarity.
Looking at the head of the first-born of Moses, copied from Botticelli's
fresco in the Sistine Chapel, she said--"It has a look of you when you
are in one of your melancholy moods."--And when we came to the head of
the Archangel Michael from Perugino's Madonna of Pavia, she
remarked---"It is a little like Giulia Moceto, is it not?" He did not
answer, but only turned the page over rather sooner than usual. Upon
which she added with a laugh--"Away with the pictures of sin!"
'This Giulia Moceto is, I suppose, some one he was once in love with.
The page once turned, I had a wild, unreasoning desire to look at the
Michael again and examine the face more closely. Was it merely artistic
curiosity?
'I cannot say, I dare not pry into my heart, I prefer to temporise, to
deceive myself; I have not the courage to face the battle, I am a
coward.
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