In Ravenna, as has been said, a great reception of all the society at the Palazzo Castelmare on the Sunday evening was as much an institution as the High Mass on a Sunday morning.  And this was the course of things during all the year, except in Carnival time.  Then, in order to leave Sunday evening—­the great time for balls and theatres, and pleasure of all sorts free, the reception at the Palazzo Castelmare was changed to the Monday.  The programme, therefore, for the three last grand days of the Carnival in Ravenna, on that occasion, stood thus:—­

On the Sunday, a grand gala Corso from four to six in the afternoon.  (That is to say, that every available carriage of every sort in Ravenna would be put in requisition, and would be driven in procession, at a slow foot pace, up and down the long street called the Corso; and those who had servants and liveries and fine horses would display them and rejoice; and those who had none of these things would mingle with the grand carriages in broken-down shandridans, and rejoice also at the sight of the finery, without the smallest feeling of shame at their own poverty.  This is a Corso.) On the Sunday evening, the grand representation of the Sonnambula, with the theatre lighted (according to advertisement) “with wax-candles, till it was as light as day!”

Secondly, on the Monday, another Corso, with throwing of flowers and “coriandoli” (i. e. what was supposed to be comfits, but in reality little pills of flour made and sold by the hundredweight for the purpose) from the carriages to each other, and from the windows and the balconies of the houses.  Then in the evening, a grand gala reception at the Palazzo Castelmare, at which it was understood masks would be gladly welcomed by the host.

On the night of the Tuesday, thirdly, the last great day of all, there was to be a grand masked ball at the Circolo dei Nobili; that ball of which and of its consequences on the Ash Wednesday morning, the reader already wots.  And this was to be the wind-up of the Carnival.

The Corso on the Sunday was a most successful one.  The weather was all that was most desirable; bright, not too cold, and free from wind and dust.  The Marchese Lamberto turned out with two handsomely appointed equipages.  He and his sister-in-law occupied one carriage, and the Marchese Ludovico and the Conte Leandro Lombardone, who was not a rich man, and had no carriage of his own, sat in the second.

It could not be said that the Marchese Lamberto “looked like the time!” And, in truth, he would have given much to escape the ordeal he was called upon to go through.  But that was out of the question; unless he had been confined to his bed—­in which case the whole town would have been at the palazzo door with inquiries, and all the doctors at his bedside in consultation—­it could not be that he should not show himself at the Corso.