Count Giraldi had three palaces in or near Florence, or rather, he had four.  He himself occupied the great house of his race, the Palazzo Giraldi, a magnificent pile, built by Muchelozzo, on the Lung’ Arno.  The Villa Felice, also, on the hillside below Fiesole was reserved for himself and his friends.  His wife, a frigid, devout, elderly lady, had her own establishment, the splendid Palazzo Manfredi, in Oltr’ Arno, and received him with great ceremony once a week for an hour in the afternoon.  Never, so long as I had any familiarity with the count, did she set foot in either of his houses; but he always spoke of her with great respect as the only person of his acquaintance who had never provided him with matter for amusement.  The fourth, of which I have spoken, was smaller than any, but the most elegant of all.  That, too, was over Arno, in a retired street near the Porta San Giorgio, but within a garden of its own which withdrew it yet more from observation or annoyance.  I call it his, since he assured me of it at a later day; but at this time I knew it as in the occupation of the Contessa Giulia Galluzzo, a charming lady, charming hostess, centre and inspiration of a charming circle.  The count took me with him, very soon after we had become intimate, to wait upon her; she received me with all possible favour.  I never failed of attending her assemblies, never found her otherwise than amiable, nor her circle than varied and entertaining.  Without suspecting in the least how Count Giraldi really stood with regard to her, I could see that he was free of the house.  She called him “Caro amico,” and paid great deference to his opinions.  He, on his side, addressed her as “Madonna,” was tender without being impresse, alert without seeming to be so, and whether he intended to take her advice or not, never failed to pay her the compliment of asking it.  I am thus particular in speaking of these things for reasons which will shortly appear.

In the Villa San Giorgio, most of all in the society of its graceful chatelaine, I had my fill of poetry and the other ornamental arts.  Wit, love, philosophy, literature, bric-a-brac, religion—­each had its petit-maitre, and each its sparkling Muse.  It was before the day of Arcadia and shepherdesses, those flowers of our more jaded years; women were still called divine, but it was very possible, or we used to think it so, to discuss matters which you did not understand, and express sentiments which you did not feel without the prop of a crook, or garters of blue ribbon.  At my impressionable age, with my impressionable habit, I took kindly to all this; I discussed love with Donna Giulia, and puzzled her sadly; I expressed my feelings upon religion to the Abbe Loisic, the count’s bookbinder, and bored him to extinction.  One day I was presented to a tall cadaverous gentleman with red eyelashes and eyes so pale as to seem almost white.  I had a suspicion that I had seen him in some former existence,