Chapter 44

CHAPTER XLIV

The Countess Gemini was often extremely bored--bored, in her own
phrase, to extinction. She had not been extinguished, however,
and she struggled bravely enough with her destiny, which had been
to marry an unaccommodating Florentine who insisted upon living
in his native town, where he enjoyed such consideration as might
attach to a gentleman whose talent for losing at cards had not
the merit of being incidental to an obliging disposition. The
Count Gemini was not liked even by those who won from him; and he
bore a name which, having a measurable value in Florence, was,
like the local coin of the old Italian states, without currency
in other parts of the peninsula. In Rome he was simply a very
dull Florentine, and it is not remarkable that he should not have
cared to pay frequent visits to a place where, to carry it off,
his dulness needed more explanation than was convenient. The
Countess lived with her eyes upon Rome, and it was the constant
grievance of her life that she had not an habitation there. She
was ashamed to say how seldom she had been allowed to visit that
city; it scarcely made the matter better that there were other
members of the Florentine nobility who never had been there at
all. She went whenever she could; that was all she could say. Or
rather not all, but all she said she could say. In fact she had
much more to say about it, and had often set forth the reasons
why she hated Florence and wished to end her days in the shadow
of Saint Peter's. They are reasons, however, that do not closely
concern us, and were usually summed up in the declaration that
Rome, in short, was the Eternal City and that Florence was simply
a pretty little place like any other. The Countess apparently
needed to connect the idea of eternity with her amusements. She
was convinced that society was infinitely more interesting in
Rome, where you met celebrities all winter at evening parties. At
Florence there were no celebrities; none at least that one had
heard of. Since her brother's marriage her impatience had greatly
increased; she was so sure his wife had a more brilliant life
than herself. She was not so intellectual as Isabel, but she was
intellectual enough to do justice to Rome--not to the ruins and
the catacombs, not even perhaps to the monuments and museums, the
church ceremonies and the scenery; but certainly to all the rest.
She heard a great deal about her sister-in-law and knew perfectly
that Isabel was having a beautiful time. She had indeed seen it
for herself on the only occasion on which she had enjoyed the
hospitality of Palazzo Roccanera. She had spent a week there
during the first winter of her brother's marriage, but she had
not been encouraged to renew this