Il Conde

A Pathetic Tale

"Vedi Napoli e poi mori."

The first time we got into conversation was in the National Museum
in Naples, in the rooms on the ground floor containing the famous
collection of bronzes from Herculaneum and Pompeii: that marvellous
legacy of antique art whose delicate perfection has been preserved for
us by the catastrophic fury of a volcano.

He addressed me first, over the celebrated Resting Hermes which we had
been looking at side by side. He said the right things about that wholly
admirable piece. Nothing profound. His taste was natural rather than
cultivated. He had obviously seen many fine things in his life
and appreciated them: but he had no jargon of a dilettante or the
connoisseur. A hateful tribe. He spoke like a fairly intelligent man of
the world, a perfectly unaffected gentleman.

We had known each other by sight for some few days past. Staying in the
same hotel--good, but not extravagantly up to date--I had noticed him
in the vestibule going in and out. I judged he was an old and valued
client. The bow of the hotel-keeper was cordial in its deference, and
he acknowledged it with familiar courtesy. For the servants he was Il
Conde. There was some squabble over a man's parasol--yellow silk with
white lining sort of thing--the waiters had discovered abandoned outside
the dining-room door. Our gold-laced door-keeper recognized it and I
heard him directing one of the lift boys to run after Il Conde with it.
Perhaps he was the only Count staying in the hotel, or perhaps he had
the distinction of being the Count par excellence, conferred upon him
because of his tried fidelity to the house.

Having conversed at the Museo--(and by the by he had expressed his
dislike of the busts and statues of Roman emperors in the gallery of
marbles: their faces were too vigorous, too pronounced for him)--having
conversed already in the morning I did not think I was intruding when in
the evening, finding the dining-room very full, I proposed to share his
little table. Judging by the quiet urbanity of his consent he did not
think so either. His smile was very attractive.

He dined in an evening waistcoat and a "smoking" (he called it so) with
a black tie. All this of very good cut, not new--just as these things
should be. He was, morning or evening, very correct in his dress. I have
no doubt that his whole existence had been correct, well ordered and
conventional, undisturbed by startling events. His white hair brushed
upwards off a lofty forehead gave him the air of an idealist, of an
imaginative man. His white moustache, heavy but carefully trimmed and
arranged, was not unpleasantly tinted a golden yellow in the middle. The
faint scent of some very good