A Siren

Ash Wednesday Morning CHAPTER I The Last Night of Carnival II Apollo Vindex III St. Apollinare in Classe IV Father Fabiano V "The Hours passed, and still she came not" VI Gigia'...

Four Months Before That Ash Wednesday Morning CHAPTER I How the Good News came to Ravenna II The Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare III The Impresario's Report IV Paolina Foscarell...

"Sirenum Pocula" CHAPTER I "Diva Potens" II An Adopted Father and an Adopted Daughter III "Armed at All Points" IV Throwing the Line V After-thoughts VI At the Circolo VII Extre...

CHAPTER I In the Cardinal's Chapel II The Corso III "La Sonnambula" IV The Marchese Lamberto's Correspondence V Bianca at Home VI Paolina at Home VII Two Interviews VIII A Carni...

Who Did The Deed? CHAPTER I At the City Gate II Suspicion III Guilty or Not Guilty? IV The Marchese hears the Ill News V Doubts and Possibilities VI At the Circolo again VII A P...

Poena Pede Claudo CHAPTER I Signor Fortini receives the Signora Steno in his Studio II Was it Paolina after all? III Could it have been the Aged Friar? IV What Ravenna thought o...

It was Carnival time in the ancient and once imperial, but now provincial and remote, city of Ravenna. It was Carnival time, and the very acme and high-tide of that season of mi...

The Conte Leandro Lombardoni had not passed a pleasant Carnival. Reconciled, as he had recently professed himself to be--after some one of the frequent misfortunes that happened...

The Marchese remained at the ball to see one more dance between Ludovico and Bianca after their supper; and then left the rooms. There was nothing at all to cause remark in his...

Paolina entered hesitatingly, and starting at the echoes of her footsteps on the flagstones, wet and green, and slimy from the water, which often in every year lies many inches...

There was misgiving in the heart of the old man as he stood at the door of the Basilica looking after the light little form of Paolina as she moved along the path, raised above...

The aged monk of St. Apollinare, after watching Paolina as she departed from the Basilica, and took the path towards the forest, returned into the church to his devotions at the...

At a little after twelve o'clock on that same Ash Wednesday morning, a servant in the Castelmare livery brought a verbal message to the "studio" of Signor Giovacchino Fortini, "...

Signor Fortini went straight home to his pleasant little snuggery under the wing,--it might almost be said, under the roof,--of the Cathedral, and sat down in his easy chair to...

"Well, yes. Considering the nature of the information she gave you this morning, and bearing in mind that her existence in the flesh promises to be the means of leaving you with...

The old lawyer, Fortini, standing a pace behind the Marchese Ludovico, when the latter lifted up the sheet from the face of the dead, saw only that it was the face of a woman. P...

Signor Leandro Lombardoni felt himself to be abundantly repaid for his hour of waiting in the cold street, and for the bajocchi expended on the glass of punch, by the position h...

It has been said that Signor Ercole Stadione, when he was first introduced to the reader under circumstances somewhat unfavourable to that dignity of appearance and deportment o...

The young Marchese Ludovico di Castelmare had in the early part of the evening lounged into the Circolo, as was the habit of most of those of his class, seniors as well as junio...

The first care of the two Venetian women, on arriving in their new place of abode, which seemed to them almost as much a foreign country as Pekin might seem to an Englishman, wa...

Nearly eight months had elapsed between that day when the Signora Orsola and the Signorina Paolina were installed in their new lodging and the day when the Marchese Ludovico was...

Paolina had been working all day in the church of San Vitale. She had very nearly completed the copies she was to make there; and they were the most important in extent of all s...

But what, tesoro mio? What 'but' can come between us, if there is no such doubt to come between us?" urged Ludovico, gently drawing her towards him by the hand he still held loc...

Ludovico di Castelmare did not see his uncle that evening. He returned to the Palazzo, thoughtful enough, direct from the house in the Strada di Santa Eufemia, and there learned...

The Contessa Violante Marliani lived, as has been said, with her great-aunt, a sister of the Cardinal. They occupied a small house nearly contiguous to the palace, which was alm...

On the first day of the New Year, according to long-established custom, there was a grand reception in the evening at the palace of the Cardinal Legate. It was to be, as always...

On the morrow of the Marchese's ball was the great day of the arrival of the divine songstress. And it was as lovely a day for the gala doings, which had been arranged in honour...

Quinto Lalli was the name by which the prima donna had presented the old gentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the Marchese Lamberto as her father. And Quinto Lall...

When Bianca, on the evening of her arrival at Ravenna, rejoined Quinto Lalli at the handsome and convenient lodging which had been provided her, after having passed an hour or t...

The quartiere which La Lalli found prepared at Ravenna for her and her travelling companion was a very eligible one. It consisted of a very nicely-furnished sitting-room, with a...

In the next instant Bianca heard the door of the room in which she was sitting opened very gently; it was Gigia who opened it, so gently as to enable her mistress to keep her ey...

The Marchese Lamberto and Signor Ercole Stadione quitted the house in which the prima donna had her lodging, together, when the business matters, which they had come thither to...

The Carnival campaign of La Lalli had been thus far brilliantly successful, and the Carnival was now about half over. She "drew," as the little impresario had prophesied she wou...

The Marchese was uneasy in the presence of his nephew. But the fact was that he was uneasy and unhappy altogether, and at all times. From being one of the most placidly cheerful...

"Ah, Signor Marchese," she said, with a sweet, but somewhat sad, smile, extending to him a long, white, slender, nervous-looking, ungloved hand, but not otherwise moving from he...

The Marchese reached the Palazzo Castelmare unobserved by any one, save old Quinto Lalli, who had been for some time past watching the door of his adopted daughter from a neighb...

Paolina was industriously pursuing her task in the chapel of the Cardinal's palace. Ludovico was not so frequently with her there as he had been while she was at work in San Vit...

The institution of Carnival and Lent in Italy seems very much as if it arose from a practical conviction in the minds of the Italians that they cannot serve two masters,--at lea...

It may be easily imagined that the Marchese returned from the Corso very little disposed to take any pleasure in the treat to which all Ravenna was looking forward, and which he...

The next morning--the morning of the Monday after the gala performance at the theatre--the post brought to the Palazzo Castelmare a letter from Rome, before the Marchese had lef...

Quinto Lalli and Bianca were sitting together in the parlour of their apartments in the Strada di Porta Sisi, that same Monday morning just after the little pink note had been d...

Ludovico had run up in a hurry to Bianca's lodging, as has been seen, merely because it happened to be in his way, and because he had been desirous, as he told her, of paying he...

After Ludovico had passed into the sitting-room in the Via di Porta Sisi to pay his visit to Bianca, Quinto Lalli prepared to leave the house in accordance with her suggestion t...

On that Monday night all the world of Ravenna were assembled in the suite of state-rooms on the piano noble of the Palazzo di Castelmare. The cards of invitation had announced t...

All that these people, whose passions, and hopes, and fears have been laid open to the reader, were doing during those Carnival weeks was gradually leading up, after the manner...

Bianca Lalli lay dead at the city gate. Fresh from her triumphs, her successes, her schemes, her hopes, her frolic, at the full tide of her fame, and her matchless beauty, the p...

The Marchese Ludovico told the lawyer that he would go immediately to the magistrates and make a voluntary statement of all that he knew of the circumstances connected with Bian...

Signor Fortini hurried home, when he quitted the Marchese Ludovico in the little quiet street, in which they had talked together after the terrible sight they had together witne...

Signor Fortini judged rightly, when he said that he thought it probable that the Marchese Lamberto had not quitted his library, from the time when he had left him there, after t...

In passing through the hall of the Palazzo the lawyer, who was well acquainted with every servant in the house, took an opportunity of speaking a few words to the Marchese's old...

At the Circolo that evening there was no lack of subject for conversation, as may be easily imagined. The rooms were very full, and every tongue was busy with the same topic.

Adolfo Manutoli was a somewhat older man than the majority of those who had formed the group which had been discussing the all-absorbing topic of the day at the Circolo; and he...

The Baron Manutoli was Ludovico di Castelmare's very good friend. But there are two sorts of friends--friends who show their friendship by wishing, and endeavouring to obtain fo...

The Baron Manutoli found Paolina quite as "easy" as the lawyer had imagined that he would find her; but his task was not altogether an easy one in the sense he had himself inten...

The post-mortem examination had taken place at an early hour, before the members of the idler portion of the society of the city had come forth from their homes. An Italian idle...

"You can enter the Basilica at your pleasure, Signori; the gate is unlocked," said the lay-brother, indicating the entrance to the church with a half-formed gesture of his hand,...

The old friar opened his haggard eyes, which gleamed out with a feverish light from the bottom of their sockets, and from under the shadow of his cowl, and looked piteously up i...

It was the end of the first week in Lent; and all Ravenna was still busily engaged in talking, thinking, and speculating on the mysterious crime that had been committed on Ash W...

Orsola Steno quitted the lawyer's studio as entirely contented with the result of her interview as she left him. She doubted not that she had fully impressed him with her own co...

"Signor Marchese," said the old man, stretching out his hand with, for him, a very unusual degree of impulsive cordiality, "I have come to make amende honorable--I need hardly s...

Signor Fortini had rather mitigated than exaggerated the truth in speaking to the Marchese Ludovico of his uncle's state of mind. During all these days his condition was truly d...

He found the Marchese in a state which really seemed to threaten his life or his reason. It would scarcely be correct to say of him that he was depressed, for that phrase is har...

The police authorities were longer in preparing their case than Signor Fortini had anticipated they would be; but at length it was known throughout the city that the day for the...

In a criminal trial in the states of His Holiness the Pope, there is none of that absolute and inflexible adherence to certain rigid forms and rules which gives to many of the p...

The Professor Tomosarchi was in the court, and had been, as it happened, though unseen by the Marchese, fixing his eyes on him at the moment when the catastrophe narrated in the...

Of course the written statement left by the unhappy Marchese made all further judicial inquiry unnecessary. When the hand of a mightier power than that of any earthly judge stru...