3971. EBB to Sarianna Browning
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 18–21.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 3 March 1857]
My dearest Sarianna I am delighted, & so is Robert, that you should have found what pleases you in the clock. Here is Penini’s letter, which takes up so much room that I must be sparing of mine—and, by the way, if you consider him improved in his writing, give the praise to Robert who has been taking most patient pains with him indeed. You will see how the little curly head is turned with carnival doings. So gay a carnival never was in our experience—for until last year (when we were absent) all masks had been prohibited, & now everybody has eaten of the tree of good & evil till not an apple is left. Peni persecuted me to let him have a domino, with tears & embraces—he “almost never in all his life had had a domino,” & he would like it so– Not a black domino—no; he hated black—but a blue domino, trimmed with pink! that was his taste. The pink-trimming I coaxed him out of, but for the rest, I let him have his way, darling child, & certainly it answered, as far as the overflow of joy in his little heart went. Never was such delight– Morning & evening there he was in the streets running Wilson out of breath, & lost sight of every ten minutes. “Now, Lily, I do pray you not to call out Penini, Penini.” Not to be known, was his immense ambition. Oh, of course he thought of nothing else. As to lessons, there was an absolute absence of wits. All Florence being turned out into the streets in one gigantic pantomime, one could’nt expect people to be wiser in doors than out. For my part, the universal madness reached me sitting by the fire, (whence I had not stirred for three months),—& you will open your eyes when I tell you that I went (in domino & masked) to the great opera ball. Yes—I did really. Robert who had been invited two or three times to other people’s boxes, had proposed to return this kindness by taking a box himself at the opera this night, & entertaining two or three friends with gallantina [1] & champagne. Just as he & I were lamenting this impossibility of my going, on that very morning, the wind changed, the air grew soft & mild & he maintained that I might & should go. There was no time to get a domino of my own (Robert himself had a beautiful one made, & I am having it metamorphosed into a black silk gown for myself!) so I sent out & hired one, buying the mask. And very much amused I was. I like to see these characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sarianna, till I risk my reputation at the bal de l’opera [2] at Paris.) Do you think I was satisfied with staying in the box? No indeed. Down I went, & Robert & I elbowed our way through the crowd to the remotest corner of the ball below. Somebody smote me on the shoulder & cried “Bella mascherina” [3] & I answered as impudently as one feels under a mask. At two oclock in the morning however I had to give up & come away—(being overcome by the heavy air) & ingloriously left Robert & our friends to follow at half past four. Think of the refinement & gentleness .. yes, I must call it superiority of this people .. when no excess, no quarrelling, no rudeness nor coarseness can be observed in the course of such wild masked liberty. Not a touch of license anywhere. And perfect social equality! Ferdinando side by side in the same ball room with the Grand Duke, & no class’s delicacy offended against! For the Grand Duke went down into the ballroom for a short time. The boxes however were dear. We were on a third tier, yet paid £2.5s English, besides entrance money. I think that, generally speaking, theatrical amusements are cheaper in Paris, in spite of apparent cheapnesses here. The pit here & stalls are cheap,—but “women in society” cant go there, it is said—and you must take a whole box if you want two seats in a box which seems to me monstrous. People combine generally.
Fanny Haworth is in great doubt whether or not to go to Rome– She is always in doubt, poor thing, about everything– The marriage is neither off nor on—but the doubt there is not on her side. She is good & amiable, & I like her much—only I pity her more, more– No one ever seemed to me so pitiable, the cause being in herself wholly. I am afraid Italy in the hot months would never agree with her, even if marriage to an Italian did. [4]
The grippe is reigning here just now,—the consequence I suppose of the union of the radiant march sunshine, & cold airs from the mountains. We are well—but Isa & her friend Miss Bracken [5] have both been in bed for days, .. & people are actually dying all round. Did I tell you that Miss Bracken, a young girl of some means, had persuaded Isa Blagden to allow her to live with her– She has a sittingroom & bedroom of her own & her share in the carriage, paying her own way—& this is an advantage of course to Isa; &, as Miss Bracken is an active minded person & much absorbed in her pursuits, besides being kind & gentle, there seems to be no disadvantage. Robert is up at the villa three or four evenings of the week, & then I go to bed with a book, as usual. I am quite different as to strength however from last year—much stronger, & unshaken by the winter.
Tell me, Sarianna, if there is any change in dresses, sleeves &c. I am having this black silk dress made up—& I shall wait for the body (which I dont want just now) till you instruct me. If we dont grow in grace [6] we grow in petticoats,—& as Florence always enlarges upon Paris, a lady in this street, going to court lately, could’nt literally be got into the carriage, & had to walk. Isa & F Haworth are “in complete steel,” [7] but I resist still, & stand by my “tower of Malakoff” [8] & common sense.
Dear, you must not fancy that Miss Bayley has charge of your chairs &c. [9] I do not see how we could ask her, and if we did ....! She simply said that she had told “Davy,” one of the servants, to “give an eye to the chairs,”—but as the servants must be dispersed soon & the house is, by will, to be sold, in the course of the summer .. judge ye! [10] The expense of sending to a warehouse is exorbitant—far more, observe, than any possible expense of removal. We have tried that, you remember.
We pay here in the exchange, (which you know I never understand) something equal to another income-tax, & everything is dearer, much. Some English swore to me the other day, it was as dear as London—(& were forsworn!) Rome however exceeds everything. Miss Cushman says she pays immensely to get anything to eat, & then cant eat it, it’s so bad. She is going to America, after coming here for a week in April. Hume has recovered his power in increased force, & has been twice with Louis Napoleon. [11] Did you hear anything? How were you unwell, dearest Sarianna? It was not more than cold, I do hope. Love to nonno from his dear
ever affectionate Ba.
I meant to write only a word—& see! May it not be overweight.
Address, in RB’s hand: Mademoiselle Browning / 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubg St Germain, / Paris.
Publication: LEBB, II, 256–258 (in part, as [February 1857]).
Manuscript: Lilly Library.
1. Galantine, “a dish of veal, chickens, or other white meat, freed from bones, tied up, boiled, and served cold with the jelly” (OED). The “two or three friends” were Isa Blagden, Annette Bracken, and Mary Tassinari (see letter 3972).
2. The Carnival in Paris was famous for its masked balls. According to Galignani’s New Paris Guide (1856), “the most amusing and comparatively select are at the Opera-house where they begin at midnight, and continue till daybreak. … Gentlemen may go to these balls in plain clothes, but ladies are only admitted in masks or in costumes. … It will be easily conceived that if a visitor should take the ladies of his family to witness this extraordinary display, he must take them to a box as mere spectators, for to mingle with any of these too vivacious groups would be something worse than indiscretion” (pp. 434–435).
3. “Beautiful masker.”
4. i.e., to Giovanni Lotti (see letter 3966).
5. Annette Emma Bracken (afterwards Frascheri, 1834–98), Isa Blagden’s cousin, was the daughter of John Bracken (1806–50) and his first wife, Louisa (née Compton, 1813–38), third daughter of Herbert Abingdon Draper Compton (1770–1846), army officer and jurist in India. From 1849 to 1856 she attended Bedford College, London, where she studied art and Italian (Archives, Bedford College).
6. Cf. II Peter 3:18.
7. Hamlet, I, 4, 52. In this and subsequent quotations from Shakespeare’s works, the line numbers correspond to those in The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston, 1974).
8. The “tower of Malakoff” refers to the style of a woman’s crinoline (or petticoat) more cylindrical than the wire-hoop petticoat of larger circumference then preferred in Parisian fashion. It is named for the Russian stronghold taken by the French in the Crimean War.
10. Cf. Matthew 7:1–2.
11. In his autobiography, Daniel Dunglas Home states that the first séance with Napoleon III and his wife, Eugénie, took place on 13 February 1857 at the Tuileries, “where manifestations of an extraordinary nature occurred” (Incidents in My Life, New York, 1863, p. 139). Details of this séance and others with the Emperor and Empress were supplied years later by Home’s second wife, Julia, in D. D. Home, His Life and Mission (1888). Home insisted that the number of participants should not exceed eight, which angered the Empress, who refused to comply and left the room. The séance proceeded with the trembling and lifting of a heavy table, raps, and answers to questions. After Eugénie returned to the room, she was touched by a spiritual hand and said: “I felt the hand of my father in mine” (pp. 73–75). At a subsequent séance, a phantom hand appeared and signed the name “Napoleon” in handwriting that resembled that of Napoleon I (see p. 77).
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