..
Contemplating the veiled Umberto, I remembered that sight, remembered
those tears unworthy (as my nurse told me) of a little gentleman.
Years had passed. I was grown older and wiser. I had learnt to expect
less of life. There was no fear that I should disgrace myself in the
matter of Umberto.
I was not so old, though, nor so wise, as I am now. I expected more
than there is of Italian speed, and less than there is of Italian
subtlety. A whole year has passed since first I set eyes on veiled
Umberto. And Umberto is still veiled.
And veiled for more than a whole year, as I now know, had Umberto been
before my coming. Four years before that, the municipal council, it
seems, had voted the money for him. His father, of sensational memory,
was here already, in the middle of the main piazza, of course. And
Garibaldi was hard by; so was Mazzini; so was Cavour. Umberto was
still implicit in a block of marble, high upon one of the mountains of
Carrara. The task of educing him was given to a promising young
sculptor who lived here. Down came the block of marble, and was
transported to the studio of the promising young sculptor; and out,
briskly enough, mustachios and all, came Umberto. He looked very
regal, I am sure, as he stood glaring around with his prominent marble
eyeballs, and snuffing the good fresh air of the world as far as might
be into shallow marble nostrils.
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