whether you like it or not, I assure you. And let
us suppose that there are some there (not cM, that
would be a serious matter), but the best and
apparently most yielding, Narella, for instance.
Here then you liave a true tetc-a-tete, quickly
arranged without ceremonious preliminaries, with-
out squeamishness and thinking that such liberty
of action is usually coupled with the same liberty
of virtue, stretched out on one hand, forced on
the other. If you
offer your lips and
are sympatiietic to
her, I do not say
that you may not
])erliaps snatch a
kiss. But I am
now digressing, and
all this has nothing
to do with my task.
I wislied to tell you
about the models,
not their chroni-
cles, which may be
beautiful, ugly,
pure, or the reverse,
but which do not
concern us.
Some unfortu-
nate or lucky
daugliters of Eve,
therefore, who come
down from their
mountains, rougli,
stu))id, ignorant of
everything, to place
in the artistic mar-
ket the good name
of their beauty, and
the cost of their in-
credible steadfast-
ness, are brought
suddenly face to
face with great
doubt, the rocks
and deep precipices
of their calling.
They are brought generally from Ciociaria, the
valley of the Lire, Sabina, and sometimes from dis-
tant Abruzzo, and accompanied by the person who
enrolls them, who is almost always another model,
already broken to the business, with a tliorough
practical knowledge of places, and with numerous
friends and acquaintances amongthe artists. Scarcely
arrived at Rome, they are deprived of the costume
of their countrv and dressed in another called usu-
Uy ' C/ociara,^ the well-known traditional costume
which Italy lias assumed as her own. The person
who has enrolled lier often introduces her by tak-
ing lier to this or that studio, othei-s are satisfied
w ith placing her in some of the frequented or custo-
mary places of show, which is, as I have al-
ready said, the Piazza or steps of the ' Trinita dei
Monti,' where the artists go to arrange the number
of sittings, though not the price, which is fixed
at five lire per day.
This has existed
for centuries;
Raphael, Micliel-
angelo, Poussin,
" - the divine Cellini,
followed by a train
of their pupils, trod
these same stairs
and paused in the
same way before a
Bibbiana, Lucia, or
Narella of former
days, and these
beautiful and silly
girls, ignorant that
they were in the
})resence of marvels
of intellectual
power, would count
their time to a
minute and dispute
about it as they do
to-day. Truly what
did it matter to
them whether their
pictures, master-
pieces of art, should
adorn the halls of
a palace or the shop
of thepork-butcher,
at the corner of the
street ? It may be,
but this is very
rare, they have an
air of pride or a
flash of greediness
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when a fortunate or story-telling artist tells them that he lias sold their likeness at a good price.
In summer when the artists leave Rome for the country, the models return again to their hills, counting their lioard of money, boasting in their own way, and making the boldest plans ; their gains to a areat extent reduced by the demands of the one who lias introduced theni. They return to their spade, to their sheep, to their fields, to the
