Note 63 — VENEZIA LA BELLA (February 1867)

A very charming Hungarian, Count Sandor Téléki, who afterwards served as a colonel of cavalry in Italy, said to me once, laughing at the tawdry luxury of the Florentine dandies: ‘Do you remember a race or a festival in Moscow?... It is silly, but it has character. The coachman is primed with liquor, his cap is on one side, the horses are worth some thousands of roubles, and the master lolls in bliss and in sables. Here our gaunt Count So-and-so hires lean nags with rheumatic legs and nodding heads, and the same thin, clumsy-looking Giacopo who is his cook and gardener sits on the box, dressed in a livery not made for him, and tugs at the reins, while the Count entreats him: “Giacopo, Giacopo, fate una grande e bella figura.”’ I asked leave of Count Téléki to borrow this expression.—(Author’s Note.)