e Marquis Tudesco, of Venice, the exile
who has translated in a freezing garret, on scraps of refuse
paper, the immortal poem of Torquato Tasso. What a task!"

The child listened to the tipsy philosopher without understanding
one word of his rigmarole; only Monsieur Tudesco struck him as
a strange and alarming personage, and taller by a hundred feet
than anybody he had ever seen before.

The professor warmed to his subject:

"Ah!" he cried, springing from his seat, "and what profit did
the immortal and ill-starred Torquato Tasso win from all his
genius? A few stolen kisses on the steps of a palace. And he
died of famine in a madhouse. I say it: the world's opinion,
that empress of humankind, I will tear from her her crown and
sceptre. Opinion tyrannizes over unhappy Italy, as over all the
earth. Italy! what flaming sword will one day come to break her
fetters, as now I break this chair?"

In fact, he had seized his chair by the back and was pounding
it fiercely on the floor.

But suddenly he stopped, gave a knowing smile, and said in a low
voice:

"No, no, Marquis Tudesco, let be, let Venice be a prey to Teuton
savagery. The fetters of the fatherland are daily bread to the
exiled patriot."

His chin buried in his cravat, he stood chuckling to himself,
and his red waistcoat rose and fell in jerks.

Mademoiselle Servien, who sat by at the lesson knitting a stocking
and for some moments had been watching the tutor, her spectacles
pushed half-way up her forehead, with a look of amazement and
suspicion, exclaimed, as if talking to herself:

"If it isn't abominable to come to people's houses in drink!"

Monsieur Tudesco did not seem to hear her. His manner was quiet
and jocular again.

"Child," he ordered, "write down the theme for an essay. Write
down: 'The worst thing... yes, the worst thing of all,' write
it down... 'is an old woman with a spiteful temper.'"

And rising with the gracious dignity of a Prince of the Church,
he bowed low to the aunt, gave the nephew's cheek a friendly
tap, and marched out of the room.

However, beginning with the very next lesson, he lavished every
mark of respect on the old lady, and treated her to all his choicest
airs and graces, rounding his elbows, pursing his lips, strutting
and swaggering. She would not relax a muscle, and sat there as
silent and sulky as an owl.

But one day when she was hunting for her spectacles, as she was
always doing, Monsieur Tudesco offered