f their own
abasement! What are the Italians of today but men tricked out in women's
finery, when they should be waiting full-armed to rally at the first
signal of revolt? Oh, for the day when a poet shall arise who dares tell
them the truth, not disguised in sentimental frippery, not ending in a
maudlin reconciliation of love and glory--but the whole truth, naked,
cold and fatal as a patriot's blade; a poet who dares show these
bedizened courtiers they are no freer than the peasants they oppress,
and tell the peasants they are entitled to the same privileges as their
masters!" He paused and drew back with a supercilious smile. "But
doubtless, sir," said he, "I offend you in thus arraigning your sacred
caste; for unless I mistake you belong to the race of demi-gods--the
Titans whose downfall is at hand?" He swept the boxes with a
contemptuous eye.

Little of this tirade was clear to Odo; but something in the speaker's
tone moved him to answer, with a quick lifting of his head: "My name is
Odo Valsecca, of the Dukes of Pianura;" when, fearing he had seemed to
parade his birth before one evidently of inferior station, he at once
added with a touch of shyness: "And you, sir, are perhaps a poet, since
you speak so beautifully?"

At which, with a stare and a straightening of his long awkward body, the
other haughtily returned: "A poet, sir? I am the Count Vittorio Alfieri
of Asti."

1.9.

The singular being with whom chance had thus brought him acquainted was
to have a lasting influence on the formation of Odo's character.

Vittorio Alfieri, then just concluding, at the age of sixteen, his
desultory years of academic schooling, was probably the most
extraordinary youth in Charles Emmanuel's dominion. Of the future
student, of the tragic poet who was to prepare the liberation of Italy
by raising the political ideals of his generation, this moody boy with
his craze for dress and horses, his pride of birth and contempt for his
own class, his liberal theories and insolently aristocratic practice,
must have given small promise to the most discerning observer. It seems
indeed probable that none thought him worth observing and that he passed
among his townsmen merely as one of the most idle and extravagant young
noblemen in a society where idleness and extravagance were held to be
the natural attributes of the great. But in the growth of character the
light on the road to Damascus is apt to be preceded by faint premonitory