DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0049
MODEL WORKS OF SIGNOR S-■.
41
old. The fat old woman is in only for a slight offence.
So much for judgment by physiognomy !”
I cannot express the painful impression produced on me
by the remembrance of this group. As I returned home,
all the faces I met in the streets seemed to me, as it were,
masks. I saw faces in expression a thousand times more
evil than the countenances of those three unhappy women.
How was it ? Was it alone that some unusually painful
and frightful circumstances had aroused passions in them
which only snept in the breasts of hundreds of other
human beings who wander about free and honourably in
the world; or was expression, after all, a deception? In
these three women, at the moment we saw them, at all
events, the expression was really good and amiable. I
cannot give an idea of the strange sort of distrust which
seized me. I looked at the ladies who accompanied me, and
said to myself—your faces are not nearly so good in ex-
pression and feature as theirs. I have been looking at my
own face, and it seems to me that it, too, might just as
well conceal some frightful remembrance of crime.
I was quite glad when a friend proposed that we should
go and see a model of Milan Cathedral, made by an old
Italian here. I was thankful for anything to banish the
remembrance of the three women, and of those round,
beautiful hands and arms of the young girl, which had
once been stained with blood.
We entered a very handsome house, and soon were in
the little room of Signor S——■. The room was very small,
but bright and cheerful! Flowers were in the bright little
■window, the glass cabinets were filled with all imaginable
nick-nacks of glass, china, and various small models;
bronze and gilded candelabra filled with tapers stood
about upon consoles; pictures hung on the cheerful
self-coloured green walls. In one corner stood a pretty
41
old. The fat old woman is in only for a slight offence.
So much for judgment by physiognomy !”
I cannot express the painful impression produced on me
by the remembrance of this group. As I returned home,
all the faces I met in the streets seemed to me, as it were,
masks. I saw faces in expression a thousand times more
evil than the countenances of those three unhappy women.
How was it ? Was it alone that some unusually painful
and frightful circumstances had aroused passions in them
which only snept in the breasts of hundreds of other
human beings who wander about free and honourably in
the world; or was expression, after all, a deception? In
these three women, at the moment we saw them, at all
events, the expression was really good and amiable. I
cannot give an idea of the strange sort of distrust which
seized me. I looked at the ladies who accompanied me, and
said to myself—your faces are not nearly so good in ex-
pression and feature as theirs. I have been looking at my
own face, and it seems to me that it, too, might just as
well conceal some frightful remembrance of crime.
I was quite glad when a friend proposed that we should
go and see a model of Milan Cathedral, made by an old
Italian here. I was thankful for anything to banish the
remembrance of the three women, and of those round,
beautiful hands and arms of the young girl, which had
once been stained with blood.
We entered a very handsome house, and soon were in
the little room of Signor S——■. The room was very small,
but bright and cheerful! Flowers were in the bright little
■window, the glass cabinets were filled with all imaginable
nick-nacks of glass, china, and various small models;
bronze and gilded candelabra filled with tapers stood
about upon consoles; pictures hung on the cheerful
self-coloured green walls. In one corner stood a pretty