The Duchess was expecting an infant.
The Peris, the naiads, the fairies, the sylphs of ancient legend, the Muses of Greece, the Marble Virgins of the Certosa at Pavia, the Day and Night of Michael Angelo, the little Angels which Bellini was the first to put at the foot of his Church pictures, and which Raphael painted so divinely in his Virgin with the Donor, and the Madonna who shivers at Dresden, the lovely Maidens by Orcagna in the Church of San-Michele, at Florence, the celestial choir round the tomb in Saint-Sebaldus, at Nuremberg, the Virgins of the Duomo, at Milan, the whole population of a hundred Gothic Cathedrals, all the race of beings who burst their mould to visit you, great imaginative artists—all these angelic and disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla’s bed, and wept!
PARIS, May 25th, 1839.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Facino Cane
Tinti, Clarina
Albert Savarus
Varese, Emilio Memmi, Prince of
Gambara
Varese, Princess of
Gambara
Vendramini, Marco
Facino Cane
Victorine
Lost Illusions
Letters of Two Brides
Gaudissart II