The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten Page A

timidly and stroked his back with the tips of her fingers. Cambyses kept quite still until the child had recovered from her fright. Then he got up gently, gazed long and intently at the pretty little fair-haired girl, and a moment later the two began to play together and were still doing so when the company went in to dinner. The guests had long ceased to pay any attention to them.
    Throughout the banquet strains of music mingled with the clinking of vessels and the buzz of voices. At last the Grand Duke and His Imperial Highness rose from the table, followed by the rest of the company, and the day’s festivities continued. The procession descended the stairs in regular order, like a bright-­colored gleaming wave rolling downward in a shimmer of gold and sparkling jewels. In the courtyard state coaches were standing in readiness, and each one, as it slowly bowled away with its occupants, was escorted by a troop of magnificent bodyguards. As usual the dog ran by the side of the Archduke’s carriage.
    As they left the dark narrow streets, in which the clatter of the horses’ hooves and the rattle of the wheels had been deafening, and suddenly emerged into a blaze of light, air and sunshine, amid gleaming white houses, the air was full of the murmur of voices. Crowds of people were massed beyond the trotting fence of bodyguards. A thousand waving arms formed a tangled lattice-work of limbs, while a thousand throats roared forth a torrent of cheers. It was like a living hedge, swayed hither and thither by a storm, laughing and roaring its greeting. Ever and anon the cheering would die down for a moment and a shrill, lonely voice be heard shouting alone, to be drowned immediately in the general tumult that quickly broke out afresh. The procession advanced slowly downhill, and on reaching the Arno, which gleamed like an emerald between its silvery banks, pressed on laboriously across the wonderful Ponte Vecchio and through the narrow alleys between the houses, until, on passing down a short street, it entered the square where stood the Town Hall with its tower, its battlements and traverses. Above the faces of the swarming crowd the marble head of the David gleamed white and majestic.
    The Archduke’s carriage pulled up immediately in front of the statue which marked the entrance to the Town Hall. The bodyguards who were keeping the crowd back and the gentlemen in gorgeous uniforms who advanced toward the carriage to welcome the Archduke had now neither the time nor the inclination to take any notice of Cambyses. Had they been able to watch him, they might have had cause to feel surprised or possibly amused. The dog was struggling to raise his eyes to the statue, though some invisible power was drawing his nose to the ground. Twice, thrice he tried to gaze up at the marble monument, but each time the irresistible force exercised by all manner of scents drew his nose down to the plinth. Obliged at last to yield to the impulse, he sniffed quickly and uneasily round the sides of the base, turned in anguish this way and that, but could not tear himself away. At last, cocking his leg up against the statue, he gazed in front of him with bowed head and clouded eyes, full of dumb agony.
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    Lucas paused on the threshold of Bandini’s house.
    The artist’s studios were on the ramparts close to the city gates from which the road to Fiesole led out. Lucas had had no difficulty in finding the place, for everybody knew Cesare Bandini. As soon as he pronounced the name a smile suffused the faces of those he questioned, and their eyes shone more brightly as they showed him the way. Thither he had gone in a spirit of the deepest reverence, lofty expectation and excitement which his joy and bashfulness made all the greater.
    As he wandered through the city, hesitating and then hurrying on again, the very houses and Palaces seemed to be speaking to him, the statues, churches, gleaming marble towers