human
I feel very little doubt of it, myself, said Manutoli;
gpt
He would have been more to be pitied than blamed if he had done it, said another of the young men, who did not bear himself a reputation of the most brilliant sort;
human
Ludovico was not the man to have done it any way. Besides, the mischief had not been done; it was only a project talked of. There might have been a hundred ways of breaking off so absurd a match. It would have been time to have recourse to les grands moyens, when the thing had been done, and all else had failed. To my notion jealousy has done it.
gpt
So say I. Two to one I bet that it turns out that the Venetian girl has done the trick.
human
But have you heard, all of you, that there is a third horse in the field? said the Marchese Faraoni whose palazzo was close to the house in which the Conte Leandro lived;
gpt
What! Leandro?
human
The Conte Lombardoni?
gpt
No!
human
You don't mean that?
gpt
What, arrested for this murder of La Bianca?
human
Impossible!
gpt
But quite true, nevertheless. Anybody can easily assure themselves of the fact by walking as far as the Palazzo del Governo.
human
Leandro arrested on suspicion of murder? Well, I think the tragedy is passing into a farce.
gpt
It will be fatal to Leandro. He will die of fright, if no other evil happens to him.
human
Think of the cantos of verse he will make on it.
gpt
He will die singing, like a swan.
human
But do you know anything about it, Faraoni? Have you any idea how he has come to be implicated in the matter?
gpt
I learnt at his own lodging that he did not come home to bed the night of the ball, but was absent from home at the time the murder must have been committed. And then I was told that the men at the Porta Nuova had declared that they had seen him pass out of the city going in the direction of the Pineta at a very early hour that morning.
human
Per Bacco! it is very strange. What, in the name of all the saints, could he be doing out there at that time, when all honest folks were in their beds?
gpt
Remember all the snubbing he has had from the poor Diva all through carnival. By Jove! it looks very queer.
human
Do you remember how he turned all sorts of colours here last night, when we were talking of it?
gpt
And how anxious he seemed to say everything that appeared to make it bear hard upon Ludovico?
human
Yes, and contradicted himself. First, he knew about it, and then he knew nothing.
gpt
Per Dio! I don't know what to think of it.
human
So, then, there are now three persons suspected--Ludovico; and the Venetian girl, and the Conte Leandro?
gpt
And all three were not far from the spot where the deed was done, and all three had motives, more or less credible, for doing it.
human
Ludovico, because his uncle was going to marry the woman, which would have cut him out of his inheritance; the Venetian girl, because she loved Ludovico, and saw him making love to the poor Diva; and Leandro, because she snubbed him, and laughed at him, and would have nothing to say to either him or his verses.
gpt
And the one certain thing is, that the unlucky Diva lies dead, and was murdered by somebody. Upon my life, it is the queerest thing I ever heard of.
human
What do you think of it, Manutoli?
gpt
My notion is that the girl is the guilty party, said Manutoli.
human
As for Leandro, it seems too absurd. I don't think he has courage enough to kill a cat: Besides, I daresay he hated La Bianca quite enough to slander her, and backbite, and that sort of thing; but murder--
gpt
She made fun of him. Leandro don't like to be laughed at,--specially by the women, and, more specially still, when other fellows are by to hear it and then those poets are always such desperate fellows I should not wonder--