His heart was broken. On the big sheet of thick hand-made paper, that
lay on the desk, scribbled over with rough calculations in violet ink,
there were a number of trial impressions of the old stamp he had once
been so proud to use. It bore a rough representation of the Conti
eagle, encircled by the legend: "Eccellentissima Casa Conti." When his
eyes fell upon it, they filled with tears. The Most Excellent House of
Conti had come to a pitiful end, and it had been Pompeo Sassi's
unhappy fate to see its fall. Judging from his looks, he was not to
survive the catastrophe very long.
He loved the family, and yet he disliked every member of it personally
except Sabina. He loved the "Eccellentissima Casa," the checky eagle,
the Velasquez portraits and his dingy office, but he never had spoken
with the Princess, her son, his wife, or his sister Clementina,
without a distinct feeling of disapproving aversion. The old Prince
had been different. In him Sassi had still been able to respect those
traditional Ciceronian virtues which were inculcated with terrific
severity in the Roman youth of fifty years ago. But the Prince had
died prematurely at the age of fifty, and with him the Ciceronian
traditions had ended in Casa Conti, and their place had been taken by
the caprices of the big, healthy, indolent, extravagant Polish woman,
by the miserable weaknesses of a degenerate heir, and the fanatic
religious practices of Donna Clementina.
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