I heard of Zanoni's desire to honour the talent of Naples, and, with my usual courtesy to distinguished strangers, I sent to place my box at his disposal.

He accepts it,--I wait on him between the acts; he is most charming; he invites me to supper.

Cospetto, what a retinue! We sit late,--I tell him all the news of Naples; we grow bosom friends; he presses on me this diamond before we part,--is a trifle, he tells me: the jewellers value it at 5000 pistoles!--the merriest evening I have passed these ten years." The cavaliers crowded round to admire the diamond.
"Signor Count Cetoxa," said one grave-looking sombre man, who had crossed himself two or three times during the Neapolitan's narrative, "are you not aware of the strange reports about this person; and are you not afraid to receive from him a gift which may carry with it the most fatal consequences?
Do you not know that he is said to be a sorcerer; to possess the mal-occhio; to--" "Prithee, spare us your antiquated superstitions," interrupted Cetoxa, contemptuously.

"They are out of fashion; nothing now goes down but scepticism and philosophy.

And what, after all, do these rumours, when sifted, amount to?
They have no origin but this,--a silly old man of eighty-six, quite in his dotage, solemnly avers that he saw this same Zanoni seventy years ago (he himself, the narrator, then a mere boy) at Milan; when this very Zanoni, as you all see, is at least as young as you or I, Belgioso." "But that," said the grave gentleman,--"THAT is the mystery.