The Kalida venture. [volume] (Kalida, Ohio) 1841-1865, 1846-05-28
VOL VINO. IA.
ss's From the Democratic Review
THE SIGNORA CROZZAs DI MORTO.s

THE SIGNORA CROZZA DI MORTO.
!, "A whimsical and singular circumstance oc
cured about eighteen months ago in Palermo
which cast into the shade the budget, the
aristocracy and The press. For the allotted
" nine days" due TO every new wonder, the
whole city talked Of nothing but the Signora
Crozza di Morto. She is lady Of twenty
years OF age, her person beautiful and ex.
qulstively proportioned, her complexion
white and pure as snow, and her voice soft
as SIRENS. She is distinguished alike by
genius and accomplishment. She plays on
the piano forte like De Meyer, sings like
Mademoiselle Delcy, and dances like Mad
emoiselle Augusta. Her fortune, moreover,
is $3OO,Oo0 year--an excellent heart, and
E a spotles5 fame. But as fatal ill-chance
would have it-(such was the story which
speedily spread through Palermo on the ar
rival Of the fair and eccentric stranger, who
was the only daughter Of wealthy Russian
parents, tho born in Franco)--her mother,
about twenty years ago, saw a display of the
Phantasmagoria, and was so strongly struck
with one horrible spectre in particular, that
after eight months, she was delivered of
child who would have been beautiful as an
angel, if she had not been born with the
strange but horrid deformiy of skeleton
hand and a face like that Of a skull.
The sensation awakened by so extraor-
dinary person, among the lively Sicilians,
may be imagined, The lady was known to
be the perfection of all loveliness in every
respect but those two fatal particulars. She
was reputed, also, to be of wayward and
very original character, very fearless and in
dependent, and now the sole mistress of her
own liberty and of her enormous fortune.-
She wore her face covered with mask and
veil, and the fearful skeleton hand carefully
gloved.
II was NOT long before, in spite of these
rumored but unseen deformities, her wealth.
s;;:2ssnlarity and other charms, attracted many
sutor to her mysterious but golden shrine
especially gentlemen of small fortune and
high nobility, whom the 100000 year
could have reconciled to the embraces ofthe
eldest daughter of Lucifer himself. But
they had all a fearful trial to undergo be-
fore the coveted prize was TO be won. The
Venus with the face OF a skull-the Crozsi
de Morto-receives at home all her lovers,
her face covered with the perpetual mask
and veil. She sings, dances, cnchants and
transports, and when ecstacy is at its height,
she suddenly lays aside her glove, and re-.
veals first the spectacle of the sacrificed
hand, the hand.of skeleton! Some fash
lonable lovers havo been known TO endure
this borrid spectacle with unfnching cour-
age; but when this wonderful creature, who
appeared sometimes almost to derive strange
qualification from the exercise of this dread
full power 10 appal and repulse, went step
farther and raised her veil and took off her
mask, no one had yet been found with nerves
equal to the fearful trial Fortune, genius,
wit, grace, goodness, lovelines of form, mind
and heart, were all hastily and shudderingly
resigned, rather than encounter the hideous
fate Of life, union with that hand and head
of Death! Intrepid soldiers VIII. had dared
the dread King Of Terrors many time when
appearing in his own grimmest fern, shrank
back appalled,, as well they might, from be-
fore his sckening features, when thus re-
vealed in monstrous combination with all the
other possible charms of maiden youth and
liveliness.
AT last the lady met with loves whose
passion she herself could, and did return; a
lover who would have boen worthy indeed
of her, even had not the perfection of her
graces, of both mind and person, been mar
red by the fatal defects have described
Generous, noble, accomplished and intel
lectual, after visiting her from the curiosity
with which all Palermo was possessed, the
mysterious interest attaching to her--com-
passion for SO unhappy a curse. resting on
the unohending head of one SO matchless in
every other charm-and delight in the pow
ers of mind and the admirable qualities of
heart she displayed, soon converted the slight
degree of curiosity with which he came, into
a true, fervent and exalted passion. Forthe
first lime the lady felt herself loved as she
would be-for the first time reciprocat,dit
with still more lavish wealth of affection,
and for the first time dielded the effect of
the fatal ordeal TO which the attac hment of
those who sought her hand was to be sub
jected Nevertheless, she did not attempt
to soften the picture of the spectacle which
she told him he would have TO behold, even
while she confessed her own dread of the
effect it would produce upon his Affection
But he answered that he loved her heart,
and not her person, and that no reality could
exceed what he had already pictured TO him
self, and to which his heart had already re-
conciled his imagination. Fully satisfied, at
last, of the sincerity and devotion of his love
"a love the more highly TO be priced from
the nature of the qualities upon which il
was bestowed, she consented TO the bridal,
though she said, that she would moi endanger
IFS completion by revealing TO him tho fatal