Jettatura by Theophile Gautier

THE day after he had sent her the horns, Count d'Altavilla paid Miss Ward a visit. He found the young English lady drinking tea with her uncle, exactly as if she had been in a yellow brick house at Ramsgate, instead of in Naples upon a whitewashed terrace, and surrounded by fig trees, cacti, and aloes, for one of the distinguishing traits of the Anglo-Saxon race is the persistence of its habits, however contrary to the climate they may be. The Commodore was beaming. By means of artificial ice, manufactured with the aid of a chemical apparatus for snow only is brought from the mountains behind Castellamare he had succeeded in keeping the butter in a solid condition, and he was just then engaged in spreading a pat of it upon a thin slice of bread.

After the first commonplaces which form the preface of every conversation, and which resemble the preludes with which pianists try an instrument before they begin their performance, Alicia, suddenly breaking away from conventionalities, abruptly asked the young Neapolitan Count: "What do you mean by the strange gift of a pair of horns that came with the flowers? All I could get out of my maid Vice was that they are a preservative against the fascino."