*CHAPTER VI*
Many a head in the palace, though accustomed witness of strange things,tossed on its pillow that night in sleepless review of a scene which hadbeen as amazing in its singularity as it was potential in its promise.What were to be the first-fruits of that cataclysmic revulsion offeeling in a nature so habitually frozen from all tenderness? If nomore than a shy snowdrop or two of reason, mercy, justice, pushing theirway up through a savage soil, the result would be marvel enough. Yetthere seemed somehow in the atmosphere an earnest of that and better.The hearts of all trod on tiptoe, fearful of waking their souls todisenchantment--agitated, exultant; wooing them to convalescence from anancient sickness. The spring of a joyous hope was rising voicelesssomewhere in the thick of those drear corridors. The f[oe]tid air,wafted through a healing spray, came charged with an unwonted sweetness.Whence had he risen, the lovely singing-boy, spirit of change, harbingerof a new humanity? Whither had he gone? To the Duke's quarters--thatwas all they knew. They had seen him carried off, persuaded, fondled,revered by that very despot whom he had dared divinely to rebuke, andthe doors had clanged and the dream passed. To what phase of itsdevelopment, confirming or disillusioning, would they reopen? Theanswer to them was at least a respite; and that was an answer sufficientand satisfying to lives that obtained on a succession of respites.Alas! as there is no logic in tyranny, so can there be none in those whoendure it.
The earliest ratification of the promise was to witness in the figure ofthe Duke coming radiant from his rooms in company with the strangerhimself, his left arm fondly passed about the boy's neck, his eyes fullof admiration and flattery. He felt no more discomfort, it appeared,than had Madam Beatrice on a certain occasion, in the thought of hislate self-exposure before his creatures. Such shamelessness is the finalcondition of autocracy. He had slept well, untormented of his vision.As is the case with neurotics, a confident diagnosis of his disease hadproved the shortest means to its cure. Clever the doctor, too, whocould make such a patient's treatment jump with his caprices; and withan inspired intuition Bernardo had so manoeuvred to reconcile the two.A whim much indulged may become a habit, and he was determined toencourage to the top of its bent this whim of reformation in the Duke.No ungrateful physicking of a soured bile for him; no uncomfortablephilosophy of organic atoms recombined. He just restored to him thatlong-lost toy of innocence, trusting that the imagination of the manwould find ever novel resources for play in that of which the inventionof the child had soon tired. So for the present, and until virtue inhis patient should have become a second nature, was he resolved wiselyto eschew all reference to the intermediate state, and only by exampleand analogy to win him to consciousness and repentance of the enormitiesby which it had been stained. A very profound little missionary, to besure.
The Duke, leaning on his arm as he strolled, had a smile and a word formany. The only visible token of his familiar self which he revealed wasthe arbitrariness with which he exacted from all a fitting deferencetowards his protege. This, however, none, not the greatest, wasinclined to withhold, especially on such a morning. Soft-footedcardinals, princes of the blood, nobles and jingling captains, vied withone another in obsequious attentions to our little neophyte of love.The reasons, apart from superstitious reverence, were plentiful: hissweetness, his beauty, his gifts of song--all warm recommendations to asensuous sociality; the whispered romance of his origin, no less apatent in its eyes because it turned on a title doubly bastard; finally,and most cogently, no doubt, his political potentialities as a favourite_in posse_.
This last reason above any other may have accounted for theextraordinary complaisance shown him by Messer Ludovico, the Duke'sthird younger brother, at present at court, who was otherwise of arather inward and withdrawing nature. He, this brother, had come fromPavia, riding the final stage that morning, and though he had onlygathered by report the story of the last twelve hours, thought it worthhis while to go and ingratiate himself with the stranger. He found himin the great hall of the castello, awaiting the trial of certain causes,which, as coming immediately under the ducal jurisdiction, it wasGaleazzo's sport often to preside over in person. Here he saw the boy,standing at his brother's shoulder by the judgment-seat--the comeliestfigure, between Cupid and angel, he had ever beheld; frank, sweet,child-eyed--in every feature and quality, it would seem, the antithesisof himself. Messer Ludovico came up arm in arm, very condescendingly,with his excellency the Ser Simonetta, Secretary of State, a gentlemanwhom he was always at pains to flatter, since he intended by and by todestroy him. Not that he had any personal spite against this minister,however much he might suspect him of misrepresenting his motives andcharacter to the Duchess Bona, his sister-in-law, to whom he, Ludovico,was in reality, he assured himself, quite attached. His policy, on thecontrary, was always a passionless one; and the point here was simplythat the man, in his humble opinion, affected too much reason andtemperance for a despotic government.
As he approached the tribune he uncapped, a thought on the near side ofself-abasement, to his brother, whose cavalier acknowledgment of thesalute halted him, however, affable and smiling, on the lowest step ofthe dais. He was studious, while there, to inform with the right touchof pleasant condescension (at least while Galeazzo's regard was fixed onhim) his attitude towards Simonetta, lest the ever-suspicious mind ofthe tyrant should discover in it some sign of a corruptive intimacy.With heirs-possibly-presumptive in Milan, sufficient for the day's lifemust be the sleepless diplomacy thereof; and better than any manLudovico knew on what small juggleries of the moment the continuance ofhis depended. His complexion being of a swarthiness to have earned himthe surname of The Moor, he had acquired a habit of drooping his lids incompany, lest the contrastive effect of white eyeballs moving in a dark,motionless face should betray him to the subjects of those covertside-long glances by which he was wont to observe unobserved. Even tohis shoulders, which were slightly rounded by nature, he managed, whenin his brother's presence, to give the suggestion of a self-deprecatoryhump, as though the slight burden of State which they already enduredwere too much for them. His voice was low-toned; his expressiongenerally of a soft and rather apologetic benignity. His manner towardsall was calculated on a graduated scale of propitiation. Paying everydisputant the compliment of deferring outwardly to his opinions, hewould not whip so little as a swineherd without apologising for theinconvenience to which he was putting him. His dress was rich, butwhile always conceived on the subdominant note, so to speak, as implyingthe higher ducal standard, was in excellent taste, a quality which hecould afford to indulge with impunity, since it excited no suspicion butof his simplicity in Galeazzo's crude mind. In point of fact MesserLudovico was a born connoisseur, and, equally in his choice of men,methods, and tools, a first exemplar of the faculty of selection.
Presently, seeing the Duke's gaze withdrawn from him, he spoke to MesserSimonetta more intimately, but still out of the twisted corner of hismouth, while his eyes remained slewed under their lids towards thethrone:--
'Indeed, my lord, indeed yes; 'tis a veritable Castalidis, fresh fromParnassus and the spring. Tell me, now--'tis no uncommon choice of mybrother to favour a fair boy--what differentiates this case from many?'
The secretary, long caged in office, and worn and toothless fromfriction on its bars, had yet his ideals of Government, personal as wellas political.
'Your Highness,' said he, in his hoarse, thin voice, 'whatdifferentiates sacramental wine from Malvasia?'
'Why,' answered Ludovico, 'perhaps a degree or two of headiness.'
'Nay,' said the secretary, 'is it not rather a degree or two ofholiness?'
'Ebbene!' said the other, 'I stand excellently corrected. (Yourservant, Messer Tassino,' he said, in parenthesis, to a pert andconfident young exquisite, who held himself arrogantly forward of thegroup of spectators. The jay responded to the attention with acondescending nod. Ludovico readdressed himself to the secretary.)'How neatly you put things! It
is a degree or two, as you say--betweenthe intoxication of the spirit and the intoxication of the senses. Andis this pretty stranger sacramental wine, and hath Heaven vouchsafed usthe Grael without the Quest? It is a sign of its high favour, MesserSlmonetta, of which I hope and trust we shall prove ourselves worthy.'
'And I hope so, Highness,' said the grave secretary.
'Hush!' whispered Ludovico. 'The court opens.'
There was a little stir and buzz among the spectators who, thronging thehall, left a semi-circle of clear space about the dais; and into this,at the moment, a fellow in a ragged gabardine was haled by a guard ofcity officers. The Duke, seated above, stroked his chin with a glance atthe prisoner of sinister relish, which, on the thought, he smoothed,with a little apologetic cough, into an expression of mild benignancy.Messer Lanti, planted near at hand amid a very parterre of nobles,envoys, ecclesiastics, bedizened _cheres amies_ and great officers ofthe court who supported their lord on the dais, sniggered under hisbreath till his huge shoulders shook.
The Jew was charged with a very heinous offence--sweating coins, noless. He was voluble and nasal over his innocence, until one of theofficers flicked him bloodily on the mouth with his mailed hand.
'Nay,' said Bembo, shrinking; 'that is to give the poor man a dumbadvocate, methinks.'
The Duke applauded--eliciting some louder applause from Ludovico--andforbade the fellow sternly to strike again without orders. A suddensigh and movement seemed to ripple the congregated faces and to subside.The prisoner, however, was convicted, on sound enough evidence, andstood sullen and desperate to hear his sentence. Galeazzo eyed himcovetously a moment; then turning to a clerk of the court who kneltbeside him with his tablets ready, bade that obsequious functionaryproclaim the penalty which by statute obtained against all coiners ordefacers of the ducal image. It was bad enough--breaking on thewheel--to pass without deadlier revision; yet to such, and to the highwill or caprice of his lord, Master Scrivener humbly submitted it.
Then, to the dumfoundering of all, did his Magnificence appeal, with asmile, to the little Parablist at his shoulder:--
'Mi' amico; thou hearest? What say'st?'
'Lord,' answered Bernardo, in the soft, clear young voice that all mighthear like a bird's song in the stillness after rain, 'this wretch hathdefaced thy graven image.'
'It is true.'
'What if, in a more impious mood, he had dared to raise his hand againstthyself?'
'Ha! He would be made to die--not pleasantly.'
'Is to be broken on the wheel pleasant?'
'Well, the dog shall hang.'
'Still for so little? Why, were he Cain he could pay no higher.Valuest thy life, then, at a pinch of gold dust? This is to put apremium on regicide.'
The Duke bit his lip, and frowned, and laughed vexedly.
'How now, Bernardino?'
'Lord, I am young--a child, and without comparative experience. I praythee put this rogue aside, while we consider.'
Galeazzo waved his hand, and the Jew, staring and stumbling, wasremoved. Another, a creature gaunt and wolfish, took his place. Whathad he done? He had trodden on a hare in her form, and, half-killing,had despatched her. Why? asked Bembo. To still her telltale cries,intimated the wretched creature. Galeazzo's eyes gleamed; but still hecalled upon Heaven to sentence. In such a case? Men glanced at oneanother half terrified. Any portent, even of good, is fearful in itsrising. Bembo turned to the kneeling clerk.
'Come, Master Scrivener! A little offence, in any case, and withhumanity to condone it.'
The frightened servant shook his head, with a glance at his master. Hemurmured the worst he dared--that the law exacted the extremest penaltyfrom the unauthorised killer of game. Bembo stared a momentincredulous, then pounced in mock fury at the prisoner:--
'Wretch! what didst thou with this hare?'
The hind had to be goaded to an answer.
'Master, I ate it.'
'What!' cried the other--'a monster, to devour thy prince's flesh!'
'God knows I did not!'
'Nay, God is nothing to the law, which says you did. Else why should itdraw no distinction between the crimes of harecide and regicide? Thouhast eaten of thy prince.'
'Well, if I have I have.'
'Thou art anthropophagous.'
'Mercy!'
'No shame to thee--a lover of thy kind' (the Saint chuckled). 'And nocannibal neither, since we have made game of thy prince.' He chuckledagain, and turned merrily on the Duke. 'Is the hare to be prince, orthe prince hare? And yet, in either case, O Galeazzo, I see no way forthee out of this thy loving subject's belly!'
The tyrant, half captivated, half furious, started forward.
'Give him,' he roared--and stopped. 'Give him,' he repeated, 'a kick onhis breach and send him flying. Nay!' he snarled, 'even that were toomuch honour. Give him a scudo with which to buy an emetic.'
Bembo smiled and sighed: 'I begin to see daylight'; and Ludovico, afterlaughing enjoyingly over his brother's pleasantry, exclaimed audibly toSimonetta: 'This is the very wedding of human wit and divine. I seem tosee the air full of laughing cherubs having my brother's features.'
Now there brake into the arena one clad like an artificer in a leathernapron; a sinewy figure, but eloquent, in his groping hands and bandagedface, of some sudden blight of ruin seizing prime. And he cried out ina great voice:--
'A boon, lord Duke, a boon! I am one Lupo, an armourer, and thou seestme!'
'Certes,' said the Duke. 'Art big enough.'
'O lord!' cried the shattered thing, 'let me see justice as plain withthese blinded eyes.'
'Well, on whom?'
'Lord, on him that took me sleeping, and struck me for ever from therolls of daylight, sith I had cursed him for the ruin of my daughter.'
Galeazzo shrugged his shoulders.
'This thine assailant--is he noble?'
'Master, as titles go.'
'Wert a fool, then, to presume. He were like else to have made it goodto thee. Now, an eye for--' but he checked himself in the midst of theenormous blasphemy.
'Judge thou, my guardian angel,' he murmured meekly.
'What!' answered the boy, with a burning face, 'needs _this_ revision byHeaven?' And he cried terribly: 'Master armourer, summon thytransgressor!'
For a moment the man seemed to shrink.
'Nay,' cried the Saint, 'thou need'st not. I see the hand of God comeforth and write upon a forehead.' His eyes sparkled, as if in actualinspiration. 'Tassino!' he cried, in a ringing voice.
('He heard me address him,' thought Ludovico, curious and watchful.)
At the utterance of that name, the whole nerve of the audience seemed toleap and fall like a candle-flame. Galeazzo himself started, and hislids lifted, and his mouth creased a moment to a little malevolent grin.For why? This Tassino, while too indifferent a skipjack for hisjealousy, was yet the squire amoroso, the lover _comme il faut_ to hisown correct Duchess, Madam Bona.
A minute's ticking silence was ended by the stir and pert laugh of thechallenged himself, as he left the ring of spectators and sauntered intothe arena. It was a little showy upstart, to be sure, as ebullientlycurled and groomed as her Grace's lap-dog, and sharing, indeed, withMesser Tinopino the whole present caprice of their mistress's spoiling.His own base origin and inherent vulgarity, moreover, seeming toassociate him with the ducal brutishness (an assumption which Galeazzorather favoured than resented), confirmed in him a self-confidence whichhad early come to see no bounds to its own viciousness or effrontery.
Now he cocked one arm akimbo, and stared with insufferable insolence onthe pronouncer of his name.
'Know'st me, Prophet?' bawled he. 'Not more than I thee, methinks.Wert well coached in this same inspiration.'
'Well, indeed,' answered Bembo. 'Thou hast said it. It was God spake inmine ear.'
Tassino laughed scornfully. It was a study to see these young witsopposed, the one such plated goods, the other so silver
pure.
'In the name of this lying carle,' he cried, 'what spake He?'
'He said,' said Bembo quietly, '"Let the false swearer rememberAnanias!"'
Then in a moment he was all ruffled and combative, like a young eagle.
'Answer!' he roared. 'Didst thou this thing?'
Now, a woman-petted, cake-fed belswagger is too much of an anomaly forthe test of nerves. Tassino, shouted at, gave an hysteric jump whichbrought him to the very brink of tears. He was really an ill-bredlittle coward, made arrogant by spoiling. He had the greatest pity andtenderness for himself, and to any sense of his being lost would alwaysrespond with a lump in his throat. Now he suddenly realised hisposition, alone and baited before all--no petticoat to fly to, nosympathy to expect from a converted tyrant, none from a mob which,habitually the butt to his viciousness, would rejoice in hisdiscomfiture. Actually the little beast began to whimper.
'Darest thou!' he cried, stamping.
'Didst thou this thing?' repeated Bernardo.
'It is no business of thine.'
'Didst thou this thing?'
'An oaf's word against----'
'Didst thou this thing?'
'Lord Duke!' appealed Tassino.
'Didst thou this thing?'
The victim fairly burst into tears.
'If I say no----'
'Die, Ananias!' shouted the Duke. His eyes gleamed maniacally. He halfrose in his chair. He seemed as if furious to foreclose on a denouementhis superstition had already anticipated. Tassino fell upon his knees.
'I did it!' he screamed.
The Duke sank back, his lips twitching and grinning. Then he glancedcovertly at Bembo, and rubbed his hands together, with a motion partgloating, part deprecatory. The Ser Ludovico's eyes, shaded under hispalm, were very busy, to and fro. Bembo stood like frowning marble.
'The law, Master Scrivener?' said he quietly.
The kneeling clerk murmured from a dry throat--
'Holy sir, it takes no cognisance of these accidents. The condescensionsof the great compensate them.'
The Parablist, his lips pressed together, nodded gravely twice orthrice.
'I see,' he said; 'a condescension which ruins two lives.'
He addressed himself, with a deadly sweetness, to the Duke.
'I prithee, who standest for God's vicegerent, call up the Jew tosentence.'
Jehoshaphat was produced, and placed beside the blubbered, resentfulyoung popinjay. The Saint addressed him:--
'Wretch, thou art convicted of the crime of defacing the Duke's image;and he at thine elbow of defacing God's image. Shall man dare the awfulimpiety to pronounce the greater guilt thine? Yet, if it merits deathand mutilation, what for this other?'
He paused, and a stir went through the dead stillness of the hall. ThenBembo addressed one of the tipstaves with ineffable civility:--
'Good officer, this rogue hath sweated coins, say'st?'
'Ay, your worship,' answered the man; 'a hundred gold ducats, if a lire.Shook 'em in a leathern bag, a' did, like so much rusted harness.'
Bembo nodded.
'They are forfeit, by the token; and he shall labour to provide otherhundred, with cost of metal and stamping.'
Jehoshaphat, secure of his limbs, shrieked derisive--
'God of Ishril! O, yes! O, to be sure! I can bleed moneys!'
'Nay,' said the Saint, 'but sweat them. Go!'
The coiner was dragged away blaspheming. He would have preferred amoderate dose of the rack; but the standard set by his sentence eliciteda murmur of popular approval. From all, that is to say, but Tassino,who saw his own fate looming big by comparison. He rose and lookedabout him desperately, as if he contemplated bolting. The spectatorsedged together. He whinnied. Suddenly the stranger's voice swooped uponhim like a hawk:--
'Man's image shall be restored; restore thou God's.'
The little wretch screamed in a sudden access of passion:--
'I don't know what you mean! Leave me alone. It was his own fault, Isay. Why did he insult me?'
'Restore thou this image of God his sight,' said Bembo quietly.
'You know I cannot!'
'Thou canst not? Then an eye for an eye, as it was spoken. Take yethis wicked thing, good officers, and blind him even as he blinded thepoor armourer.'
A vibrant sound went up from the spectators, and died. Messer Ludovicoveiled his sight, and, it might be said, his laughter. Tassino was seenstruggling and crying in the half-fearful clutch of his gaolers.
'Thou darest not! Dogs! Let me go, I say. What! would ye braveMadonna? Lord Duke, lord Duke, help me!'
'To repentance, my poor Tassino,' cried Galeazzo, leaning lustfullyforward. 'I trow thy part on earth is closed.'
The little monster could not believe it. This instant fall from theheights! He was flaccid with terror as he fell screeching on his knees.
'Mercy, good stranger! Mercy, dear lord saint! The terror! thetorture! I could not suffer them and live. O, let me live, I praythee!--anywhere, anyhow, and I will do all; make whatever restitutionyou impose.'
As he prayed and wept and grovelled, the Saint looked down with icy pityon his abasement.
'Restitution, Tassino!' he cried, 'for that murthered vision, for thatruined virtue? Wouldst thou even in thine impiousness arrogate tothyself such divine prerogatives? Yet, in respect of that reason withwhich true justice doth hedge her reprisals, the Duke's mercy shallstill allot thee an alternative. Sith thou canst not restore his honouror his eyes to poor Lupo, thou shalt take his shame to wife, and in herseek to renew that image of God which thou hast defaced. Do this, andonly doing it, know thyself spared.'
A silence of stupefaction fell upon the court. What would Bona say tothis arbitrary disposal of her pet, made husband to a common gipsy hehad debauched? True, the sentence, by virtue of its ethicalcompleteness, seemed an inspiration. But it was a disappointment too.None doubted but that the popinjay would subscribe to the present letterin order to evade the practice of it by and by. Already the paltry soulof the creature was struggling from its submersion, gasping, andblinking wickedly to see how it could retort upon its judge anddeliverer. It had been better to have trodden it under for once and forgood--better for the moral of the lesson, as for all who foresaw somehope for themselves in the crushing of an insufferable petty tyranny.Galeazzo himself frowned and bit his nails. He would have lusted to seeheaven pluck off this vulgar burr for him. Only his brother, sleek andsmiling, applauded the verdict. He had a far-seeing vision, hadLudovico, and perhaps already it was alotting a more telling role to thelittle aristocrat of San Zeno than had ever been played by the cockneyparvenu down in the arena.
Suddenly the Duke was on his feet, fierce and glaring.
'Answer, dog!' he roared; 'acceptest thou the condition?'
Tassino started and sobbed.
'Yes, yes. I accept. I will marry her.'
The Duke took a costly chain from his own neck, and hung it about theshoulders of the Parablist.
'Wear this,' he said, 'in earnest of our love and duty.'
Then he turned upon the mob.
'These judgments stand, and all that shall be spoken hereafter by ourdear monitor and proctor. It is our will. Make way, gentlemen.'
He took Bernardo's arm and descended the steps. A cloud of courtiershovered near, acclaiming the boy Saint and Daniel. Messer Ludovicosaluted him with fervour. He foresaw the millennium in this associationof piety with greatness. Galeazzo sneered.
'Remember that three spoils company, brother,' said he. 'Keep thouthine own confessor, and leave me mine.'
It was then only that Bernardo learned the rank of his accoster.
'Alas! sweet lord,' said he, 'is piety such a stranger here that ye mustentertain him like a king?'
The Duke laughed loudly and drew him on. He was extravagant in hisattentions to him--eager, voluble, feverish. He would point out to himthe lavish decorations of his house--marbles, sculptur
es, paintings, therising fabric of a new era--and ask his opinion on all. A word from thechild at that period would have floored a cardinal or a scaffolding,have clothed Aphrodite in a cassock, have made a _fete champetre_ of allMilan, or darkened its walls with mourning. Messer Lanti, following intheir wake, was amazed, and dubious, and savage in turns. Earlier inthe day the Duke had had from him the whole story of his connection withthe Parablist, up to the moment of their interference in Montano'spunishment.
'_Meschino me!_' he had said, greatly laughing over that episode; 'yet Icannot but be glad that the old code beat itself out on his back. 'Twasa reptile well served--a venomous, ungrateful beast. A mercy if it hasbroken his fang.'
That remained to be seen; and in the meantime Carlo, the old auxiliaryin debauch, was taken again into full favour. He accepted thecondescension with reserve. The oddest new attachment had come tosupplant in him some ancient devotions that were the furthest fromdevout. He found himself in a very queer mood, between irritable andgentle. He had never before felt this inclination to hit hard forvirtue, and it bewildered his honest head. But it made him a dangerouswatchdog.
By and by the Duke carried his protege into the Duchess's privy garden.There was a necessary economy of ornamental ground about the castello,though the most was made of what could be spared. In a nest of greenalleys, and falling terraces, and rose-wreathed arches, they came uponthe two ladies whom Bembo had already seen, themselves as pretty,graceful flowers as any in the borders. The young Catherine sat upon afountain edge, fanning herself with a great leaf, and talking to aflushed, down-looking page, who, it seemed likely, had brought news fromthe court of a recent scandal and its sequel. Her shrewd, pretty facetook curious stock of the new comers. She was a pale slip of a girl,lithe, bosomless, the green plum of womanhood. Her thin, plain dress wasgreen, fitting her like a sheath its blade of corn, and she wore on hersleek fair head a cap of green velvet banded with a scroll of beatengold. A child she was, yet already for two years betrothed to a Pope'snephew. His presents on the occasion had included a camera of greenvelvet, sewn with pearls as thick as daisies in grass. It seemednatural to associate her with spring verdure, so sweet and fair she was;yet never, surely, worked a more politic little brain under its cap ofinnocence.
Hard by, on one of the walks, a woman and a child of seven played atball. These were Bona, and her little son Gian-Galeazzo. As the otherwas spring, so was she summer, ripe in figure and mellowed in thepassion of motherhood. Her eyes burned with the caress and entreaty ofit--appealed in loveliness to the fathers of her desires. Her beauty,her stateliness, the very milk of her were all sweet lures to increase.She loved babies, not men--saw them most lusty, perhaps, in the glossyeyes of fools, the breeding-grounds of Cupids. She was always a motherbefore a wife.
The Duke led Bernardo to her side. Pale as ivory, she bent and embracedher boy, and dismissed him to the fountain; then rose to face theordeal.
'Hail, judgments of Solomon!' she said, with a smile that quivered alittle. 'O believe me, sir, thy fame has run before!'
'Which was the reason thou dismissedst Gian,' said Galeazzo, 'in fearsthat Solomon would propose to halve him?'
He did not doubt her, or wing his shaft with anything but brutality. Itwas his coward way, and, having asserted it, he strolled off, grinningand whistling, to the fountain.
Bona shivered and drew herself up. Her robe was all of daffodil, with awrithed golden hem to it that looked like a long flicker of flame. Onher forehead, between wings of auburn hair, burned a great emerald. Sheseemed to Bernardo the loveliest, most gracious thing, a visionpersonified of fruitfulness, the golden angel of maternity, warm,fragrant, kind-bosomed. He met the gaze of her eyes with wonderment,but no fear.
'Sweet Madonna,' he said, 'hail me nothing, I pray thee, but the clearherald of our Christ--His mouthpiece and recorder. We may all be playedupon for truth, so we be pure of heart.'
'And that art thou? No guile? No duplicity? No self-interest?'
He marvelled. She looked at him earnestly.
'Bernardo, didst know this Tassino was my servant?'
'Nay, I knew it not.'
'Wouldst have spared him hadst thou known?'
'How could I spare him the truth?'
'But its shame, its punishment?'
'Greater shame could no man have than to debauch innocence. Hispunishment was his redemption.'
'Ah! I defend him not. Yet, bethink thee, she may have been thetemptress?'
'He should have loathed, not loved her, then.'
'Madreperla, mother-of-pearl,' cried Catherine, with a little shriek oflaughter, from the fountain; 'come and help me! I have caught abutterfly in my hand, and my father wishes to take it from me and killit!'
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