IV
"Impossible, you say, that my mother's mother should have been the
Duchess's maid? What do I know? It is so long since anything has happened
here that the old things seem nearer, perhaps, than to those who live in
cities.... But how else did she know about the statue then? Answer me that,
sir! That she saw with her eyes, I can swear to, and never smiled again,
so she told me, till they put her first child in her arms ... for she was
taken to wife by the steward's son, Antonio, the same who had carried
the letters.... But where am I? Ah, well ... she was a mere slip, you
understand, my grandmother, when the Duchess died, a niece of the upper
maid, Nencia, and suffered about the Duchess because of her pranks and the
funny songs she knew. It's possible, you think, she may have heard from
others what she afterward fancied she had seen herself? How that is, it's
not for an unlettered man to say; though indeed I myself seem to have seen
many of the things she told me. This is a strange place. No one comes here,
nothing changes, and the old memories stand up as distinct as the statues
in the garden....
"It began the summer after they came back from the Brenta. Duke Ercole had
married the lady from Venice, you must know; it was a gay city, then, I'm
told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like
boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first
autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there,
with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were;
gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a
theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and
lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks
and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their
_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see,
my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her
eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to
any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza.
"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at
the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was
concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa
set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her.
She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for
pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza,
in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats
prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library,
talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was
painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're
full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the
mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything
_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music,
play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly,
with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the
Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of
hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond
across a window-pane. And the Duchess was always laughing.
"When she first came to the villa she was very busy laying out the gardens,
designing grottoes, planting groves and planning all manner of agreeable
surprises in the way of water-jets that drenched you unexpectedly, and
hermits in caves, and wild men that jumped at you out of thickets. She had
a very pretty taste in such matters, but after a while she tired of it, and
there being no one for her to talk to but her maids and the chaplain--a
clumsy man deep in his books--why, she would have strolling players out
from Vicenza, mountebanks and fortune-tellers from the market-place,
travelling doctors and astrologers, and all manner of trained animals.
Still it could be seen that the poor lady pined for company, and her
waiting women, who loved her, were glad when the Cavaliere Ascanio, the
Duke's cousin, came to live at the vineyard across the valley--you see
the pinkish house over there in the mulberries, with a red roof and a
pigeon-cote?
"The Cavaliere Ascanio was a cadet of one of the great Venetian houses,
_pezzi grossi_ of the Golden Book. He had been' meant for the Church,
I believe, but what! he set fighting above praying and cast in his lot with
the captain of the Duke of Mantua's _bravi_, himself a Venetian of
good standing, but a little at odds with the law. Well, the next I know,
the Cavaliere was in Venice again, perhaps not in good odor on account of
his connection with the gentleman I speak of. Some say he tried to carry
off a nun from the convent of Santa Croce; how that may be I can't say; but
my grandmother declared he had enemies there, and the end of it was that on
some pretext or other the Ten banished him to Vicenza. There, of course,
the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how
he first came to the villa.
"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician,
who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my
grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He
had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French
fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place
welcomed the sight of him.
"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth,
and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the
candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to
hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to
a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song
to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer
to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe
my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French
fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She
was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her;
whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair
didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself
like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine
wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig....
"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the
lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and
ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's
trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing
pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising
herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass
herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads
and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The
Cavaliere had a singular ingenuity in planning such entertainments and the
days were hardly long enough for their diversions. But toward the end of
the summer the Duchess fell quiet and would hear only sad music, and the
two sat much together in the gazebo at the end of the garden. It was there
the Duke found them one day when he drove out from Vicenza in his gilt
coach. He came but once or twice a year to the villa, and it was, as my
grandmother said, just a part of her poor lady's ill-luck to be wearing
that day the Venetian habit, which uncovered the shoulders in a way the
Duke always scowled at, and her curls loose and powdered with gold. Well,
the three drank chocolate in the gazebo, and what happened no one knew,
except that the Duke, on taking leave, gave his cousin a seat in his
carriage; but the Cavaliere never returned.
"Winter approaching, and the poor lady thus finding herself once more
alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper
depression of spirits. But far from this being the case, she displayed such
cheerfulness and equanimity of humor that my grandmother, for one, was
half-vexed with her for giving no more thought to the poor young man who,
all this time, was eating his heart out in the house across the valley. It
is true she quitted her gold-laced gowns and wore a veil over her head; but
Nencia would have it she looked the lovelier for the change and so gave the
Duke greater displeasure. Certain it is that the Duke drove out oftener to
the villa, and though he found his lady always engaged in some innocent
pursuit, such as embroidery or music, or playing games with her young
women, yet he always went away with a sour look and a whispered word to
the chaplain. Now as to the chaplain, my grandmother owned there had been
a time when her grace had not handled him over-wisely. For, according to
Nencia, it seems that his reverence, who seldom approached the Duchess,
being buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese--well, one day he made
bold to appeal to her for a sum of money, a large sum, Nencia said, to buy
certain tall books, a chest full of them, that a foreign pedlar had brought
him; whereupon the Duchess, who could never abide a book, breaks out at
him with a laugh and a flash of her old spirit--'Holy Mother of God, must
I have more books about me? I was nearly smothered with them in the first
year of my marriage;' and the chaplain turning red at the affront, she
added: 'You may buy them and welcome, my good chaplain, if you can find
the money; but as for me, I am yet seeking a way to pay for my turquoise
necklace, and the statue of Daphne at the end of the bowling-green, and
the Indian parrot that my black boy brought me last Michaelmas from the
Bohemians--so you see I've no money to waste on trifles;' and as he backs
out awkwardly she tosses at him over her shoulder: 'You should pray to
Saint Blandina to open the Duke's pocket!' to which he returned, very
quietly, 'Your excellency's suggestion is an admirable one, and I have
already entreated that blessed martyr to open the Duke's understanding.'
"Thereat, Nencia said (who was standing by), the Duchess flushed
wonderfully red and waved him out of the room; and then 'Quick!' she cried
to my grandmother (who was too glad to run on such errands), 'Call me
Antonio, the gardener's boy, to the box-garden; I've a word to say to him
about the new clove-carnations....'
"Now I may not have told you, sir, that in the crypt under the chapel there
has stood, for more generations than a man can count, a stone coffin
containing a thighbone of the blessed Saint Blandina of Lyons, a relic
offered, I've been told, by some great Duke of France to one of our own
dukes when they fought the Turk together; and the object, ever since, of
particular veneration in this illustrious family. Now, since the Duchess
had been left to herself, it was observed she affected a fervent devotion
to this relic, praying often in the chapel and even causing the stone slab
that covered the entrance to the crypt to be replaced by a wooden one,
that she might at will descend and kneel by the coffin. This was matter of
edification to all the household and should have been peculiarly pleasing
to the chaplain; but, with respect to you, he was the kind of man who
brings a sour mouth to the eating of the sweetest apple.
"However that may be, the Duchess, when she dismissed him, was seen running
to the garden, where she talked earnestly with the boy Antonio about the
new clove-carnations; and the rest of the day she sat indoors and played
sweetly on the virginal. Now Nencia always had it in mind that her grace
had made a mistake in refusing that request of the chaplain's; but she said
nothing, for to talk reason to the Duchess was of no more use than praying
for rain in a drought.
"Winter came early that year, there was snow on the hills by All Souls,
the wind stripped the gardens, and the lemon-trees were nipped in the
lemon-house. The Duchess kept her room in this black season, sitting over
the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion (which was a thing she
had never done) and praying frequently in the chapel. As for the chaplain,
it was a place he never set foot in but to say mass in the morning,
with the Duchess overhead in the tribune, and the servants aching with
rheumatism on the marble floor. The chaplain himself hated the cold, and
galloped through the mass like a man with witches after him. The rest of
the day he spent in his library, over a brazier, with his eternal books....
"You'll wonder, sir, if I'm ever to get to the gist of the story; and I've
gone slowly, I own, for fear of what's coming. Well, the winter was long
and hard. When it fell cold the Duke ceased to come out from Vicenza,
and not a soul had the Duchess to speak to but her maid-servants and the
gardeners about the place. Yet it was wonderful, my grandmother said, how
she kept her brave colors and her spirits; only it was remarked that she
prayed longer in the chapel, where a brazier was kept burning for her all
day. When the young are denied their natural pleasures they turn often
enough to religion; and it was a mercy, as my grandmother said, that she,
who had scarce a live sinner to speak to, should take such comfort in a
dead saint.
"My grandmother seldom saw her that winter, for though she showed a brave
front to all she kept more and more to herself, choosing to have only
Nencia about her and dismissing even her when she went to pray. For
her devotion had that mark of true piety, that she wished it not to be
observed; so that Nencia had strict orders, on the chaplain's approach, to
warn her mistress if she happened to be in prayer.
"Well, the winter passed, and spring was well forward, when my grandmother
one evening had a bad fright. That it was her own fault I won't deny, for
she'd been down the lime-walk with Antonio when her aunt fancied her to be
stitching in her chamber; and seeing a sudden light in Nencia's window, she
took fright lest her disobedience be found out, and ran up quickly through
the laurel-grove to the house. Her way lay by the chapel, and as she crept
past it, meaning to slip in through the scullery, and groping her way, for
the dark had fallen and the moon was scarce up, she heard a crash close
behind her, as though someone had dropped from a window of the chapel. The
young fool's heart turned over, but she looked round as she ran, and there,
sure enough, was a man scuttling across the terrace; and as he doubled
the corner of the house my grandmother swore she caught the whisk of the
chaplain's skirts. Now that was a strange thing, certainly; for why should
the chaplain be getting out of the chapel window when he might have passed
through the door? For you may have noticed, sir, there's a door leads from
the chapel into the saloon on the ground floor; the only other way out
being through the Duchess's tribune.
"Well, my grandmother turned the matter over, and next time she met Antonio
in the lime-walk (which, by reason of her fright, was not for some days)
she laid before him what had happened; but to her surprise he only laughed
and said, 'You little simpleton, he wasn't getting out of the window, he
was trying to look in'; and not another word could she get from him.
"So the season moved on to Easter, and news came the Duke had gone to Rome
for that holy festivity. His comings and goings made no change at the
villa, and yet there was no one there but felt easier to think his yellow
face was on the far side of the Apennines, unless perhaps it was the
chaplain.
"Well, it was one day in May that the Duchess, who had walked long with
Nencia on the terrace, rejoicing at the sweetness of the prospect and the
pleasant scent of the gilly-flowers in the stone vases, the Duchess toward
midday withdrew to her rooms, giving orders that her dinner should be
served in her bed-chamber. My grandmother helped to carry in the dishes,
and observed, she said, the singular beauty of the Duchess, who in honor
of the fine weather had put on a gown of shot-silver and hung her bare
shoulders with pearls, so that she looked fit to dance at court with an
emperor. She had ordered, too, a rare repast for a lady that heeded so
little what she ate--jellies, game-pasties, fruits in syrup, spiced cakes
and a flagon of Greek wine; and she nodded and clapped her hands as the
women set it before her, saying again and again, 'I shall eat well to-day.'
"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called
for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect
my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine.'
"She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and
Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room.
"Now the linen-room gives on the court-yard, and suddenly my grandmother
saw a strange sight approaching. First up the avenue came the Duke's
carriage (whom all thought to be in Rome), and after it, drawn by a long
string of mules and oxen, a cart carrying what looked like a kneeling
figure wrapped in death-clothes. The strangeness of it struck the girl dumb
and the Duke's coach was at the door before she had the wit to cry out that
it was coming. Nencia, when she saw it, went white and ran out of the room.
My grandmother followed, scared by her face, and the two fled along the
corridor to the chapel. On the way they met the chaplain, deep in a book,
who asked in surprise where they were running, and when they said, to
announce the Duke's arrival, he fell into such astonishment and asked them
so many questions and uttered such ohs and ahs, that by the time he let
them by the Duke was at their heels. Nencia reached the chapel-door first
and cried out that the Duke was coming; and before she had a reply he was
at her side, with the chaplain following.
"A moment later the door opened and there stood the Duchess. She held her
rosary in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but they shone
through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with
beauty.
"The Duke took her hand with a bow. 'Madam,' he said, 'I could have had no
greater happiness than thus to surprise you at your devotions.'
"'My own happiness,' she replied, 'would have been greater had your
excellency prolonged it by giving me notice of your arrival.'
"'Had you expected me, Madam,' said he, 'your appearance could scarcely
have been more fitted to the occasion. Few ladies of your youth and beauty
array themselves to venerate a saint as they would to welcome a lover.'
"'Sir,' she answered, 'having never enjoyed the latter opportunity, I am
constrained to make the most of the former.--What's that?' she cried,
falling back, and the rosary dropped from her hand.
"There was a loud noise at the other end of the saloon, as of a heavy
object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen
haling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the oxcart. The Duke
waved his hand toward it. 'That,' said he, 'Madam, is a tribute to your
extraordinary piety. I have heard with peculiar satisfaction of your
devotion to the blessed relics in this chapel, and to commemorate a zeal
which neither the rigors of winter nor the sultriness of summer could abate
I have ordered a sculptured image of you, marvellously executed by the
Cavaliere Bernini, to be placed before the altar over the entrance to the
crypt.'
"The Duchess, who had grown pale, nevertheless smiled playfully at this.
'As to commemorating my piety," she said, 'I recognize there one of your
excellency's pleasantries--'
"'A pleasantry?' the Duke interrupted; and he made a sign to the men, who
had now reached the threshold of the chapel. In an instant the wrappings
fell from the figure, and there knelt the Duchess to the life. A cry of
wonder rose from all, but the Duchess herself stood whiter than the marble.
"'You will see,' says the Duke, 'this is no pleasantry, but a triumph
of the incomparable Bernini's chisel. The likeness was done from your
miniature portrait by the divine Elisabetta Sirani, which I sent to the
master some six months ago, with what results all must admire.'
"'Six months!' cried the Duchess, and seemed about to fall; but his
excellency caught her by the hand.
"'Nothing,' he said, 'could better please me than the excessive emotion you
display, for true piety is ever modest, and your thanks could not take a
form that better became you. And now,' says he to the men, 'let the image
be put in place.'
"By this, life seemed to have returned to the Duchess, and she answered him
with a deep reverence. 'That I should be overcome by so unexpected a grace,
your excellency admits to be natural; but what honors you accord it is my
privilege to accept, and I entreat only that in mercy to my modesty the
image be placed in the remotest part of the chapel.'
"At that the Duke darkened. 'What! You would have this masterpiece of a
renowned chisel, which, I disguise not, cost me the price of a good
vineyard in gold pieces, you would have it thrust out of sight like the
work of a village stonecutter?'
"'It is my semblance, not the sculptor's work, I desire to conceal.'
"'It you are fit for my house, Madam, you are fit for God's, and entitled
to the place of honor in both. Bring the statue forward, you dawdlers!' he
called out to the men.
"The Duchess fell back submissively. 'You are right, sir, as always; but I
would at least have the image stand on the left of the altar, that, looking
up, it may behold your excellency's seat in the tribune.'
"'A pretty thought, Madam, for which I thank you; but I design before long
to put my companion image on the other side of the altar; and the wife's
place, as you know, is at her husband's right hand.'
"'True, my lord--but, again, if my poor presentment is to have the
unmerited honor of kneeling beside yours, why not place both before the
altar, where it is our habit to pray in life?'
"'And where, Madam, should we kneel if they took our places? Besides,' says
the Duke, still speaking very blandly, 'I have a more particular purpose
in placing your image over the entrance to the crypt; for not only would I
thereby mark your special devotion to the blessed saint who rests there,
but, by sealing up the opening in the pavement, would assure the perpetual
preservation of that holy martyr's bones, which hitherto have been too
thoughtlessly exposed to sacrilegious attempts.'
"'What attempts, my lord?' cries the Duchess. 'No one enters this chapel
without my leave.'
"'So I have understood, and can well believe from what I have learned of
your piety; yet at night a malefactor might break in through a window,
Madam, and your excellency not know it.'
"'I'm a light sleeper,' said the Duchess.
"The Duke looked at her gravely. 'Indeed?' said he. 'A bad sign at your
age. I must see that you are provided with a sleeping-draught.'
"The Duchess's eyes filled. 'You would deprive me, then, of the consolation
of visiting those venerable relics?'
"'I would have you keep eternal guard over them, knowing no one to whose
care they may more fittingly be entrusted.'
"By this the image was brought close to the wooden slab that covered the
entrance to the crypt, when the Duchess, springing forward, placed herself
in the way.
"'Sir, let the statue be put in place to-morrow, and suffer me, to-night,
to say a last prayer beside those holy bones.'
"The Duke stepped instantly to her side. 'Well thought, Madam; I will go
down with you now, and we will pray together.'
"'Sir, your long absences have, alas! given me the habit of solitary
devotion, and I confess that any presence is distracting.'
"'Madam, I accept your rebuke. Hitherto, it is true, the duties of my
station have constrained me to long absences; but henceforward I remain
with you while you live. Shall we go down into the crypt together?"
"'No; for I fear for your excellency's ague. The air there is excessively
damp.'
"'The more reason you should no longer be exposed to it; and to prevent the
intemperance of your zeal I will at once make the place inaccessible.'
"The Duchess at this fell on her knees on the slab, weeping excessively and
lifting her hands to heaven.
"'Oh,' she cried, 'you are cruel, sir, to deprive me of access to the
sacred relics that have enabled me to support with resignation the solitude
to which your excellency's duties have condemned me; and if prayer and
meditation give me any authority to pronounce on such matters, suffer me to
warn you, sir, that I fear the blessed Saint Blandina will punish us for
thus abandoning her venerable remains!'
"The Duke at this seemed to pause, for he was a pious man, and my
grandmother thought she saw him exchange a glance with the chaplain; who,
stepping timidly forward, with his eyes on the ground, said, 'There is
indeed much wisdom in her excellency's words, but I would suggest, sir,
that her pious wish might be met, and the saint more conspicuously honored,
by transferring the relics from the crypt to a place beneath the altar.'
"'True!' cried the Duke, 'and it shall be done at once.'
"But thereat the Duchess rose to her feet with a terrible look.
"'No,' she cried, 'by the body of God! For it shall not be said that, after
your excellency has chosen to deny every request I addressed to him, I owe
his consent to the solicitation of another!'
"The chaplain turned red and the Duke yellow, and for a moment neither
spoke.
"Then the Duke said, 'Here are words enough, Madam. Do you wish the relics
brought up from the crypt?'
"'I wish nothing that I owe to another's intervention!'
"'Put the image in place then,' says the Duke furiously; and handed her
grace to a chair.
"She sat there, my grandmother said, straight as an arrow, her hands
locked, her head high, her eyes on the Duke, while the statue was dragged
to its place; then she stood up and turned away. As she passed by Nencia,
'Call me Antonio,' she whispered; but before the words were out of her
mouth the Duke stepped between them.
"'Madam,' says he, all smiles now, 'I have travelled straight from Rome to
bring you the sooner this proof of my esteem. I lay last night at Monselice
and have been on the road since daybreak. Will you not invite me to
supper?'
"'Surely, my lord,' said the Duchess. 'It shall be laid in the
dining-parlor within the hour.'
"'Why not in your chamber and at once, Madam? Since I believe it is your
custom to sup there.'
"'In my chamber?' says the Duchess, in disorder.
"'Have you anything against it?' he asked.
"'Assuredly not, sir, if you will give me time to prepare myself.'
"'I will wait in your cabinet,' said the Duke.
"At that, said my grandmother, the Duchess gave one look, as the souls in
hell may have looked when the gates closed on our Lord; then she called
Nencia and passed to her chamber.
"What happened there my grandmother could never learn, but that the
Duchess, in great haste, dressed herself with extraordinary splendor,
powdering her hair with gold, painting her face and bosom, and covering
herself with jewels till she shone like our Lady of Loreto; and hardly
were these preparations complete when the Duke entered from the cabinet,
followed by the servants carrying supper. Thereupon the Duchess dismissed
Nencia, and what follows my grandmother learned from a pantry-lad who
brought up the dishes and waited in the cabinet; for only the Duke's
body-servant entered the bed-chamber.
"Well, according to this boy, sir, who was looking and listening with his
whole body, as it were, because he had never before been suffered so near
the Duchess, it appears that the noble couple sat down in great good humor,
the Duchess playfully reproving her husband for his long absence, while the
Duke swore that to look so beautiful was the best way of punishing him.
In this tone the talk continued, with such gay sallies on the part of the
Duchess, such tender advances on the Duke's, that the lad declared they
were for all the world like a pair of lovers courting on a summer's night
in the vineyard; and so it went till the servant brought in the mulled
wine.
"'Ah,' the Duke was saying at that moment, 'this agreeable evening repays
me for the many dull ones I have spent away from you; nor do I remember
to have enjoyed such laughter since the afternoon last year when we drank
chocolate in the gazebo with my cousin Ascanio. And that reminds me,' he
said, 'is my cousin in good health?'
"'I have no reports of it,' says the Duchess. 'But your excellency should
taste these figs stewed in malmsey--'
"'I am in the mood to taste whatever you offer,' said he; and as she helped
him to the figs he added, 'If my enjoyment were not complete as it is,
I could almost wish my cousin Ascanio were with us. The fellow is rare
good company at supper. What do you say, Madam? I hear he's still in the
country; shall we send for him to join us?'
"'Ah,' said the Duchess, with a sigh and a languishing look, 'I see your
excellency wearies of me already.'
"'I, Madam? Ascanio is a capital good fellow, but to my mind his chief
merit at this moment is his absence. It inclines me so tenderly to him
that, by God, I could empty a glass to his good health.'
"With that the Duke caught up his goblet and signed to the servant to fill
the Duchess's.
"'Here's to the cousin,' he cried, standing, 'who has the good taste to
stay away when he's not wanted. I drink to his very long life--and you,
Madam?'
"At this the Duchess, who had sat staring at him with a changed face, rose
also and lifted her glass to her lips.
"'And I to his happy death,' says she in a wild voice; and as she spoke the
empty goblet dropped from her hand and she fell face down on the floor.
"The Duke shouted to her women that she had swooned, and they came and
lifted her to the bed.... She suffered horribly all night, Nencia said,
twisting herself like a heretic at the stake, but without a word escaping
her. The Duke watched by her, and toward daylight sent for the chaplain;
but by this she was unconscious and, her teeth being locked, our Lord's
body could not be passed through them.
* * * * *
"The Duke announced to his relations that his lady had died after partaking
too freely of spiced wine and an omelet of carp's roe, at a supper she had
prepared in honor of his return; and the next year he brought home a new
Duchess, who gave him a son and five daughters...."
