"Exactly like his father!" she cried, coming towards me. "Ah, you
French! you French! Hardly arrived before he seizes upon 'Madam
Lucrezia.'"
I hastened to make excuses for my impertinence, and began to praise at
random the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Leonardo, which I had been so bold as to
lift out of its place.
"It is indeed a Leonardo," said the Marquise, "and it is the portrait of
the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. Of all my pictures it was the one your
father admired most.... But, good heavens! what a resemblance! I think I
see your father as he was twenty-five years ago. How is he? What is he
doing? And will he not come to see us at Rome some time?"
Although the Marquise did not wear either tiger skin or powdered hair,
at the first glance, and with my natural quickness of perception, I
recognised in her my father's bacchante. Some twenty-five years had not
been able entirely to efface the traces of great beauty. Her expression
only had changed, even as her toilette. She was dressed completely in
black, and her treble chin, her grave smile and her manner, serious and
yet radiant, apprised me that she had become religious.
No one could have given me a warmer welcome; in a few words she offered
me her home, her purse and her friends, among whom she mentioned several
cardinals.
"Look upon me," she said, "as your mother."
She lowered her eyes modestly.
"Your father has charged me to look after you and to advise you."
And to show me that she did not intend her office to be a sinecure she
began at once to put me on my guard against the dangers Rome had for
young men of my age, and exhorted me earnestly to avoid them. I must
shun bad company, artists especially, and only associate with people
that she chose for me. In fact, I received a lengthy sermon. I replied
respectfully, and with conventional hypocrisy.
"I regret that my son the Marquis should be away on our property at
Romagna," she said, as I rose to go, "but I will introduce you to my
second son, Don Ottavio, who will soon become a Monsignor. I hope you
will like him, and that you will make friends with each other as you
ought to...."