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....”

V

The sky had turned to a steel gray, against which the villa stood out

sallow and inscrutable. A wind strayed through the gardens, loosening here

and there a yellow leaf from the sycamores; and the hills across the valley

were purple as thunder-clouds.

* * * * *

“And the statue--?” I asked.

“Ah, the statue. Well, sir, this is what my grandmother told me, here on

this very bench where we’re sitting. The poor child, who worshipped the

Duchess as a girl of her years will worship a beautiful kind mistress,

spent a night of horror, you may fancy, shut out from her lady’s room,

hearing the cries that came from it, and seeing, as she crouched in her

corner, the women rush to and fro with wild looks, the Duke’s lean face in

the door, and the chaplain skulking in the antechamber with his eyes on

his breviary. No one minded her that night or the next morning; and toward

dusk, when it became known the Duchess was no more, the poor girl felt the

pious wish to say a prayer for her dead mistress. She crept to the chapel

and stole in unobserved. The place was empty and dim, but as she advanced

she heard a low moaning, and coming in front of the statue she saw that

its face, the day before so sweet and smiling, had the look on it that you

know--and the moaning seemed to come from its lips. My grandmother turned

cold, but something, she said afterward, kept her from calling or shrieking

out, and she turned and ran from the place. In the passage she fell in a

swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard that

the Duke had locked the chapel door and forbidden any to set foot there....

The place was never opened again till the Duke died, some ten years later;

and then it was that the other servants, going in with the new heir,

saw for the first time the horror that my grandmother had kept in her

bosom....”

“And the crypt?” I asked. “Has it never been opened?”

“Heaven forbid, sir!” cried the old man, crossing himself. “Was it not the

Duchess’s express wish that the relics should not be disturbed?”