Crucial Instances | Page 4

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