Hauntings | Page 9

to understand that her business is to give the Duke an
heir, not advice; that she must never ask "wherefore this or that?" that
she must courtesy before the Duke's counselors, his captains, his
mistresses; that, at the least suspicion of rebelliousness, she is subject
to his foul words and blows; at the least suspicion of infidelity, to be
strangled or starved to death, or thrown down an oubliette. Suppose
that she know that her husband has taken it into his head that she has
looked too hard at this man or that, that one of his lieutenants or one of
his women have whispered that, after all, the boy Bartolommeo might
as soon be a Pico as an Orsini. Suppose she know that she must strike
or be struck? Why, she strikes, or gets some one to strike for her. At
what price? A promise of love, of love to a groom, the son of a serf!
Why, the dog must be mad or drunk to believe such a thing possible;
his very belief in anything so monstrous makes him worthy of death.
And then he dares to blab! This is much worse than Pico. Medea is

bound to defend her honor a second time; if she could stab Pico, she
can certainly stab this fellow, or have him stabbed.
Hounded by her husband's kinsmen, she takes refuge at Urbania. The
Duke, like every other man, falls wildly in love with Medea, and
neglects his wife; let us even go so far as to say, breaks his wife's heart.
Is this Medea's fault? Is it her fault that every stone that comes beneath
her chariot-wheels is crushed? Certainly not. Do you suppose that a
woman like Medea feels the smallest ill-will against a poor, craven
Duchess Maddalena? Why, she ignores her very existence. To suppose
Medea a cruel woman is as grotesque as to call her an immoral woman.
Her fate is, sooner or later, to triumph over her enemies, at all events to
make their victory almost a defeat; her magic faculty is to enslave all
the men who come across her path; all those who see her, love her,
become her slaves; and it is the destiny of all her slaves to perish. Her
lovers, with the exception of Duke Guidalfonso, all come to an
untimely end; and in this there is nothing unjust. The possession of a
woman like Medea is a happiness too great for a mortal man; it would
turn his head, make him forget even what he owed her; no man must
survive long who conceives himself to have a right over her; it is a kind
of sacrilege. And only death, the willingness to pay for such happiness
by death, can at all make a man worthy of being her lover; he must be
willing to love and suffer and die. This is the meaning of her
device--"Amour Dure--Dure Amour." The love of Medea da Carpi
cannot fade, but the lover can die; it is a constant and a cruel love.
Nov. 11th.--
I was right, quite right in my idea. I have found--Oh, joy! I treated the
Vice-Prefect's son to a dinner of five courses at the Trattoria La Stella
d'Italia out of sheer jubilation--I have found in the Archives, unknown,
of course, to the Director, a heap of letters--letters of Duke Robert
about Medea da Carpi, letters of Medea herself! Yes, Medea's own
handwriting--a round, scholarly character, full of abbreviations, with a
Greek look about it, as befits a learned princess who could read Plato as
well as Petrarch. The letters are of little importance, mere drafts of
business letters for her secretary to copy, during the time that she

governed the poor weak Guidalfonso. But they are her letters, and I can
imagine almost that there hangs about these moldering pieces of paper
a scent as of a woman's hair.
The few letters of Duke Robert show him in a new light. A cunning,
cold, but craven priest. He trembles at the bare thought of Medea--"la
pessima Medea"--worse than her namesake of Colchis, as he calls her.
His long clemency is a result of mere fear of laying violent hands upon
her. He fears her as something almost supernatural; he would have
enjoyed having had her burnt as a witch. After letter on letter, telling
his crony, Cardinal Sanseverino, at Rome his various precautions
during her lifetime--how he wears a jacket of mail under his coat; how
he drinks only milk from a cow which he has milked in his presence;
how he tries his dog with morsels of his food, lest it be poisoned; how
he suspects the wax-candles because of their peculiar smell; how he
fears riding out lest some one should frighten his horse and cause him
to