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Updated: May 22, 2025
"Magnificence," she said, "my hand is on my heart." It was. "What the devil has that got to do with it?" asked Borso, looking about him for a reason. "Serenity, if my heart were guilty, it would burn my hand. If my hand were red, it would soil my heart." "Pouf!" said Borso, and puckered his face. "Stand back, Castaneve. Now for the little one. How are you called, baggage?"
But, as a matter of history, the proceedings of Mosca upon that eventful day were of the greatest possible interest to Signorina Castaneve. Donna Matura, trust her, had not failed to report his first appearance, stork-like, in the Borgo. Captain Mosca, honest man, made a preposterous accomplice.
The wind shivered the reeds again, then fainted down. "Castaneve," said the dry voice, "what say you? You declare that you are innocent. Will you hang the guilty and go free?" The drowning Olimpia threw up her hands to clutch at this plank in the sea-swirl. Free! O God! The word turned her. "Magnificence, I must, I must, I must!" She wailed, and fell a heap to the ground.
Well, Miss Bellaroba, where's your hand?" She held it out. "Here, sir." "What a little one! Well, put it on your heart. Now, how does it feel?" "It jumps, my lord." "Does it burn you, child?" "No, my lord; it's quite cold." "Stand down, Bellaroba. Castaneve, come forward."
Olimpia Castaneve, the muffled brooder in the poop, was cold, cross, and still. Bellaroba snivelled, but she was scornful under her cloak, and no word passed between the pair until they were in the great blunt-nosed barge, heading against a crisping tide for Chioggia.
His own was, "Unless I fear Justice I need not fear Borso. Dante saw the death of his lady to be just. Courage then!" "Mistress Castaneve," said Duke Borso, "you declare yourself innocent?" "Excellency, I do, I do! Ah, Mother of God!" The panic was creeping up Olimpia's legs, to loosen the joints of her knees. The Judge turned half. "Mistress Bellaroba, you also declare yourself innocent?"
It seemed impossible such puppets could decide issues of life and death. But the red hangman and his machines were grim touches for a puppet-show. Olimpia Castaneve was brought forward first. She was more composed by now the air, the sun, the cheerful colours of the court, had warmed her. She stood alone facing Borso. He, at first glance, remembered every shred of her; but he betrayed nothing.
God knows what La Fragiletta might have taught her. It is certain she was all unlettered in love up to that hour. Bellaroba was not only modest by instinct, but that better thing, innocent by preoccupation. In all this she was a dead contrast to her handsome friend Olimpia Castaneve, who was really a beauty of the true Venetian mould.
There was no one more blankly cool in this world than Borso on the judgment-seat. "What is your name, mistress?" "Magnificence, I am well known in Ferrara." "Your name," thundered the Duke, "by the face of the sky!" "Olimpia Castaneve." "Did you cut off the head of the Captain of Lances, who was called Il Mosca?" Olimpia was looking very handsome, and knew it.
Here she sighed to remember that her bosom friend, Olimpia Castaneve, took after hers only too well, and was to accompany her fortune-hunting in Ferrara for precisely opposite reasons. Was this fair? she wondered. She, Bellaroba, was to go because she was of a piece with the Ferrarese; Olimpia, because she could furnish a provoking contrast.
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