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Updated: June 22, 2025
It was of Giuliana that I thought as I rode in the noontide warmth of that September day. And never can human brain have held a sorer conflict of reflection than was mine. No shadow now remained of the humour that had possessed me in the hour in which I had repudiated her after the murder of Fifanti.
But since none would give way they were forced in the end to depart together. And whilst Messer Fifanti, as became a host, was seeing them to their horses, I was left alone with Giuliana. "Why do you suffer those men?" I asked her bluntly. Her delicate brows were raised in surprise. "Why, what now? They are very pleasant gentlemen, Agostino."
"Since it is your wish, Madonna," I bowed to her, and very erect, very defiant of mien, I went slowly past the livid Fifanti, and so out. I heard the door slammed after me, and in the little hall I came upon Busio, who was wringing his hand and looking very white. He ran to me. "He will murder her, Messer Agostino," moaned the old man. "He can be a devil in his anger."
And their tale, of course, was that Gambara, being the lover of Fifanti's wife, had dispatched the doctor on a trumped-up mission, and had gone to visit her by night. But that the suspicious Fifanti lying near by in wait, and having seen the Cardinal enter, followed him soon after and attacked him, whereupon the Lord Gambara had slain him.
This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world But I was not done with riddles. For presently out came Fifanti himself, looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual. He was arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby slippers on his long, lean feet. He was ever a man of most indifferent personal habits.
Her brow was low and broad, and her lips of a most startling red against the pallor of the rest. She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow smile, holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous welcome. "This, Ser Agostino," said Fifanti, "is my wife."
That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence never dreaming that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a guest so exalted. He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.
"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have caught the Duke in her net of innocence," said she. I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti. "You are greatly daring," said I.
Dante we read, and Petrarca, and both we loved, though better than the works of either and this for the sake of the swift movement and action that is in his narrative, though his melodies, I realized, were not so pure the Orlando of Ariosto. Sometimes we would be joined by Fifanti himself; but he never stayed very long.
Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors. I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too, of some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon which he desired the priest's rare judgment.
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