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Do you remember, Antonio, how you once brought with you a bunch of little damask roses, which you tossed up to me while clinging to the masonry? Those roses became my treasure. The sweetest one of them I locked in a tiny silver box which I kept always by me. That box came with me from the Castle of Foscone.
Or was it merely the usual aversion to being identified with abnormality? Some abnormality is so terrifying that it seals the loosest lips. "Now and then, to be sure, some servant's tongue was set wagging by wine, or some heir of the Foscone confided in his sweetheart.
But still his daughter Fiammetta stood nightly on the platform of the Castle of Foscone, gazing down at the hill path, waiting for her Antonio to climb the wall and whisper his love. "Now she only lived in that state of ardent expectancy. The days and weeks and months were but one hour, the hour preceding his last approach to her.
What a price to pay for an illusion of happiness that was destined to a ghastly end! Yet I would still have paid that heavy price exacted from Antonio. Fiammetta di Foscone became infected by our nervousness. At one moment her mirth was feverish; at another, a look of vague uneasiness crossed her face. Was our secret gradually penetrating to her subconscious mind?
A new generation of the Foscone grew old in their turn, but Fiammetta's loveliness was still perfect. In her madness there seemed to be a sanity surpassing the sanity of other mortals. For by becoming insensible to time she had attained an earthly immortality, an uncorrupted physical beauty, in which she constantly looked forward to the delight of loving. "So she went on and on "
Fifty years, that is comprehensible!" "The principle is the same," said Antonio, wearily. "Every mental phenomenon has minor and major examples. But I will tell you the rest. "The Foscone, also, finally moved to Florence. Their castle was left in the care of hereditary servants, devoted and discreet.
Again whole, he had returned to avenge himself on his brother, whom he had killed. Meanwhile her father had died. Therefore she had been brought from the Castle of Foscone to the Castle of Manzecca to enjoy the protection of her Antonio, whom she was now free to marry. "All this was what she wanted to believe, so she believed it." But Antonio's face was filled with a new distress.
As the assassins dragged his body away, there burst from the platform a prolonged peal of laughter. "Fiammetta di Foscone had gone mad." At that tragedy, at least, I was not surprised.
"At least," Antonio besought me, "when in doubt, remain silent." We entered the hall. Under a wooden gallery adorned with carved and tinted shields the supper-table was laid. They awaited us, shimmering in their fantastic finery the ladies Laura and Lina, my old friends Leonardo and Leonello, and the ineffable Fiammetta di Foscone.
I remembered our entrance into this castle, my first glimpse of the woman awaiting us in the middle of the hall, and the glow of light around her that appeared to be a radiance expanding from her person. But my friend continued: "Between the two castles there was friendly intercourse. It was presumed that the Lord of Foscone would presently give his daughter in marriage to the Lord of Manzecca.
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