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Updated: July 19, 2025
Away beyond the river, moving southward, I could just make out the Legate's little cavalcade. And then, for the first time, a question leapt in my mind concerning the litter whose leathern curtains had remained so closely drawn. Whom did it contain? Could it be Giuliana? Had Cosimo spoken the truth when he said that she had gone to Gambara for shelter?
The pale face seemed so transparent, the white robe was almost diaphanous, and the great dark eyes looked so sad and wistful. Only in the vivid scarlet of her lips was there life and blood. I stared at her. "Giuliana!" I murmured. "Why do you sit so late?" she asked me, and closed the door as she spoke.
The Ruota should hear the truth, and Gambara should be left to shelter Giuliana, who Cosimo was assured had fled to him in her need as to a natural protector. It was a bitter thought. The intensity of that bitterness made me realize with alarm how it still was with me. And pondering this, I fell asleep, utterly worn out in body and in mind by the awful turmoil of that day.
To have been mated to that withered pedant! To have been sacrificed, to have been sold into such bondage! Me miserable!" "Giuliana!" I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself. "Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?" "Hush!" I implored her. "What are you saying?"
Then I saw him turn a sickly leaden hue. He stared at the officer a moment and then at Giuliana. But I do not think that he saw either of them. His look was the blank look of one whose thoughts are very distant. He thrust his hands behind him, and with head forward, in that curious attitude so reminiscent of a bird of prey, he stepped slowly back to his place at the table-head.
He was as usual in plain, walking clothes, and save for the ring on his finger and the cross on his breast, you had never conceived him an ecclesiastic. He sat near his cloak, upon the marble seat, and beside him sat Monna Giuliana, who was all in white save for the gold girdle at her waist. Caro, himself, stood to read, his bulky manuscript in his hands.
And thereupon he leapt at me. I sprang away from the window, urged by fear of him into a very sudden activity. As I crossed the room I had a glimpse of the white figure of Giuliana in the gloom of the passage, watching. He came after me, snarling. I seized a stool and hurled it at him. He avoided it nimbly, and it went crashing through the half of the casement that was still closed.
For there had been a break in my existence with the murder of Fifanti, and in the past two days I had done more living and I had aged more than in all the eighteen years before. Thinking of Giuliana, I evoked her image, the glowing, ruddy copper of her hair, the dark mystery of her eyes, so heavy-lidded and languorous in their smile.
But to gain the library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room. It stood open, and Giuliana herself in the doorway. We looked at each other, and seeing her so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forward to speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me. She stretched forth a hand to me. I took it and held it tight, looking up into her eyes.
At last, Fifanti spoke, his little eyes narrowing. "It is too much for my poor deserts," he said curtly. "You are too humble," said the prelate. "Your loyalty to the House of Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received..." "Hospitality!" barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so oddly that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks.
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