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Updated: September 19, 2025
"It has yet to be explained to me," said I, "under what obligation I am to be anywhere but where I please. That firstly. Secondly but of infinitely lesser moment Monna Giuliana has sent me for the manuscript of Messer Caro's Gigli d'Oro." I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him. But quiet he became.
And soon came Messer Annibale Caro, with lines from the last pages of his translation oozing from him. And when presently Giuliana smote her hands together in ecstatic pleasure at one of those same lines and bade him repeat it to her, he swore roundly by all the gods that are mentioned in Virgil that he would dedicate the work to her upon its completion.
"This is your remedy. Get you hence! Go! What passes here concerns you not. Go!" he roared like a mad beast, his rage a thing terrific. I looked at him and from him to Giuliana, and my eyes most clearly invited her to tell me how she would have me act. "Indeed, you had best go, Agostino," she answered sadly. "I shall bear his insults easier if there be no witness. Yes, go."
Augustine, as a fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion of using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and daily for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the time Monna Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.
Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure in witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to whom I had raised my eyes, snatched away from me by my cousin who already usurped so much that was my own. "O, you must be mistaken," I cried. "Mistaken?" he echoed.
And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling, as I could perceive. My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of Monna Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be hateful to me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already profound mystification.
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.
"Dear Agostino!" she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I, distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name for the first time. "Giuliana!" Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss the hand which she had left in mine.
Thus I saw the pair of them creep forward to approach Fifanti, who had made no sound since my sword had gone through him. But Fifanti was no longer there to heed them the faithful servant and the unfaithful wife. All that remained, huddled there at the foot of the table, was a heap of bleeding flesh and shabby garments. It was Giuliana who gave me the information.
"My name in full is longer. My name in full is Giuliana Falconieri Maria Annunziata Casalone. Is that not long enough?" "Yes," the lady admitted, "that is just long enough." And she laughed again. "What is your name?" inquired Annunziata. "My name is Maria Dolores," the lady answered. "You see, we are both named Maria." "Of course," said Annunziata. "All Christians should be named Maria."
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