The Duchess of Trajetto. Anne Manning
good, so blameless as you are, be afraid of death? You have never done anything wrong. I cannot conceive you ever to have offended God, even in thought. Can you, then, be afraid to meet Him?"
"Ah! I am always shy of strangers; and, to me, God is such a stranger!—"
"But you believe in Him, do not you? You believe that He is?"
"Of course! But that is so little!"
The Cardinal looked as if he thought it a good deal.
"Your nerves are weak," said he, after a pause. "Your organisation is too delicate. I should advise you to dwell as little as you can on these things."
"Oh, I speak of them to no one. I don't know how I came to do so now. Only, I suppose, because you are a friend and a churchman."
"I like you so to speak. Say on."
"Why, then, I will add that, apart from this fear of death, which sometimes thrills me, and especially did so last night, is a far more permanent feeling—a desire for some higher good. An intense dissatisfaction with myself and with all the things of this life."
"Do you really suppose that that feeling is peculiar to yourself? Everybody has it!—everybody who thinks and feels. I myself suffer martyrdom from it."
"Can you—a churchman—prescribe its remedy?"
"There are two ways," said the Cardinal, after a pause, "in which you may overcome it. In the first case, you must fast, you must pray, you must keep painful vigils, you must perform pilgrimages barefoot, you must deny yourself every innocent enjoyment, you must bestow all your possessions on the Church—"
"Hold, hold, I can never do all that," interrupted the Duchess. "Tell me some other way, I beseech you, of remedying the weariness of life and the fear of death."
"The only other way," said he, hurriedly, "is to take the world as you find it; enjoy the passing hour, indulge every innocent desire, and—let come what may."
"Is there no other course?"
"None, Giulia, none! There is no middle path.[5] You must choose for yourself."
[5] Non c' è mezzo termine.
"Of course I know which I ought to choose," said she, sorrowfully. "But to give up all—and to the Church!—ah! this Church must have charms for you that she has not for me!"
"I am not very deeply in love with her," said the Cardinal, attentively regarding his nails. "But my part is taken and I will play it out. Come, shall we talk of something pleasanter?"
"Yes, and, some of these days, I will try this better way you point out—this watching, this fasting; only I know beforehand, I shall not carry it out."
"No good in trying then."
"I am afraid you are right. I so dread the world's laugh! And I so dislike doing what is disagreeable!"
"Why on earth should you, then?" said he briskly.
"Ay, why indeed?" said she, laughing and changing the subject. Afterwards she thought, "What an answer for a priest! I was a goose to say so much to him. I will not do so again."
CHAPTER III.
THE DUCHESS'S STORY.
Giulia di Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Sabbionetta, was born somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. She was one of a numerous and beautiful family, and, from her earliest infancy, the darling of all hearts. There must have been something charming about the dear little girl whose "vezzi e grazie," even from her cradle, were so extolled by dry annalists,[6] and whose riper graces were sung by Ariosto, Bernardo Tasso, Molza, Gandolfo Porrino, Claudio Tolomei, and all the noted poets of the day. A child who, from the nursery, kisses, sugar-plums, and petting could not spoil, her sweetness equally bore the test when promoted to the school-room, where, without any apparent trouble to herself, she outstripped her elder sisters, Paola, Ippolita, and Eleanora, in their studies, though they were none of them considered deficient. Enough, if not too much, praise was bestowed on the skill with which her pretty hands touched the lute and guided the embroidery needle. Children are quick to hear their own encomiums, though uttered under the breath.
[6] "Imperrochè le fu natura tanto de' suoi doni benefice, e cosi di vezzi e di grazie la ricolmo, che gli atti suoi e le sue parole, accompagnate ognora da modesta vivacità e condite di un lepor soavissimo, legavano dolcemente a lei gli animi di ciascuno."—Ireneo Affo.
She had scarcely grown to her full height, and left off being sent early to bed, when she was given in marriage to Vespasiano Colonna, Duke of Trajetto. He was forty, and crippled with the rheumatism, yet her parents thought it a suitable match. They told her he was good, generous, and indulgent, and so he proved. She liked him. She liked pleasing him, and tending him, and receiving his pleasant praises and smiles. He had a daughter by a former marriage, rather younger than herself, and he wished them to be friends; but Isabella was of a colder nature than Giulia. The Duke had a singular feeling towards his little bride. She was so good, so pure, that he shrank from her being contaminated by the pernicious influence of Italian society, such as it was in the sixteenth century, and resolved to seclude her from it as much as he could in the retirement which his infirm health rendered so grateful. But he did more than this, for he resolved that her mind should receive the highest culture, and thus possess resources in itself which should make retirement happy. And as he was a man of good parts and delightful conversation, affectionate, indulgent, and quietly humorous, it is not at all surprising, I think, that he captivated this young girl, and made her really love him.
This rendered more than tolerable her attendance on him as a nurse. He would not let her do anything really painful or wearisome, took care that she should have plenty of open-air exercise, and won her admiration of his patience and cheerfulness during his tedious decline.
When he died, in the year 1528, he left Giulia mistress of all his possessions in the Campagna, the Abruzzi, and the kingdom of Naples, and guardian of Isabella, whom he designed for the wife of Ippolito de' Medici, nephew of Pope Clement the Seventh.
Giulia soon felt the want of a male protector, for two of the Duke's kinsmen, Ascanio di Colonna and Napoleone Orsini, laid claim to the estates. The Pope substantiated her right to them, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, then a young man of eight-and-twenty, commissioned her brother, Don Luigi, to put her in possession. Luigi, who was a brilliant soldier, paid his sister a hasty visit at Fondi; and before he left it, he and Isabella exchanged secret vows of affection.
When Ippolito de' Medici, with youth, good looks, and noble bearing to recommend him, was sent by the Pope to woo and win Isabella, he found the Duchess much more attractive; and when she remarked one day on something strange in his conduct, he spoke out at once, and said—
"Giulia, I care nothing for her—and I cannot but care for you!"
Thereon the Duchess was much offended, and said she should write to the Pope. Ippolito very stoutly refused to own himself at all wrong. Giulia's widowhood, he averred, had been long enough for the world to suppose that her hand might be sued for. The Pope would be well pleased to see him win the daughter, but infinitely more so at his obtaining the mother. Giulia very indignantly replied that no Pope on earth had, or should have, power to make her marry again, against her