Hauntings Read online

  _Part I_

  _Urbania, August 20th, 1885.--_

  I had longed, these years and years, to be in Italy, to come face toface with the Past; and was this Italy, was this the Past? I could havecried, yes cried, for disappointment when I first wandered about Rome,with an invitation to dine at the German Embassy in my pocket, andthree or four Berlin and Munich Vandals at my heels, telling me wherethe best beer and sauerkraut could be had, and what the last article byGrimm or Mommsen was about.

  Is this folly? Is it falsehood? Am I not myself a product of modern,northern civilization; is not my coming to Italy due to this verymodern scientific vandalism, which has given me a traveling scholarshipbecause I have written a book like all those other atrocious books oferudition and art-criticism? Nay, am I not here at Urbania on theexpress understanding that, in a certain number of months, I shallproduce just another such book? Dost thou imagine, thou miserableSpiridion, thou Pole grown into the semblance of a German pedant,doctor of philosophy, professor even, author of a prize essay on thedespots of the fifteenth century, dost thou imagine that thou, with thyministerial letters and proof-sheets in thy black professorialcoat-pocket, canst ever come in spirit into the presence of the Past?

  Too true, alas! But let me forget it, at least, every now and then; asI forgot it this afternoon, while the white bullocks dragged my gigslowly winding along interminable valleys, crawling along interminablehill-sides, with the invisible droning torrent far below, and only thebare grey and reddish peaks all around, up to this town of Urbania,forgotten of mankind, towered and battlemented on the high Apennineridge. Sigillo, Penna, Fossombrone, Mercatello, Montemurlo--each singlevillage name, as the driver pointed it out, brought to my mind therecollection of some battle or some great act of treachery of formerdays. And as the huge mountains shut out the setting sun, and thevalleys filled with bluish shadow and mist, only a band of threateningsmoke-red remaining behind the towers and cupolas of the city on itsmountain-top, and the sound of church bells floated across theprecipice from Urbania, I almost expected, at every turning of theroad, that a troop of horsemen, with beaked helmets and clawed shoes,would emerge, with armor glittering and pennons waving in the sunset.And then, not two hours ago, entering the town at dusk, passing alongthe deserted streets, with only a smoky light here and there under ashrine or in front of a fruit-stall, or a fire reddening the blacknessof a smithy; passing beneath the battlements and turrets of thepalace.... Ah, that was Italy, it was the Past!

  _August 21st.--_

  And this is the Present! Four letters of introduction to deliver, andan hour's polite conversation to endure with the Vice-Prefect, theSyndic, the Director of the Archives, and the good man to whom myfriend Max had sent me for lodgings....

  _August 22nd-27th.--_

  Spent the greater part of the day in the Archives, and the greater partof my time there in being bored to extinction by the Director thereof,who today spouted Aeneas Sylvius' Commentaries for three-quarters of anhour without taking breath. From this sort of martyrdom (what are thesensations of a former racehorse being driven in a cab? If you canconceive them, they are those of a Pole turned Prussian professor) Itake refuge in long rambles through the town. This town is a handful oftall black houses huddled on to the top of an Alp, long narrow lanestrickling down its sides, like the slides we made on hillocks in ourboyhood, and in the middle the superb red brick structure, turreted andbattlemented, of Duke Ottobuono's palace, from whose windows you lookdown upon a sea, a kind of whirlpool, of melancholy grey mountains.Then there are the people, dark, bushy-bearded men, riding about likebrigands, wrapped in green-lined cloaks upon their shaggy pack-mules;or loitering about, great, brawny, low-headed youngsters, like theparti-colored bravos in Signorelli's frescoes; the beautiful boys, likeso many young Raphaels, with eyes like the eyes of bullocks, and thehuge women, Madonnas or St. Elizabeths, as the case may be, with theirclogs firmly poised on their toes and their brass pitchers on theirheads, as they go up and down the steep black alleys. I do not talkmuch to these people; I fear my illusions being dispelled. At thecorner of a street, opposite Francesco di Giorgio's beautiful littleportico, is a great blue and red advertisement, representing an angeldescending to crown Elias Howe, on account of his sewing-machines; andthe clerks of the Vice-Prefecture, who dine at the place where I get mydinner, yell politics, Minghetti, Cairoli, Tunis, ironclads, &c., ateach other, and sing snatches of _La Fille de Mme. Angot,_ which Iimagine they have been performing here recently.

  No; talking to the natives is evidently a dangerous experiment. Exceptindeed, perhaps, to my good landlord, Signor Notaro Porri, who is justas learned, and takes considerably less snuff (or rather brushes it offhis coat more often) than the Director of the Archives. I forgot to jotdown (and I feel I must jot down, in the vain belief that some daythese scraps will help, like a withered twig of olive or a three-wickedTuscan lamp on my table, to bring to my mind, in that hateful Babylonof Berlin, these happy Italian days)--I forgot to record that I amlodging in the house of a dealer in antiquities. My window looks up theprincipal street to where the little column with Mercury on the toprises in the midst of the awnings and porticoes of the market-place.Bending over the chipped ewers and tubs full of sweet basil, clovepinks, and marigolds, I can just see a corner of the palace turret, andthe vague ultramarine of the hills beyond. The house, whose back goessharp down into the ravine, is a queer up-and-down black place,whitewashed rooms, hung with the Raphaels and Francias and Peruginos,whom mine host regularly carries to the chief inn whenever a strangeris expected; and surrounded by old carved chairs, sofas of the Empire,embossed and gilded wedding-chests, and the cupboards which containbits of old damask and embroidered altar-cloths scenting the place withthe smell of old incense and mustiness; all of which are presided overby Signor Porri's three maiden sisters--Sora Serafina, Sora Lodovica,and Sora Adalgisa--the three Fates in person, even to the distaffs andtheir black cats.

  Sor Asdrubale, as they call my landlord, is also a notary. He regretsthe Pontifical Government, having had a cousin who was a Cardinal'strain-bearer, and believes that if only you lay a table for two, lightfour candles made of dead men's fat, and perform certain rites aboutwhich he is not very precise, you can, on Christmas Eve and similarnights, summon up San Pasquale Baylon, who will write you the winningnumbers of the lottery upon the smoked back of a plate, if you havepreviously slapped him on both cheeks and repeated three Ave Marias.The difficulty consists in obtaining the dead men's fat for thecandles, and also in slapping the saint before he has time to vanish.

  "If it were not for that," says Sor Asdrubale, "the Government wouldhave had to suppress the lottery ages ago--eh!"

  _Sept. 9th._--This history of Urbania is not without its romance,although that romance (as usual) has been overlooked by our Dryasdusts.Even before coming here I felt attracted by the strange figure of awoman, which appeared from out of the dry pages of Gualterio's andPadre de Sanctis' histories of this place. This woman is Medea,daughter of Galeazzo IV. Malatesta, Lord of Carpi, wife first ofPierluigi Orsini, Duke of Stimigliano, and subsequently of GuidalfonsoII., Duke of Urbania, predecessor of the great Duke Robert II.

  This woman's history and character remind one of that of BiancaCappello, and at the same time of Lucrezia Borgia. Born in 1556, shewas affianced at the age of twelve to a cousin, a Malatesta of theRimini family. This family having greatly gone down in the world, herengagement was broken, and she was betrothed a year later to a memberof the Pico family, and married to him by proxy at the age of fourteen.But this match not satisfying her own or her father's ambition, themarriage by proxy was, upon some pretext, declared null, and the suitencouraged of the Duke of Stimigliano, a great Umbrian feudatory of theOrsini family. But the bridegroom, Giovanfrancesco Pico, refused tosubmit, pleaded his case before the Pope, and tried to carry off byforce his bride, with whom he was madly in love, as the lady was mostlovely and of most cheerful and amiable manner, says an old anonymouschronicle. Pico waylaid her litter as she was goin
g to a villa of herfather's, and carried her to his castle near Mirandola, where herespectfully pressed his suit; insisting that he had a right toconsider her as his wife. But the lady escaped by letting herself intothe moat by a rope of sheets, and Giovanfrancesco Pico was discoveredstabbed in the chest, by the hand of Madonna Medea da Carpi. He was ahandsome youth only eighteen years old.

  The Pico having been settled, and the marriage with him declared nullby the Pope, Medea da Carpi was solemnly married to the Duke ofStimigliano, and went to live upon his domains near Rome.

  Two years later, Pierluigi Orsini was stabbed by one of his grooms athis castle of Stimigliano, near Orvieto; and suspicion fell upon hiswidow, more especially as, immediately after the event, she caused themurderer to be cut down by two servants in her own chamber; but notbefore he had declared that she had induced him to assassinate hismaster by a promise of her love. Things became so hot for Medea daCarpi that she fled to Urbania and threw herself at the feet of DukeGuidalfonso II., declaring that she had caused the groom to be killedmerely to avenge her good fame, which he had slandered, and that shewas absolutely guiltless of the death of her husband. The marvelousbeauty of the widowed Duchess of Stimigliano, who was only nineteen,entirely turned the head of the Duke of Urbania. He affected implicitbelief in her innocence, refused to give her up to the Orsinis, kinsmenof her late husband, and assigned to her magnificent apartments in theleft wing of the palace, among which the room containing the famousfireplace ornamented with marble Cupids on a blue ground. Guidalfonsofell madly in love with his beautiful guest. Hitherto timid anddomestic in character, he began publicly to neglect his wife, MaddalenaVarano of Camerino, with whom, although childless, he had hithertolived on excellent terms; he not only treated with contempt theadmonitions of his advisers and of his suzerain the Pope, but went sofar as to take measures to repudiate his wife, on the score of quiteimaginary ill-conduct. The Duchess Maddalena, unable to bear thistreatment, fled to the convent of the barefooted sisters at Pesaro,where she pined away, while Medea da Carpi reigned in her place atUrbania, embroiling Duke Guidalfonso in quarrels both with the powerfulOrsinis, who continued to accuse her of Stimigliano's murder, and withthe Varanos, kinsmen of the injured Duchess Maddalena; until at length,in the year 1576, the Duke of Urbania, having become suddenly, and notwithout suspicious circumstances, a widower, publicly married Medea daCarpi two days after the decease of his unhappy wife. No child was bornof this marriage; but such was the infatuation of Duke Guidalfonso,that the new Duchess induced him to settle the inheritance of the Duchy(having, with great difficulty, obtained the consent of the Pope) onthe boy Bartolommeo, her son by Stimigliano, but whom the Orsinisrefused to acknowledge as such, declaring him to be the child of thatGiovanfrancesco Pico to whom Medea had been married by proxy, and whom,in defense, as she had said, of her honor, she had assassinated; andthis investiture of the Duchy of Urbania on to a stranger and a bastardwas at the expense of the obvious rights of the Cardinal Robert,Guidalfonso's younger brother.

  In May 1579 Duke Guidalfonso died suddenly and mysteriously, Medeahaving forbidden all access to his chamber, lest, on his deathbed, hemight repent and reinstate his brother in his rights. The Duchessimmediately caused her son, Bartolommeo Orsini, to be proclaimed Dukeof Urbania, and herself regent; and, with the help of two or threeunscrupulous young men, particularly a certain Captain Oliverotto daNarni, who was rumored to be her lover, seized the reins of governmentwith extraordinary and terrible vigor, marching an army against theVaranos and Orsinis, who were defeated at Sigillo, and ruthlesslyexterminating every person who dared question the lawfulness of thesuccession; while, all the time, Cardinal Robert, who had flung asidehis priest's garb and vows, went about in Rome, Tuscany, Venice--nay,even to the Emperor and the King of Spain, imploring help against theusurper. In a few months he had turned the tide of sympathy against theDuchess-Regent; the Pope solemnly declared the investiture ofBartolommeo Orsini worthless, and published the accession of RobertII., Duke of Urbania and Count of Montemurlo; the Grand Duke of Tuscanyand the Venetians secretly promised assistance, but only if Robert wereable to assert his rights by main force. Little by little, one townafter the other of the Duchy went over to Robert, and Medea da Carpifound herself surrounded in the mountain citadel of Urbania like ascorpion surrounded by flames. (This simile is not mine, but belongs toRaffaello Gualterio, historiographer to Robert II.) But, unlike thescorpion, Medea refused to commit suicide. It is perfectly marveloushow, without money or allies, she could so long keep her enemies atbay; and Gualterio attributes this to those fatal fascinations whichhad brought Pico and Stimigliano to their deaths, which had turned theonce honest Guidalfonso into a villain, and which were such that, ofall her lovers, not one but preferred dying for her, even after he hadbeen treated with ingratitude and ousted by a rival; a faculty whichMesser Raffaello Gualterio clearly attributed to hellish connivance.

  At last the ex-Cardinal Robert succeeded, and triumphantly enteredUrbania in November 1579. His accession was marked by moderation andclemency. Not a man was put to death, save Oliverotto da Narni, whothrew himself on the new Duke, tried to stab him as he alighted at thepalace, and who was cut down by the Duke's men, crying, "Orsini,Orsini! Medea, Medea! Long live Duke Bartolommeo!" with his dyingbreath, although it is said that the Duchess had treated him withignominy. The little Bartolommeo was sent to Rome to the Orsinis; theDuchess, respectfully confined in the left wing of the palace.

  It is said that she haughtily requested to see the new Duke, but thathe shook his head, and, in his priest's fashion, quoted a verse aboutUlysses and the Sirens; and it is remarkable that he persistentlyrefused to see her, abruptly leaving his chamber one day that she hadentered it by stealth. After a few months a conspiracy was discoveredto murder Duke Robert, which had obviously been set on foot by Medea.But the young man, one Marcantonio Frangipani of Rome, denied, evenunder the severest torture, any complicity of hers; so that DukeRobert, who wished to do nothing violent, merely transferred theDuchess from his villa at Sant' Elmo to the convent of the Clarisse intown, where she was guarded and watched in the closest manner. Itseemed impossible that Medea should intrigue any further, for shecertainly saw and could be seen by no one. Yet she contrived to send aletter and her portrait to one Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi, a youth,only nineteen years old, of noble Romagnole family, and who wasbetrothed to one of the most beautiful girls of Urbania. He immediatelybroke off his engagement, and, shortly afterwards, attempted to shootDuke Robert with a holster-pistol as he knelt at mass on the festivalof Easter Day. This time Duke Robert was determined to obtain proofsagainst Medea. Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi was kept some days withoutfood, then submitted to the most violent tortures, and finallycondemned. When he was going to be flayed with red-hot pincers andquartered by horses, he was told that he might obtain the grace ofimmediate death by confessing the complicity of the Duchess; and theconfessor and nuns of the convent, which stood in the place ofexecution outside Porta San Romano, pressed Medea to save the wretch,whose screams reached her, by confessing her own guilt. Medea askedpermission to go to a balcony, where she could see Prinzivalle and beseen by him. She looked on coldly, then threw down her embroideredkerchief to the poor mangled creature. He asked the executioner to wipehis mouth with it, kissed it, and cried out that Medea was innocent.Then, after several hours of torments, he died. This was too much forthe patience even of Duke Robert. Seeing that as long as Medea livedhis life would be in perpetual danger, but unwilling to cause a scandal(somewhat of the priest-nature remaining), he had Medea strangled inthe convent, and, what is remarkable, insisted that only women--twoinfanticides to whom he remitted their sentence--should be employed forthe deed.

  "This clement prince," writes Don Arcangelo Zappi in his life of him,published in 1725, "can be blamed only for one act of cruelty, the moreodious as he had himself, until released from his vows by the Pope,been in holy orders. It is said that when he caused the death of theinfamous Medea da Carpi, his fear lest her extraordinar
y charms shouldseduce any man was such, that he not only employed women asexecutioners, but refused to permit her a priest or monk, thus forcingher to die unshriven, and refusing her the benefit of any penitencethat may have lurked in her adamantine heart."

  Such is the story of Medea da Carpi, Duchess of Stimigliano Orsini, andthen wife of Duke Guidalfonso II. of Urbania. She was put to death justtwo hundred and ninety-seven years ago, December 1582, at the age ofbarely seven-and twenty, and having, in the course of her short life,brought to a violent end five of her lovers, from Giovanfrancesco Picoto Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi.

  _Sept. 20th._--

  A grand illumination of the town in honor of the taking of Rome fifteenyears ago. Except Sor Asdrubale, my landlord, who shakes his head atthe Piedmontese, as he calls them, the people here are allItalianissimi. The Popes kept them very much down since Urbania lapsedto the Holy See in 1645.

  _Sept. 28th._--

  I have for some time been hunting for portraits of the Duchess Medea.Most of them, I imagine, must have been destroyed, perhaps by DukeRobert II.'s fear lest even after her death this terrible beauty shouldplay him a trick. Three or four I have, however, been able to find--onea miniature in the Archives, said to be that which she sent to poorPrinzivalle degli Ordelaffi in order to turn his head; one a marblebust in the palace lumber-room; one in a large composition, possibly byBaroccio, representing Cleopatra at the feet of Augustus. Augustus isthe idealized portrait of Robert II., round cropped head, nose a littleawry, clipped beard and scar as usual, but in Roman dress. Cleopatraseems to me, for all her Oriental dress, and although she wears a blackwig, to be meant for Medea da Carpi; she is kneeling, baring her breastfor the victor to strike, but in reality to captivate him, and he turnsaway with an awkward gesture of loathing. None of these portraits seemvery good, save the miniature, but that is an exquisite work, and withit, and the suggestions of the bust, it is easy to reconstruct thebeauty of this terrible being. The type is that most admired by thelate Renaissance, and, in some measure, immortalized by Jean Goujon andthe French. The face is a perfect oval, the forehead somewhatover-round, with minute curls, like a fleece, of bright auburn hair;the nose a trifle over-aquiline, and the cheek-bones a trifle too low;the eyes grey, large, prominent, beneath exquisitely curved brows andlids just a little too tight at the corners; the mouth also,brilliantly red and most delicately designed, is a little too tight,the lips strained a trifle over the teeth. Tight eyelids and tight lipsgive a strange refinement, and, at the same time, an air of mystery, asomewhat sinister seductiveness; they seem to take, but not to give.The mouth with a kind of childish pout, looks as if it could bite orsuck like a leech. The complexion is dazzlingly fair, the perfecttransparent rosette lily of a red-haired beauty; the head, with hairelaborately curled and plaited close to it, and adorned with pearls,sits like that of the antique Arethusa on a long, supple, swan-likeneck. A curious, at first rather conventional, artificial-looking sortof beauty, voluptuous yet cold, which, the more it is contemplated, themore it troubles and haunts the mind. Round the lady's neck is a goldchain with little gold lozenges at intervals, on which is engraved theposy or pun (the fashion of French devices is common in those days),"Amour Dure--Dure Amour." The same posy is inscribed in the hollow ofthe bust, and, thanks to it, I have been able to identify the latter asMedea's portrait. I often examine these tragic portraits, wonderingwhat this face, which led so many men to their death, may have beenlike when it spoke or smiled, what at the moment when Medea da Carpifascinated her victims into love unto death--"Amour Dure--Dure Amour,"as runs her device--love that lasts, cruel love--yes indeed, when onethinks of the fidelity and fate of her lovers.

  _Oct. 13th._--

  I have literally not had time to write a line of my diary all thesedays. My whole mornings have gone in those Archives, my afternoonstaking long walks in this lovely autumn weather (the highest hills arejust tipped with snow). My evenings go in writing that confoundedaccount of the Palace of Urbania which Government requires, merely tokeep me at work at something useless. Of my history I have not yet beenable to write a word.... By the way, I must note down a curiouscircumstance mentioned in an anonymous MS. life of Duke Robert, which Ifell upon today. When this prince had the equestrian statue of himselfby Antonio Tassi, Gianbologna's pupil, erected in the square of the_Corte_, he secretly caused to be made, says my anonymous MS., asilver statuette of his familiar genius or angel--"familiaris ejusangelus seu genius, quod a vulgo dicitur _idolino_"--whichstatuette or idol, after having been consecrated by theastrologers--"ab astrologis quibusdam ritibus sacrato"--was placed inthe cavity of the chest of the effigy by Tassi, in order, says the MS.,that his soul might rest until the general Resurrection. This passageis curious, and to me somewhat puzzling; how could the soul of DukeRobert await the general Resurrection, when, as a Catholic, he ought tohave believed that it must, as soon as separated from his body, go toPurgatory? Or is there some semi-pagan superstition of the Renaissance(most strange, certainly, in a man who had been a Cardinal) connectingthe soul with a guardian genius, who could be compelled, by magic rites("ab astrologis sacrato," the MS. says of the little idol), to remainfixed to earth, so that the soul should sleep in the body until the Dayof Judgment? I confess this story baffles me. I wonder whether such anidol ever existed, or exists nowadays, in the body of Tassi's bronzeeffigy?

  _Oct. 20th.--_

  I have been seeing a good deal of late of the Vice-Prefect's son: anamiable young man with a love-sick face and a languid interest inUrbanian history and archaeology, of which he is profoundly ignorant.This young man, who has lived at Siena and Lucca before his father waspromoted here, wears extremely long and tight trousers, which almostpreclude his bending his knees, a stick-up collar and an eyeglass, anda pair of fresh kid gloves stuck in the breast of his coat, speaks ofUrbania as Ovid might have spoken of Pontus, and complains (as well hemay) of the barbarism of the young men, the officials who dine at myinn and howl and sing like madmen, and the nobles who drive gigs,showing almost as much throat as a lady at a ball. This personfrequently entertains me with his _amori_, past, present, andfuture; he evidently thinks me very odd for having none to entertainhim with in return; he points out to me the pretty (or ugly)servant-girls and dressmakers as we walk in the street, sighs deeply orsings in falsetto behind every tolerably young-looking woman, and hasfinally taken me to the house of the lady of his heart, a greatblack-mustachioed countess, with a voice like a fish-crier; here, hesays, I shall meet all the best company in Urbania and some beautifulwomen--ah, too beautiful, alas! I find three huge half-furnished rooms,with bare brick floors, petroleum lamps, and horribly bad pictures onbright washball-blue and gamboge walls, and in the midst of it all,every evening, a dozen ladies and gentlemen seated in a circle,vociferating at each other the same news a year old; the younger ladiesin bright yellows and greens, fanning themselves while my teethchatter, and having sweet things whispered behind their fans byofficers with hair brushed up like a hedgehog. And these are the womenmy friend expects me to fall in love with! I vainly wait for tea orsupper which does not come, and rush home, determined to leave alonethe Urbanian _beau monde_.

  It is quite true that I have no _amori_, although my friend doesnot believe it. When I came to Italy first, I looked out for romance; Isighed, like Goethe in Rome, for a window to open and a wondrouscreature to appear, "welch mich versengend erquickt." Perhaps it isbecause Goethe was a German, accustomed to German _Fraus_, and Iam, after all, a Pole, accustomed to something very different from_Fraus_; but anyhow, for all my efforts, in Rome, Florence, andSiena, I never could find a woman to go mad about, either among theladies, chattering bad French, or among the lower classes, as 'cute andcold as money-lenders; so I steer clear of Italian womankind, itsshrill voice and gaudy toilettes. I am wedded to history, to the Past,to women like Lucrezia Borgia, Vittoria Accoramboni, or that Medea daCarpi, for the present; some day I shall perhaps find a grand passion,a woman to play the Don Quixote about, like the Pole that I am; a womanout
of whose slipper to drink, and for whose pleasure to die; but nothere! Few things strike me so much as the degeneracy of Italian women.What has become of the race of Faustinas, Marozias, Bianca Cappellos?Where discover nowadays (I confess she haunts me) another Medea daCarpi? Were it only possible to meet a woman of that extremedistinction of beauty, of that terribleness of nature, even if onlypotential, I do believe I could love her, even to the Day of Judgment,like any Oliverotto da Narni, or Frangipani or Prinzivalle.

  _Oct. 27th.--_

  Fine sentiments the above are for a professor, a learned man! I thoughtthe young artists of Rome childish because they played practical jokesand yelled at night in the streets, returning from the Caffe Greco orthe cellar in the Via Palombella; but am I not as childish to thefull--I, melancholy wretch, whom they called Hamlet and the Knight ofthe Doleful Countenance?

  _Nov. 5th.--_

  I can't free myself from the thought of this Medea da Carpi. In mywalks, my mornings in the Archives, my solitary evenings, I catchmyself thinking over the woman. Am I turning novelist instead ofhistorian? And still it seems to me that I understand her so well; somuch better than my facts warrant. First, we must put aside allpedantic modern ideas of right and wrong. Right and wrong in a centuryof violence and treachery does not exist, least of all for creatureslike Medea. Go preach right and wrong to a tigress, my dear sir! Yet isthere in the world anything nobler than the huge creature, steel whenshe springs, velvet when she treads, as she stretches her supple body,or smooths her beautiful skin, or fastens her strong claws into hervictim?

  Yes; I can understand Medea. Fancy a woman of superlative beauty, ofthe highest courage and calmness, a woman of many resources, of genius,brought up by a petty princelet of a father, upon Tacitus and Sallust,and the tales of the great Malatestas, of Caesar Borgia andsuch-like!--a woman whose one passion is conquest and empire--fancyher, on the eve of being wedded to a man of the power of the Duke ofStimigliano, claimed, carried off by a small fry of a Pico, locked upin his hereditary brigand's castle, and having to receive the youngfool's red-hot love as an honor and a necessity! The mere thought ofany violence to such a nature is an abominable outrage; and if Picochooses to embrace such a woman at the risk of meeting a sharp piece ofsteel in her arms, why, it is a fair bargain. Young hound--or, if youprefer, young hero--to think to treat a woman like this as if she wereany village wench! Medea marries her Orsini. A marriage, let it benoted, between an old soldier of fifty and a girl of sixteen. Reflectwhat that means: it means that this imperious woman is soon treatedlike a chattel, made roughly to understand that her business is to givethe Duke an heir, not advice; that she must never ask "wherefore thisor that?" that she must courtesy before the Duke's counselors, hiscaptains, his mistresses; that, at the least suspicion ofrebelliousness, she is subject to his foul words and blows; at theleast suspicion of infidelity, to be strangled or starved to death, orthrown down an oubliette. Suppose that she knew that her husband hastaken it into his head that she has looked too hard at this man orthat, that one of his lieutenants or one of his women have whisperedthat, after all, the boy Bartolommeo might as soon be a Pico as anOrsini. Suppose she knew that she must strike or be struck? Why, shestrikes, or gets some one to strike for her. At what price? A promiseof love, of love to a groom, the son of a serf! Why, the dog must bemad or drunk to believe such a thing possible; his very belief inanything so monstrous makes him worthy of death. And then he dares toblab! This is much worse than Pico. Medea is bound to defend her honora second time; if she could stab Pico, she can certainly stab thisfellow, or have him stabbed.

  Hounded by her husband's kinsmen, she takes refuge at Urbania. TheDuke, like every other man, falls wildly in love with Medea, andneglects his wife; let us even go so far as to say, breaks his wife'sheart. Is this Medea's fault? Is it her fault that every stone thatcomes beneath her chariot-wheels is crushed? Certainly not. Do yousuppose that a woman like Medea feels the smallest ill-will against apoor, craven Duchess Maddalena? Why, she ignores her very existence. Tosuppose Medea a cruel woman is as grotesque as to call her an immoralwoman. Her fate is, sooner or later, to triumph over her enemies, atall events to make their victory almost a defeat; her magic faculty isto enslave all the men who come across her path; all those who see her,love her, become her slaves; and it is the destiny of all her slaves toperish. Her lovers, with the exception of Duke Guidalfonso, all come toan untimely end; and in this there is nothing unjust. The possession ofa woman like Medea is a happiness too great for a mortal man; it wouldturn his head, make him forget even what he owed her; no man mustsurvive long who conceives himself to have a right over her; it is akind of sacrilege. And only death, the willingness to pay for suchhappiness by death, can at all make a man worthy of being her lover; hemust be willing to love and suffer and die. This is the meaning of herdevice--"Amour Dure--Dure Amour." The love of Medea da Carpi cannotfade, but the lover can die; it is a constant and a cruel love.

  _Nov. 11th.--_

  I was right, quite right in my idea. I have found--Oh, joy! I treatedthe Vice-Prefect's son to a dinner of five courses at the Trattoria LaStella d'Italia out of sheer jubilation--I have found in the Archives,unknown, of course, to the Director, a heap of letters--letters of DukeRobert about Medea da Carpi, letters of Medea herself! Yes, Medea's ownhandwriting--a round, scholarly character, full of abbreviations, witha Greek look about it, as befits a learned princess who could readPlato as well as Petrarch. The letters are of little importance, meredrafts of business letters for her secretary to copy, during the timethat she governed the poor weak Guidalfonso. But they are her letters,and I can imagine almost that there hangs about these moldering piecesof paper a scent as of a woman's hair.

  The few letters of Duke Robert show him in a new light. A cunning,cold, but craven priest. He trembles at the bare thought of Medea--"lapessima Medea"--worse than her namesake of Colchis, as he calls her.His long clemency is a result of mere fear of laying violent hands uponher. He fears her as something almost supernatural; he would haveenjoyed having had her burnt as a witch. After letter on letter,telling his crony, Cardinal Sanseverino, at Rome his variousprecautions during her lifetime--how he wears a jacket of mail underhis coat; how he drinks only milk from a cow which he has milked in hispresence; how he tries his dog with morsels of his food, lest it bepoisoned; how he suspects the wax-candles because of their peculiarsmell; how he fears riding out lest some one should frighten his horseand cause him to break his neck--after all this, and when Medea hasbeen in her grave two years, he tells his correspondent of his fear ofmeeting the soul of Medea after his own death, and chuckles over theingenious device (concocted by his astrologer and a certain FraGaudenzio, a Capuchin) by which he shall secure the absolute peace ofhis soul until that of the wicked Medea be finally "chained up in hellamong the lakes of boiling pitch and the ice of Caina described by theimmortal bard"--old pedant! Here, then, is the explanation of thatsilver image--_quod vulgo dicitur idolino_--which he caused to besoldered into his effigy by Tassi. As long as the image of his soul wasattached to the image of his body, he should sleep awaiting the Day ofJudgment, fully convinced that Medea's soul will then be properlytarred and feathered, while his--honest man!--will fly straight toParadise. And to think that, two weeks ago, I believed this man to be ahero! Aha! my good Duke Robert, you shall be shown up in my history;and no amount of silver idolinos shall save you from being heartilylaughed at!

  _Nov. 15th.--_

  Strange! That idiot of a Prefect's son, who has heard me talk a hundredtimes of Medea da Carpi, suddenly recollects that, when he was a childat Urbania, his nurse used to threaten him with a visit from MadonnaMedea, who rode in the sky on a black he-goat. My Duchess Medea turnedinto a bogey for naughty little boys!

  _Nov. 20th.--_

  I have been going about with a Bavarian Professor of mediaeval history,showing him all over the country. Among other places we went to RoccaSant'Elmo, to see the former villa of the Dukes of Urbania, the villawhere Medea was confined between the
accession of Duke Robert and theconspiracy of Marcantonio Frangipani, which caused her removal to thenunnery immediately outside the town. A long ride up the desolateApennine valleys, bleak beyond words just now with their thin fringe ofoak scrub turned russet, thin patches of grass seared by the frost, thelast few yellow leaves of the poplars by the torrents shaking andfluttering about in the chill Tramontana; the mountaintops are wrappedin thick grey cloud; tomorrow, if the wind continues, we shall see themround masses of snow against the cold blue sky. Sant' Elmo is awretched hamlet high on the Apennine ridge, where the Italianvegetation is already replaced by that of the North. You ride for milesthrough leafless chestnut woods, the scent of the soaking brown leavesfilling the air, the roar of the torrent, turbid with autumn rains,rising from the precipice below; then suddenly the leafless chestnutwoods are replaced, as at Vallombrosa, by a belt of black, dense firplantations. Emerging from these, you come to an open space, frozenblasted meadows, the rocks of snow clad peak, the newly fallen snow,close above you; and in the midst, on a knoll, with a gnarled larch oneither side, the ducal villa of Sant' Elmo, a big black stone box witha stone escutcheon, grated windows, and a double flight of steps infront. It is now let out to the proprietor of the neighboring woods,who uses it for the storage of chestnuts, faggots, and charcoal fromthe neighboring ovens. We tied our horses to the iron rings andentered: an old woman, with disheveled hair, was alone in the house.The villa is a mere hunting-lodge, built by Ottobuono IV., the fatherof Dukes Guidalfonso and Robert, about 1530. Some of the rooms have atone time been frescoed and paneled with oak carvings, but all this hasdisappeared. Only, in one of the big rooms, there remains a largemarble fireplace, similar to those in the palace at Urbania,beautifully carved with Cupids on a blue ground; a charming naked boysustains a jar on either side, one containing clove pinks, the otherroses. The room was filled with stacks of faggots.

  We returned home late, my companion in excessively bad humor at thefruitlessness of the expedition. We were caught in the skirt of asnowstorm as we got into the chestnut woods. The sight of the snowfalling gently, of the earth and bushes whitened all round, made mefeel back at Posen, once more a child. I sang and shouted, to mycompanion's horror. This will be a bad point against me if reported atBerlin. A historian of twenty-four who shouts and sings, and that whenanother historian is cursing at the snow and the bad roads! All night Ilay awake watching the embers of my wood fire, and thinking of Medea daCarpi mewed up, in winter, in that solitude of Sant' Elmo, the firsgroaning, the torrent roaring, the snow falling all round; miles andmiles away from human creatures. I fancied I saw it all, and that I,somehow, was Marcantonio Frangipani come to liberate her--or was itPrinzivalle degli Ordelaffi? I suppose it was because of the long ride,the unaccustomed pricking feeling of the snow in the air; or perhapsthe punch which my professor insisted on drinking after dinner.

  Nov. 23rd.--

  Thank goodness, that Bavarian professor has finally departed! Thosedays he spent here drove me nearly crazy. Talking over my work, I toldhim one day my views on Medea da Carpi; whereupon he condescended toanswer that those were the usual tales due to the mythopoeic (oldidiot!) tendency of the Renaissance; that research would disprove thegreater part of them, as it had disproved the stories current about theBorgias, &c.; that, moreover, such a woman as I made out waspsychologically and physiologically impossible. Would that one couldsay as much of such professors as he and his fellows!

  Nov. 24th.--

  I cannot get over my pleasure in being rid of that imbecile; I felt asif I could have throttled him every time he spoke of the Lady of mythoughts--for such she has become--_Metea_, as the animal calledher!

  Nov. 30th.--

  I feel quite shaken at what has just happened; I am beginning to fearthat that old pedant was right in saying that it was bad for me to liveall alone in a strange country, that it would make me morbid. It isridiculous that I should be put into such a state of excitement merelyby the chance discovery of a portrait of a woman dead these threehundred years. With the case of my uncle Ladislas, and other suspicionsof insanity in my family, I ought really to guard against such foolishexcitement.

  Yet the incident was really dramatic, uncanny. I could have sworn thatI knew every picture in the palace here; and particularly every pictureof Her. Anyhow, this morning, as I was leaving the Archives, I passedthrough one of the many small rooms--irregular-shaped closets--whichfill up the ins and outs of this curious palace, turreted like a Frenchchateau. I must have passed through that closet before, for the viewwas so familiar out of its window; just the particular bit of roundtower in front, the cypress on the other side of the ravine, the belfrybeyond, and the piece of the line of Monte Sant' Agata and theLeonessa, covered with snow, against the sky. I suppose there must betwin rooms, and that I had got into the wrong one; or rather, perhapssome shutter had been opened or curtain withdrawn. As I was passing, myeye was caught by a very beautiful old mirror-frame let into the brownand yellow inlaid wall. I approached, and looking at the frame, lookedalso, mechanically, into the glass. I gave a great start, and almostshrieked, I do believe--(it's lucky the Munich professor is safe out ofUrbania!). Behind my own image stood another, a figure close to myshoulder, a face close to mine; and that figure, that face, hers! Medeada Carpi's! I turned sharp round, as white, I think, as the ghost Iexpected to see. On the wall opposite the mirror, just a pace or twobehind where I had been standing, hung a portrait. And such aportrait!--Bronzino never painted a grander one. Against a backgroundof harsh, dark blue, there stands out the figure of the Duchess (for itis Medea, the real Medea, a thousand times more real, individual, andpowerful than in the other portraits), seated stiffly in a high-backedchair, sustained, as it were, almost rigid, by the stiff brocade ofskirts and stomacher, stiffer for plaques of embroidered silver flowersand rows of seed pearl. The dress is, with its mixture of silver andpearl, of a strange dull red, a wicked poppy-juice color, against whichthe flesh of the long, narrow hands with fringe-like fingers; of thelong slender neck, and the face with bared forehead, looks white andhard, like alabaster. The face is the same as in the other portraits:the same rounded forehead, with the short fleece-like, yellowish-redcurls; the same beautifully curved eyebrows, just barely marked; thesame eyelids, a little tight across the eyes; the same lips, a littletight across the mouth; but with a purity of line, a dazzling splendorof skin, and intensity of look immeasurably superior to all the otherportraits.

  She looks out of the frame with a cold, level glance; yet the lipssmile. One hand holds a dull-red rose; the other, long, narrow,tapering, plays with a thick rope of silk and gold and jewels hangingfrom the waist; round the throat, white as marble, partially confinedin the tight dull-red bodice, hangs a gold collar, with the device onalternate enameled medallions, "AMOUR DURE--DURE AMOUR."

  On reflection, I see that I simply could never have been in that roomor closet before; I must have mistaken the door. But, although theexplanation is so simple, I still, after several hours, feel terriblyshaken in all my being. If I grow so excitable I shall have to go toRome at Christmas for a holiday. I feel as if some danger pursued mehere (can it be fever?); and yet, and yet, I don't see how I shall evertear myself away.

  _Dec. 10th_.--

  I have made an effort, and accepted the Vice-Prefect's son's invitationto see the oil-making at a villa of theirs near the coast. The villa,or farm, is an old fortified, towered place, standing on a hillsideamong olive-trees and little osier-bushes, which look like a brightorange flame. The olives are squeezed in a tremendous black cellar,like a prison: you see, by the faint white daylight, and the smokyyellow flare of resin burning in pans, great white bullocks movinground a huge millstone; vague figures working at pulleys and handles:it looks, to my fancy, like some scene of the Inquisition. TheCavaliere regaled me with his best wine and rusks. I took some longwalks by the seaside; I had left Urbania wrapped in snow-clouds; downon the coast there was a bright sun; the sunshine, the sea, the bustleof the little port on the Adriatic seemed
to do me good. I came back toUrbania another man. Sor Asdrubale, my landlord, poking about inslippers among the gilded chests, the Empire sofas, the old cups andsaucers and pictures which no one will buy, congratulated me upon theimprovement in my looks. "You work too much," he says; "youth requiresamusement, theatres, promenades, _amori_--it is time enough to beserious when one is bald"--and he took off his greasy red cap. Yes, Iam better! and, as a result, I take to my work with delight again. I willcut them out still, those wiseacres at Berlin!

  _Dec. 14th_.--

  I don't think I have ever felt so happy about my work. I see it all sowell--that crafty, cowardly Duke Robert; that melancholy DuchessMaddalena; that weak, showy, would-be chivalrous Duke Guidalfonso; andabove all, the splendid figure of Medea. I feel as if I were thegreatest historian of the age; and, at the same time, as if I were aboy of twelve. It snowed yesterday for the first time in the city, fortwo good hours. When it had done, I actually went into the square andtaught the ragamuffins to make a snowman; no, a snow-woman; and I hadthe fancy to call her Medea. "La pessima Medea!" cried one of theboys--"the one who used to ride through the air on a goat?" "No, no," Isaid; "she was a beautiful lady, the Duchess of Urbania, the mostbeautiful woman that ever lived." I made her a crown of tinsel, andtaught the boys to cry "Evviva, Medea!" But one of them said, "She is awitch! She must be burnt!" At which they all rushed to fetch burningfaggots and tow; in a minute the yelling demons had melted her down.

  _Dec. 15th_.--

  What a goose I am, and to think I am twenty-four, and known inliterature! In my long walks I have composed to a tune (I don't knowwhat it is) which all the people are singing and whistling in thestreet at present, a poem in frightful Italian, beginning "Medea, miadea," calling on her in the name of her various lovers. I go abouthumming between my teeth, "Why am I not Marcantonio? or Prinzivalle? orhe of Narni? or the good Duke Alfonso? that I might be beloved by thee,Medea, mia dea," &c. &c. Awful rubbish! My landlord, I think, suspectsthat Medea must be some lady I met while I was staying by the seaside.I am sure Sora Serafina, Sora Lodovica, and Sora Adalgisa--the threeParcae or _Norns_, as I call them--have some such notion. Thisafternoon, at dusk, while tidying my room, Sora Lodovica said to me,"How beautifully the Signorino has taken to singing!" I was scarcelyaware that I had been vociferating, "Vieni, Medea, mia dea," while theold lady bobbed about making up my fire. I stopped; a nice reputation Ishall get! I thought, and all this will somehow get to Rome, and thenceto Berlin. Sora Lodovica was leaning out of the window, pulling in theiron hook of the shrine-lamp which marks Sor Asdrubale's house. As shewas trimming the lamp previous to swinging it out again, she said inher odd, prudish little way, "You are wrong to stop singing, my son"(she varies between calling me Signor Professore and such terms ofaffection as "Nino," "Viscere mie," &c.); "you are wrong to stopsinging, for there is a young lady there in the street who has actuallystopped to listen to you."

  I ran to the window. A woman, wrapped in a black shawl, was standing inan archway, looking up to the window.

  "Eh, eh! the Signor Professore has admirers," said Sora Lodovica.

  "Medea, mia dea!" I burst out as loud as I could, with a boy's pleasurein disconcerting the inquisitive passer-by. She turned suddenly roundto go away, waving her hand at me; at that moment Sora Lodovica swungthe shrine-lamp back into its place. A stream of light fell across thestreet. I felt myself grow quite cold; the face of the woman outsidewas that of Medea da Carpi!

  What a fool I am, to be sure!