Cardinal S. C. received me with a kindness that did not diminish his dignity, and in his manner I understood that he wished me to feel the weight of the favour he was bestowing upon me.
"What do you think," he enquired, "of the sonnet?"
"Monsignor, it is perfectly written, and, what is more, it is a charming composition. Allow me to return it to you with my thanks."
"She has much talent. I wish to show you ten stanzas of her composition, my dear abbe, but you must promise to be very discreet about it."
"Your eminence may rely on me."
He opened his bureau and took out the stanzas in which he himself was the subject.
I read them, found them well written, but devoid of enthusiasm; they were the work of a poet, and expressed love in the words of passion, but were not pervaded by that peculiar feeling by which true love is so easily discovered.
The worthy cardinal had no doubt committed a very great imprudence, but self-love leads men into many such injudicious steps.
I asked his eminence whether he had answered the stanzas.
"No," he replied, "I have not; but would you feel disposed to lend me your poetical pen, always under the seal of secrecy?"
"As to secrecy, monsignor, I promise it faithfully; but I am afraid the marchioness will remark the difference between your style and mine."
"She has nothing of my composition," said the cardinal; "I do not think she supposes me a fine poet, and for that reason your stanzas must be written in such a manner that she will not esteem them above my abilities."
"I will write them with pleasure, monsignor, and your eminence can form an opinion; if they do not seem good enough to be worthy of you, they need not be given to the marchioness."
"That is well said. Will you write them at once?"
"What! now, monsignor? It is not like prose."
"Well, well! try to let me have them to-morrow."
We dined alone, and his eminence complimented me on my appetite, which, he said, matched his own.
I was beginning to understand my eccentric host. To please him, I replied that he overpraised me, and that my appetite fell short of his.
The remark delighted him, and I saw at once how best to deal with him.
Toward the end of dinner, while we were still talking, the marchioness appeared without being announced. Her looks threw me into raptures; I thought her a perfect beauty.
She did not wait for the cardinal to rise, but sat down near him, while I remained standing, as etiquette required.
Without seeming to notice me, she moved lightly from one subject to another until coffee was served. Then she turned to me and told me to sit down, just as if she was bestowing charity upon me.
"By-the-by, abbe," she said, a minute after, "have you read my sonnet?"
"Yes, madam, and I have had the honour to return it to his eminence. I have found it so perfect that I am certain it must have cost you a great deal of time."
"Time?" exclaimed the cardinal; "Oh! you do not know the marchioness."
"Monsignor," I replied, "nothing can be done well without time, and that is why I have not dared to show to your eminence an answer to the sonnet which I have written in half an hour."
"Let us see it, abbe," said the marchioness; "I want to read it."
"Answer of Silesia to Love." This title brought the most fascinating blushes on her countenance.
"But Love is not mentioned in the sonnet," exclaimed the cardinal.
"Wait," said the marchioness, "we must respect the idea of the poet."
She read the piece again and again, and judged Silesia's complaint against Love to be perfectly just.
Then she explained my idea to the cardinal, making him understand why Silesia should lament having been conquered by the King of Prussia.
"Ah, I see, I see!" exclaimed the cardinal, full of joy; "Silesia is a woman.... and the King of Prussia.... Oh! oh! that is really a fine idea!" And the good cardinal laughed heartily for more than a quarter of an hour.
"I must copy that sonnet," he added, "indeed I must have it."
"The abbe," said the obliging marchioness, "will save you the trouble, I will dictate it to him."
I prepared to write, but his eminence suddenly exclaimed, "My dear marchioness, this is wonderful; he has kept the same rhymes as in your own sonnet: did you observe it?"
The beautiful marchioness then gave me a look so full of meaning that she completed her conquest. She wished me to know the cardinal as well as she knew him. It was a partnership in which I was quite ready to play my part.
When I had finished writing the sonnet under her charming dictation, I took my leave, but not before the cardinal had invited me to dine with him the next day.
I had much to do, for the ten stanzas before me were of a very singular kind, and I shut myself in my room at once to consider them.
I had to keep a delicate balance.
The marchioness must be placed so that she could suppose the cardinal to be the author, yet at the same time understand that I had written the verses and that I knew she knew it.
I must say nothing that could betray the least hope, and yet make the poetry itself breathe my ardour beneath its modest covering.
As for the cardinal, I knew that the clearer the stanzas were, the more willingly he would sign them.
I wanted only clearness, though poetry so often prefers a little obscurity, and my new Midas would no doubt take that for sublimity.
Still, however much I wished to please him, the cardinal was only a secondary consideration, and the handsome marchioness the principal object.
Since she had praised his eminence in a long catalogue of bodily and mental perfections, it was natural that he should answer her in the same key. That part was easy enough.
Once I had mastered the matter, I set to work, and, giving full rein to imagination and feeling, I composed the ten stanzas, finishing them with these two lines from Ariosto:
Le angelicche bellezze nate al cielo
Non si ponno celar sotto alcun velo.
Rather satisfied with my work, I presented it the next day to the cardinal and, with a modest air, said that I doubted whether he would care to claim as his own so ordinary a composition.
He read the stanzas twice, without much expression, and at last declared that they were not much, but exactly what he wanted.
He thanked me especially for the two lines from Ariosto, saying that they would help him pass for the author, since they would show the lady that he could not have written them without borrowing. To complete the illusion, he added, he would take care, in copying the verses, to make a few mistakes in the rhythm.
We dined earlier than on the previous day, and I withdrew at once after dinner, so that he might have time to copy the stanzas before the lady's arrival.
The following evening, I met the marchioness at the entrance of the palace and offered her my arm as she alighted from her carriage.
The instant her foot touched the ground, she said to me, "If ever your stanzas and mine become known in Rome, you may be sure of my enmity."
"Madam, I do not understand what you mean."
"I expected you to answer me in this manner," replied the marchioness, "but recollect what I have said."
I left her at the door of the reception room, and, believing her truly angry, I went away in despair.
My stanzas, I told myself, had been too ardent. They had touched her dignity, and her pride had been wounded by my knowledge of her understanding with Cardinal S. C.
Yet I could not quite believe in her fear of my discretion. It seemed rather a screen to drive me from her favour. She had not understood my reserve!
What would she have done had I painted her in the simple dress of the golden age, without those veils which modesty imposes upon her sex?
I regretted not having done so.
I undressed and went to bed. My head scarcely touched the pillow when Abbé Gama knocked at my door. I drew the string and let him in.
"My dear sir," he said, "the cardinal wishes to see you, and I am sent by the beautiful marchioness and Cardinal S. C., who desire you to come down."
"I am very sorry, but I cannot go; tell them the truth; I am ill in bed."
The abbé did not return, and I concluded that he had delivered my excuse faithfully. I spent the night in peace.
I was not yet dressed the next morning when a note arrived from Cardinal S. C.
He invited me to dinner, said that he had just been bled, and wished to speak with me. He ended by begging me to come early, even if I felt unwell.
The invitation was urgent, and I could not guess what had prompted it, though the letter itself gave me no reason to fear anything unpleasant.
I went to church, where I knew Cardinal Acquaviva would see me, and he did. After mass, he signaled to me.
"Are you truly ill?" he asked.
"No, monsignor. I was only sleepy."
"I am very glad to hear it; but you are wrong, for you are loved. Cardinal S. C. has been bled this morning."
"I know it, monsignor. The cardinal tells me so in this note, in which he invites me to dine with him, with your excellency's permission."
"Certainly. But this is amusing! I did not know that he wanted a third person."
"Will there be a third person?"
"I do not know, and I have no curiosity about it."
The cardinal left me, and everybody imagined that his eminence had spoken to me of state affairs.