'But, most illustrious lady, I have no letters!'
'You say you have no letters?'
'None.'
Fury overcame her. 'Wait then, accursed pander, till I tear the truth from your lips. Oh, I'll wring confession from you! I'll strangle you with my own hands, you rubbish, you rogue!' she cried: in good sooth driving her slender fingers into his throat with such force that the veins swelled on his forehead. Unresisting, rolling his eyes and hanging his hands helplessly, he more than ever resembled a sick bird.
'She is strangling me!' thought Bellincioni; 'well, it can't be helped. Not for so poor a reason will I betray my lord!'
Dissipated rascal, and venal flatterer the poetaster had always been, but never traitor. In his veins flowed better blood than that of the Sforzas, and the moment had come for showing it.
The Duchess, however, recovered herself. With a gesture of disgust she flung him from her, snatched up the little lamp with its broken sides and charred wick, and made for the adjoining cabinet, which she guessed to be the poet's working studiolo. Bernardo, placing himself against the door, barred the entrance. But the haughty glance of the Duchess awed him, and he withdrew. She swept past and entered the poor refuge of his threadbare muse. A smell of mould came from the books, great patches of damp showed on the plaster walls. The broken glass of the frosted windows was repaired with tow. On the sloping ink-splashed board were quills, gnawed and twisted in the agony of finding rhymes, and papers, doubtless rough copies of poems.
Heedless of the author, Beatrice stood the lamp on a shelf and began to rummage among these sheets. She found sonnets addressed to chamberlains, treasurers, and dispensers, with burlesque complaints and prayers for firewood, clothes, wine, and bread. In one he asked of Messer Pallavicini a roast goose for the due celebration of All Saints' Day. In another, headed 'Del Moro a Cecilia,' the poet recounted how Jupiter, returning from his mistress, had been forced to brave the storm lest jealous Juno should guess his treachery, and tearing the diadem from her brow scatter its pearls like hailstones and raindrops from the sky.
Presently the search brought the Duchess to a dainty case of black wood; she opened it, and saw a carefully tied-up packet of letters. Bernardo, watching her, wrung his hands in dismay. The Duchess looked at him, then at the letters; read the name of Lucrezia, recognised the handwriting of her husband, and knew she had found the thing she sought, his letters—the rough draft of the love-verses he had commanded for Lucrezia. She thrust the packet into the bosom of her dress, flung a bag of ducats at the poet, as one might fling a bone to a dog, and departed.
He heard her descend the stair, heard the bang of the door, and stood motionless in the centre of the room as if thunderstruck, though the floor seemed shaking under him like the deck of a ship in storm. At last, exhausted, he flung himself on the three-legged couch, and sank into a deathlike slumber.