She was extremely surprised to hear from Count Zini, who knew me, that I inhabited the same town as herself.
When the count met me he asked me if the Barcelona story was true. I did not care to take him into my confidence, so I replied that I did not know Nina, and that the story had doubtless been made up by her to see whether he would encounter danger for her sake.
When I met the cardinal I told him the whole story, and his eminence was astonished when I gave him some insight into Nina’s character, and informed him that she was the daughter of her sister and her grandfather.
“I could stake my life,” said I, “that Nina is no more with child than you are.”
“Oh, come!” said he, laughing, “that is really too strong; why shouldn’t she have a child? It is a very simple matter, it seems to me. Possibly it may not be Ricla’s child but there can be no doubt that she is with somebody’s child. What object could she have for feigning pregnancy?”
“To make herself famous by defiling the Count de Ricla, who was a model of justice and virtue before knowing this Messalina. If your eminence knew the hideous character of Nina you would not wonder at anything she did.”
“Well, we shall see.”
“Yes.”
About a week later I heard a great noise in the street, and on putting my head out of the window I saw a woman stripped to the waist, and mounted on an ass, being scourged by the hangman, and hooted by a mob of all the biricchini in Bologna. Severini came up at the same moment and informed me that the woman was the chief midwife in Bologna, and that her punishment had been ordered by the cardinal archbishop.
“It must be for some great crime,” I observed.