I was holding the portrait in my hand when the Marquise entered.
"Exactly like his father!" she cried, coming towards me. "Ah, you French! you French! Hardly arrived before he seizes upon 'Madam Lucrezia.'"
I hastened to make excuses for my impertinence, and began to praise at random the chef-d'œuvre of Leonardo, which I had been so bold as to lift out of its place.
"It is indeed a Leonardo," said the Marquise, "and it is the portrait of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. Of all my pictures it was the one your father admired most.... But, good heavens! what a resemblance! I think I see your father as he was twenty-five years ago. How is he? What is he doing? And will he not come to see us at Rome some time?"
Although the Marquise did not wear either tiger skin or powdered hair, at the first glance, and with my natural quickness of perception, I recognised in her my father's bacchante. Some twenty-five years had not been able entirely to efface the traces of great beauty. Her expression only had changed, even as her toilette. She was dressed completely in black, and her treble chin, her grave smile and her manner, serious and yet radiant, apprised me that she had become religious.
No one could have given me a warmer welcome; in a few words she offered me her home, her purse and her friends, among whom she mentioned several cardinals.
"Look upon me," she said, "as your mother."
She lowered her eyes modestly.
"Your father has charged me to look after you and to advise you."
And to show me that she did not intend her office to be a sinecure she began at once to put me on my guard against the dangers Rome had for young men of my age, and exhorted me earnestly to avoid them. I must shun bad company, artists especially, and only associate with people that she chose for me. In fact, I received a lengthy sermon. I replied respectfully, and with conventional hypocrisy.