Then only one word more. Women, and women such as you, are often ill advised and foolishly ambitious. Let not success, should you have any in this enterprise, endanger it and you. Your safety lies in being my tool. My spies are everywhere; but I require none; I seem to know the folly which poor mortals think and feel. And see! this palace is surrounded on three sides by lakes; a rare and beautiful circumstance, which has done good service on occasion. Even close to this pavilion these blue waters are less shallow than they seem.
DIEGO
I had noted it. Such an enterprise as mine requires courage, my Lord; and your palace, built into the lake, as life,—saving all thought of heresy,—is built out into death, your palace may give courage as well as prudence.
CARDINAL
Your words, Diego, are irrelevant, but do not displease me.
DIEGO bows. The Chaplain enters with Pages carrying a harpsichord, which they place upon the table; also two Musicians with theorb and viol.
Brother Matthias, thou hast been a skilful organist, and hast often delighted me with thy fugues and canons.—Sit to the instrument, and play a prelude, while this good youth collects his memory and his voice preparatory to displaying his skill.
The chaplain, not unlike the monk in Titian's "Concert" begins to play, DIEGO standing by him at the harpsichord. While the cunningly interlaced themes, with wide, unclosed cadences, tinkle metallically from the instrument, the CARDINAL watches, very deliberately, the face of DIEGO, seeking to penetrate through its sullen sedateness. But DIEGO remains with his eyes fixed on the view framed by the window: the pale blue lake, of the colour of periwinkle, under a sky barely bluer than itself, and the lines on the horizon—piled up clouds or perhaps Alps. Only, as the Chaplain is about to finish his prelude, the face of DIEGO undergoes a change: a sudden fervour and tenderness transfigure the features; while the eyes, from very dark turn to the colour of carnelian. This illumination dies out as quickly as it came, and DIEGO becomes very self-contained and very listless as before.
DIEGO
Will it please your Eminence that I should sing the Lament of Ariadne on Naxos?