“It’s not enough,” replied the man.
“Not enough?” the woman asked in the same singsong voice. “No, Giacomo, this time you have not been entirely sincere. You yourself know that this is not to be dismissed, that it adds up to something, maybe even more than something. It is not a little thing, not in the least, when two people know they are meant for each other. It took me a long time before I understood it. Because there was a time when I did not know myself, and that is the way I grew up in Pistoia, behind thick walls, a little neglected and unkept, like wild nettles — and you courted me then on a whim, with mock gallantry, but both of us knew that whatever we said, something true was passing between us! You found me various pet names adapted from plants, animals, and stars, as lovers often do when they are still playing with each other and trying out words, in the early days of love when they lack the courage to call each other by their true names, such as ‘my love’ or ‘Giacomo’ or ‘Francesca.’ By that time all other words are superfluous. But at that stage I was ‘wild flower’ and even, somewhat discourteously, ‘wild nettle,’ because I was wild and I stung and you said that your hands burned and came out in a rash when they touched mine. That’s how you courted me. I think back to those times and feel dizzy or find myself blushing, because I am sure that I knew you the very first time I saw you, in the large hall on the ground floor of the house in Pistoia among those scrappy bits of furniture with their broken legs — I remember you were just showing the cardinal’s letter to my father and exchanging a few pleasantries with him, lying about something with considerable fluency. And I knew more about you at that moment than I did later, when conversation and social games hid your real nature from me. I knew everything about you at that first instant, and if there is anything I am ashamed of, or hide from myself in embarrassment, it’s the consequent period of our love, when you flirted with me using those names of animals and plants and stars, when you acted gallantly, when you were false and alien to me — it is that period that fills me with shame. You were a coward then, Giacomo, too much a coward to do as your heart commanded that first moment you saw me, before we had spoken a word to each other, before you started addressing me as ‘wild nettle’ or anything else. It is a great sin to be a coward. I can forgive you all those things the world will not forgive: your character, your weaknesses, your maliciousness, your boundless selfishness; I understand and wholly absolve you of all those, but I cannot forgive your cowardice. Why did you allow the duke of Parma to take possession of me, to buy me as you might a calf at the cattle market in Florence?… Why did you let me take up residence in strange palaces and foreign towns when you knew you were truly mine?… I woke at dawn on my wedding night and stretched out my hand looking for you. I was in Paris in a coach under the plane trees, on the stony road to Versailles, with the king on my right, and I didn’t answer when our cousin Louis addressed a question to me, because I imagined it was you sitting beside me and I wanted to show you something. And I asked myself continually: why is he such a coward when he knows we belong to each other? He is not afraid of knives or jails or poison or humiliation, so why should he fear me, his true love, his happiness?… I kept asking myself that. Then I understood. And now I know what I have to do, Giacomo — it is the reason I learned to write, and to do so much else that has nothing to do with pen and ink and paper. I learned everything because I love you. And now you should truly understand, my love, that when I say the words
I love you, I do not say them in a languishing or misty-eyed sort of way, but speak them aloud; that I shout them in your face like a command, like an accusation. Do you hear, Giacomo? I love you. I am not trifling with these words. I am addressing you like a judge, do you hear? I love you, therefore I have authority over you. I love you and therefore I demand that you take courage. I love you so I am starting again from the beginning. Even if I have to drag you from your orbit as if you were a star in the firmament I shall take you with me, I shall tear you from your natural place in the universe, remove you from the laws of your being and from the demands of your art because I love you. I am not asking you, Giacomo, I am accusing you: yes, I am accusing you of a capital crime. I am not inviting you to join a game, I am in no mood to dally or flirt with you, I am not making sheep’s eyes at you or melting with tender sighs. I am staring at you with anger, with fury: I look upon you as one looks at an enemy. I shall kidnap you for love, if not now, then later, nor will I let you off the leash for a single second, whatever borders you cross, however you try to flee me with the little serving maid at your side, the one that opened the doors for me, who started back into the shadows like a fawn that scents danger, sensing that under the man’s clothes I was a woman and a rival, for I sensed that she had something to do with you, too, that she was plotting with you against me, like all the other women. That is how life is and how it will continue to be. But I am stronger for my love. I tell you this directly, and I say it aloud, like a slap across your face, do you understand?… Do you hear?… I love you. I cannot help it. It is my fate to love you. I have loved you for five years, Giacomo, from the moment I saw you in the old garden in Pistoia, when you were telling that thumping lie, after which you called me ‘wild nettle’ and fought over me, stripped to the waist in the moonlight, at which point you fled and I despised you and loved you. I know you are afraid, are still afraid of me. Don’t try shutting your eyes under the mask, because I can see through the holes: yes, now at last I can see you beneath the mask, and your eyes, which were bright before, like a wild animal’s contemplating its prey, have clouded over, as if some veil or fog had descended on them. Your eyes are almost human now. Don’t shut your eyes or turn away, because I want you to know that I shall not let you go, however complicated an agreement you have come to with the duke of Parma, because despite the agreement you remain the man that is meant for me, and I am the woman that is meant for you; we belong together like murderer and victim, like sinner and sin, like the artist and his art, as does everyone with the mission he would most like to escape. Don’t be afraid, Giacomo! It won’t hurt much! I must make you a gift of courage; I must teach you to be brave in facing yourself, facing us, the fact of us, a fact that may be sinful and scandalous, as is every true and naked fact in the world. Don’t be afraid, because I love you. Is that enough?…”