“Angela!” He tried to speak calmly but his voice faltered.
It seemed to him that she took a long time to reach his bedside.
“Why … Giulio!” she whispered.
“Angela … come near to me.…”
She fell on her knees by the bed, and he put his face close to hers; he had to read the expression in her eyes, but she had lowered them. She was steeling herself to look. Lucrezia had prepared her. She could still hear Lucrezia’s unhappy urgent whisper: “Angela, do not let him know … wait until he is stronger. Look straight at him. Smile … do not flinch.”
But frivolous Angela had never learned to hide her feelings. She could not look; she dared not.
She felt his hands on her face; he had grasped her chin and was forcing her to look.
She stared; she flinched; she could not hide the horror in her eyes, for instead of handsome Giulio a hideous mask was staring at her, a travesty of a face, cruely battered, the left eye enormously swollen, the right lidless, and in vain did she try to suppress the shudder which ran through her.
He released her as through she were some poisonous animal. He lay back on his pillows, his head turned away from her.
“You … you will get better, Giulio,” she stammered.
He answered her: “All the money in the world, all the justice in the world, will not buy me a new face, Angela.”
She tried to laugh, and he hated her laughter. He hated her weakness and the hurt she had given him. Ippolito had not only robbed him of his beauty but of Angela. He had removed handsome and charming Giulio from the world, and put a hideous misanthrope in his place.
She seemed to shrink from the bed. She talked about the child, but he had no interest in the child, for what would the child do when confronted with the creature he had become? Turn away in horror. Everyone would do that in future.
“Holy Mother of God,” he cried out suddenly in his anguish, “you too were cruel to me. You should have let me die.”
Angela had one desire; it was for escape.
“I will come again, Giulio,” she said.
But he shook his head and would not look at her. She went and he knew she would never come again—not the Angela who had loved him.
He could have wept, but how could a man, mutilated as he was, shed tears? Tears would have eased his pain, but there was no comfort.
The door had opened and someone else had come into the room.
“Go away,” he cried. “Go away from me. You cannot deceive me. I am hideous … hideous … and it is embarrassing you all to look at me. Do not come with your lies. Do not tell me I shall be myself once more. I am fit for nothing but to be put into a cage and wheeled through the streets, that people may come from their houses to laugh at me … to stone me.…”
“Giulio … Giulio … this is unworthy of you.”
He was held in a pair of strong arms; he was embraced; someone was kissing his scars.
“Ferrante!” he said. “So you came, brother.”
“I came, you old villain. I have been here several days. They would not let me see you. ‘Not see my old friend Giulio!’ I cried. ‘Know you not that he is my brother and that he and I have been together in adventures, so mad that we would not dare speak of them to any other?’ ”
“Those days are over.”
“Never.”
“Look at my face, Ferrante. Now don’t tell me that I am as handsome as ever or that I will be, that everything will be just as it was if I am a good boy and take my medicine.”
Ferrante took his brother’s face in his hands. There was no shrinking in those strong hands, no faltering in the gaze which met his.
“Giulio,” he said, “I am your handsome brother now. There are scars on your face which will never be healed.”
“I have the truth from you, brother.”
“Did you doubt you’d get it? Listen, Giulio, the women are not going to lose their virtue to you so readily in the future. But perhaps they will. There is Strozzi, the cripple. The ladies seem very fond of him. Who can account for women?”
“Ferrante, you seek to cheer me. I am hideous, a monstrosity. You admit it.”
“It’s true, brother. But you’ll grow used to it. You must accept what is.”
“Ferrante, tell me, do you hate to look at me?”
“Fool of a brother, I never loved you for your beautiful eyes. I never loved the long lashes, the red lips. No, it was brother Giulio whom I loved. He is the same.”
“Ferrante!”
“Come, come … no dramatic scenes, I beg of you. I was always bad at them. I shall stay here, Giulio, until you are fully recovered. You and I have much to talk of. Alfonso is our good brother. By God, Ippolito is going to pay for this.”
“Ferrante, brother … stay with me. Life seems suddenly bearable.”
Then Ferrante embraced his half-brother once more and Giulio releasing himself said: “There are tears in your eyes, brother. There would be in mine were that possible. But what is there to weep about? I thought I had lost all that made my life worth while. I was a fool, Ferrante, to have forgotten that my life still held you.”
Lucrezia, a close witness of Giulio’s tragedy, forgot her own sorrows in contemplating it. She believed that more trouble was brewing. Alfonso would never bring Ippolito to justice, and in the dark room of pain where Ferrante was a frequent visitor plans for vengeance were discussed. Lucrezia knew that it was only these plans which gave poor tortured Giulio a reason for living.
As for Angela, who was terrified of having to look at her once handsome lover because his distorted face filled her with horror, Lucrezia believed that the kindest thing she could do was to get the girl married and away from Ferrara.
She had arranged for the care of the child of that tragic love affair even as her father had arranged for her own child, the Infante Romano, the fruit of another such tragic love affair.
Alfonso was helpful in this matter and eventually a bridegroom was found for Angela in Alessandro Pio, Lord of Sassuolo, who held a small territory.
Angela was excited at the prospect of marriage and escape from Giulio, and became absorbed in accumulating her trousseau. Lucrezia bought a dress of cloth of gold for the girl to wear at her wedding and was glad when the ceremony was over and Angela had gone away, though she missed her for, frivolous as she was the girl had been amusing and absolutely loyal to Lucrezia.
It was a long time before she could bring herself to tell Giulio that Angela had married and gone away.
Lucrezia intercepted Alfonso on his way to Giulio’s apartment. “Alfonso,” she cried, “I must speak to you … about Giulio.”
Alfonso studied his wife. He supposed she was very beautiful; he had heard it said that she was; it was a pity she was not his type. He liked fleshy women. Not that he was averse to doing his duty by her; but it did seem as though she was going to prove disappointingly infertile.
“Something must be done for Giulio,” she said.
Alfonso raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“All these weeks have passed and there is no attempt to administer justice. This harbors dangerous thoughts in Giulio … in Ferrante.”
“So they are plotting together!”
“They do not plot. They fret for justice.”
“You are a fool,” he said, “if you think I can afford to estrange Ippolito.”
“You mean you will shrug your shoulders at what he has done?”
“You speak of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. I could not show favor to a bastard at his expense.”
“Favor! I did not suggest favor. Only justice.”
Alfonso looked exasperated and Lucrezia for once abandoned her serenity. “Oh, I know I am only a woman,” she cried. “I am here to bear children … nothing more. But I tell you this, Alfonso; if you do not administer justice in some form you will have trouble between your brothers.”