Volume I Part 30 (1/2)
”Yes, madam, and I have had the honour to return it to his eminence I have found it so perfect that I areat deal of time”
”Time?” exclaimed the cardinal; ”Oh! you do not know thecan be done ithout time, and that is why I have not dared to chew to your eminence an answer to the sonnet which I have written in half an hour”
”Let us see it, abbe,” said the marchioness; ”I want to read it”
”Answer of Silesia to Love” This title brought theblushes on her countenance ”But Love is not mentioned in the sonnet,”
exclaimed the cardinal ”Wait,” said the marchioness, ”we must respect the idea of the poet:”
She read the sonnet over and over, and thought that the reproaches addressed by Silesia to Love were very just She explainedhi been conquered by the King of Prussia
”Ah, I see, I see!” exclaimed the cardinal, full of joy; ”Silesia is a wo of Prussia Oh! oh! that is really a fine idea!” And the good cardinal laughed heartily for more than a quarter of an hour ”I must copy that sonnet,” he added, ”indeed Imarchioness, ”will save you the trouble: I will dictate it to him”
I prepared to write, but his eminence suddenly exclaimed, ”My dear marchioness, this is wonderful; he has kept the same rhymes as in your own sonnet: did you observe it?”
The beautiful ave me then a look of such expression that she completed her conquest I understood that she wanted me to know the cardinal as well as she knew him; it was a kind of partnershi+p in which I was quite ready to play my part
As soon as I had written the sonnet under the char woman's dictation, I took my leave, but not before the cardinal had told me that he expected me to dinner the next day
I had plenty of work before ular character, and I lost no ti myself up in my room to think of them I had to keep my balance between two points of equal difficulty, and I felt that great care was indispensable I had to place the marchioness in such a position that she could pretend to believe the cardinal the author of the stanzas, and, at the same time, compel her to find out that I had written the it It was necessary to speak so carefully that not one expression should breathe even the faintest hope on my part, and yet to make my stanzas blaze with the ardent fire of my love under the thin veil of poetry As for the cardinal, I kneell enough that the better the stanzas ritten, the n them All I wanted was clearness, so difficult to obtain in poetry, while a little doubtful darkness would have been accounted sublih I wanted to please him, the cardinal was only a secondary consideration, and the handsome marchioness the principal object
As the marchioness in her verses had made a pompous enumeration of every physical and moral quality of his eminence, it was of course natural that he should return the cofull career to s I co stroke with these two beautiful lines froelicche bellezze nate al cielo Non si ponno celar sotto alcum velo
Rather pleased with my production, I presented it the next day to the cardinal,that I doubted whether he would accept the authorshi+p of so ordinary a composition He read the stanzas twice over without taste or expression, and said at last that they were indeed not much, but exactly what he wanted He thankedthat they would assist in throwing the authorshi+p upon himself, as they would prove to the lady for whom they were intended that he had not been able to write the
And, as to offerthe lines, he would take care to make a few mistakes in the rhythm to complete the illusion
We dined earlier than the day before, and I withdrew iive him leisure to make a copy of the stanzas before the arrival of the lady
The next evening I met the marchioness at the entrance of the palace, and offered her hted, she said to me,
”If ever your stanzas and mine become known in Rome, you may be sure of my enmity”
”Madam, I do not understand what you mean”
”I expected you to answer me in this manner,” replied the marchioness, ”but recollect what I have said”
I left her at the door of the reception-roory with me, I went away in despair ”My stanzas,” I said to nity, and her pride is offended at ue with Cardinal S