Part 12 (1/2)
Fancy the state of the poor d.u.c.h.ess! She received this letter just before she went, for the first time, with Vittoria, to hear Ochino preach; and however attentive he might have thought her, she was in fact thinking of the lawyer's letter all the while, and writing imaginary letters to the Pope and the Emperor. For, Giulia had overpowering allies; and if her sweet nature were sufficiently stirred to call them to her succour, woe unto those who attacked her! This had been exemplified immediately after the Duke's death, when his kinsmen, Ascanio Colonna and Napoleone Orsini, taking advantage of her supposed helplessness, laid claim to his estates. Up in arms were the Pope and the Emperor directly. The Pope p.r.o.nounced the will valid, and the Emperor put her in possession of her estates. Yet, now, here was the whole matter to go over again, and with some one much nearer and dearer!
Giulia had a fit of crying; and the humid eyes and dejected mien which Ochino and Valdes attributed to her convictions of sin were traceable to a much lower source.
”How well dear Ochino laboured the point of justification by faith!”
exclaimed Vittoria, after their return from church. ”Did you ever hear it better demonstrated?”
”To say the truth, dear Vittoria,” replied the d.u.c.h.ess, ”I scarcely heard two words of it, and do not remember one.”
The Marchioness looked shocked; but Giulia continued--
”Isabella threatens me with a lawsuit, and I am determined to write to the Pope about it.”
”Oh, pray do not,” cried Vittoria, ”you are always a great deal too violent. You use such extraordinarily strong measures when mild ones would do.”
”_I_, violent? Why, that is the last thing I am! It is because I am unprotected that people trample on me!”
”Trample! O, my dear Giulia!”
”Why, only remember how Ascanio and Napoleone came down upon me directly my poor Duke was dead!”
”Yes, and only remember how _you_ came down upon them. You raised the whole country about it. No one less than the Pope and the Emperor would serve your turn.”
”Well, and did not they say I was right? and did not they take my part?”
”Truly they did!--but it does not follow that they would do so again.
Men are apt to fly to the rescue, directly they think a helpless woman is oppressed; but if they find out she is able and willing to fight her own battles, they let her! And indeed, dear Giulia, it does not become a woman to be pugnacious.”
”Pugnacious!” The word was highly offensive, and the d.u.c.h.ess was deeply hurt. She threw herself on a pile of cus.h.i.+ons and began to tear a nosegay to pieces, without saying a word.
”Hear what St. Paul says,” pursued Vittoria, sitting down beside her, and turning over the leaves of a little book.
”St. Paul knows nothing about it,” muttered the d.u.c.h.ess.
”There you are quite mistaken,” said Vittoria, still eagerly hunting up the pa.s.sage, ”St. Paul knew something about everything, for he was a great genius and an eminently practical man, besides being a holy apostle. This is what he says--'Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?... I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you?
No? Not one, that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers! Now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do not ye rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?'”
”That is very fine for St. Paul to say,” said Giulia. ”I wonder how he would have liked it himself.”
”Giulia! you must not say such things as that. It is wicked.”
”Why, to hear you talk, one would think it was I who wanted to go to law with Isabella; whereas, it is Isabella who wants to go to law with _me_!”
And Giulia began to cry.
”n.o.body is so unfortunate as I,” said she.
”I pity you,” said Vittoria, ”but I own I think you are blameworthy.”
”In what?”