"Luciana da Parma", a story by Robert Wexelblatt.

 

3.

            Luciana and her mother had never been close, certainly not friends. Luciana had been an unexpected child, and her birth had been both painful and perilous. The Duchess preferred her boys who were so much more pliable, sympathetic, and resembled her.  “Well,” she’d said when her sister commented on her obvious partiality, “who doesn’t prefer boys?”  The Duchess was used to her sons doing what she and her husband told them to do.  Not so Luciana.  It would be saying too much to call their relations hostile; they were only inimical.  The Duchess deplored her daughter’s independence, her excessive love of reading, daring and tasteless jokes and shocking declarations in company.  But she had tired of remonstrating with Luciana.  That her husband indulged their daughter in everything made matters worse.  The Duchess was therefore relieved to turn Luciana over to Signor Polacchio.  However, at this important moment the tutor was off in Modena and the Duke in Rome.  The Duchess considered that it might be prudent to do something about Luciana’s little romance with d’Ostiglia.  However, as she wasn’t eager to confront her daughter, she decided to have a word with the boy’s father instead.
            The old soldier took it calmly enough, though he added impertinently that the good Lady might do well to sing the same tune to her daughter.  The Duchess pulled herself up and replied sharply, “My daughter will of course do as she is told.”
            But would she?  The Duchess was not at all confident she would.  Did she ever?  It was inconsiderate of the Duke to have gone to Rome, ostensibly to pull the strings that would raise somebody’s nephew from a monsignor to a cardinal.  More likely he’s with the Papal whores, she thought, though without bitterness.  It was decades since she had accepted her husband’s dalliances.  Indeed, like all the married women of her acquaintance, she considered them inconsequential and natural.
            The words of the condottiero stuck with her.  Insolent he may  have been but he wasn’t wrong.  She valued peace, particularly in the family.  For its sake she refrained from being disagreeable with her husband and had ceased testing her will against her daughter’s.  For the sake of peace she would speak to the girl. 
            They sat on chairs in the parental bedchamber.
            “Put an end to this flirtation.  Your duty is to do as your father says, child.”
            “Did you?”
            “What?”
            “Did you do as your father said?”
            “My marriage to your father—”
            “Yes, I know.  Back then it was Urbino and Parma, Parma and Modena now. Reasons of state.  The incest of the best families.  Yes, but wasn’t Father supposed to marry Aunt Giulietta?”
            The Duchess felt her stomach seize up.  She had been sure the children knew nothing of the story.  “Who told you that?”
            “I know the tale, Mother.  It’s a good one, splendid, really.  A confusion of identities.  What they call a comedy of errors, as in that play by Plautus.”
            “Plautus?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
            Luciana went on equably.  “Father mistook you for Giulietta and you didn’t correct him because you’d fallen in love him at first sight.  And he with you.  The Montefeltros are a romantic lot, aren’t they?  You begged your father until he gave in to you—I’m told you swooned.  Then he made a still better match for Aunt Giulietta.  A Medici!”
            The Duchess was more shocked than angry.  The conversation had gone all wrong, and she wasn’t sure what to say.
            Luciana filled the void.  “You married for love, Mother, though you would like me to think otherwise.  Not to worry.  So far as I can see, it did you little good.”  Luciana sighed.  “Either way, love left the table while duty stayed for the sweet.  So, you see, I require no further lesson.  Reasons of state or reasons of the heart—both are dangerous.”
            The Duchess dabbed her handkerchief to her eyes.  “You are terrible!”
            Luciana got to her feet and curtseyed prettily.  “I’m merely trying to keep my head, Mother.”
            The Duchess pointed a finger at her daughter.  “Remember.  When the time comes, you will do as your father tells you.”
            “And so we end where we began.  Addio, Mama.” With that, Luciana gave a second, deeper curtsey, turned her back, and left the parental bedroom.
           

4.

            Luciana and her tutor sat at the big table in the library.  The day was sultry and still. Outside, the mulberry leaves hung dejectedly from the branches.  
            Polacchio had returned without anything being settled.  Modena was interested—more than interested—but not yet prepared to commit.  Evidently other negotiations were still in train.
            “I met a brace of ambassadors from Siena who dressed like Frenchmen. And there was a most distinguished Pisan. Charming fellows all.”
            “Who was the distinguished gentleman from Pisa?”
            “Giovanni Bragello.  He wrote a fine study of Roman villas and their gardens.”
            “Bragello?  Isn’t he the architect of the Villa Spirozzi in Firenze?”
            “The same.”
             “Ah.  Someone showed me an engraving.  It’s quite beautiful.”
            “And already being imitated.”
            Luciana put a finger thoughtfully to her lip. “Why is it, Signor, that when beauty and truth are imitated they cease to be themselves?”
            Polacchio chuckled.  He was happy to be reunited with his witty pupil, just as he had been happy in Modena where, it seemed to him, everybody knew his book and admired it too. In addition, it appeared that ambassadors eat and sleep better than tutors.  Both bed and board had been superb, the heavenly vinegar, of course, but also the divine prosciutto crudo. 
            “Anyway, it’s just as well the bargain wasn’t struck.  My father isn’t back from Rome.”
            “I’m informed he’ll be here before the week’s out.  I have hopes of a definite answer from Modena by then.”
            Luciana looked into her lap.  “I see.”
            They were quiet for a moment, tutor examining his student as she turned her gaze on her father’s mulberry tree.
            “Signor Polacchio, may we talk seriously?”
            “It would make a change,” he joked.
            “You see, it’s that I’m uncertain.”
            “Might a portion of this uncertainty have to do with Guido d’Ostiglia?”
            She pouted just the way she had when she was little and answered like a child too.  “A little.  Not only.”
            “You haven’t asked me about the Duke of Modena’s son.”
            “No,” she said, as if surprised herself.  “All I know is that his name is Sandro.”
            “He’s not like Guido.”
            “Oh?”
            “He has, I think, other qualities.”
            “I notice you say qualities, not virtues.”
            “He is shorter than d’Ostiglia and less broad in the chest, and he is fair rather than dark.  He dresses far more simply than your swain and he is more studious.  They say he’s very good at mathematics and knows Greek.  He has a slight stutter, very slight.  He is polite and modest; I found him sympathetic.”
            “Does he want to be married?”
            Polacchio offered one of his shrugs, as if to say, as much as you.
            Luciana rose impatiently and began to pace.
            “Signor, what do you think I ought to do?”
            “Me?”
            “Why not you?”
            “My Lady, it’s hardly my place.”
             “Oh, your place.” Exasperated, she stamped her foot, though lightly.
            “Very well.  You can take what I have to say for the little it’s worth.  But know that my opinion’s founded chiefly on my estimation of your character.”
            “Do I even have such a thing?”
            “You said we were to be serious.”
            “I apologize.  It’s my. . . my character to tease, I suppose.”
            Polacchio made that familiar noise of his and waited for her to sit down.  She crossed her arms.
            “Go on, man.  Speak.”
            “Guido’s a good lad.  Healthy and passionate.  He’s in love with you or, at least, infatuated.  He’s strong and a little vain.  He is much like his father—and also yours.”
            “I think I understand.”
            “Do you?  Good.  Well, I had the impression that Sandro is also a good boy, but far weaker.  He’s religious without being excessively pious, and he is accustomed to being ruled by his mother.”
            “Yes?”
            Polacchio put his hands together.  “Epicurus says it is better to be unfortunate through a reasonable action than to prosper in unreason; better that an action should be well chosen and fail than that it should be successful owing to chance.  So, my Lady, let’s consider things dispassionately.  A marriage to d’Ostiglia would ruin your relations with your family.  Moreover, being based on passion the union will be more precarious than one founded on duty.  I’ve no doubt Guido would swear to be faithful but, like his father, and yours, he’s more apt to follow passion than duty.”
            “Duty!  There speaks the Stoic.”
            “The Stoics had good marriages.”
            “Not your bachelor Epictetus.  You see, I haven’t forgotten that story you told me about how one day the old philosopher was haranguing his students about their duty to marry and reproduce themselves.  What was the name of that wisecracker who piped up?  Demonax?  Yes, it was Demonax who asked, ‘Tell me, Master, which of your daughters may I wed?’”
            Polacchio raised his hands.  “May I continue, please?”
            “By all means, since you too are a bachelor.”
            “Should the marriage with Modena be arranged I believe it will have more benefits than you suppose.  It will please your father, of course.  If properly managed, it will serve the interests of both Parma and Modena in deterring Milan.”
            “I know all this.”
            “Those are just the immediate benefits, true.  But I am also thinking of the longer perspective—with respect, a difficult thing to do at your age.  Consider: if I am right in my judgment of him then, to govern, Sandro will need to be governed, and he is already used to doing what a woman tells him.”
            “You’re promising me power?”
            “I promise nothing.  However, I’m thinking less of the satisfactions of power than the frustrations of impotence.  The wife of Guido d’Ostiglia will never be anything more than that.  The Duchess of Modena, on the other hand, will have. . . let us say some scope for her talents which, in your case, are very considerable indeed.”
            Luciana looked at her tutor skeptically.  “Flattery?  From you, Signor?”
            Polacchio raised his eyebrows, stroked his short beard, and shrugged.

 

To Part 4 of Luciana's story