“Yes, sister. Your face becomes clearer to me as I look.”
“Then we must rejoice, for you are not to lose your sight.”
“Angela?” he asked.
“The child has been born,” she told him. “We have kept it a secret. Do not worry. Foster parents have been found. They will be well paid, and perhaps in a short time you will be able to claim the child.”
“I see that you have looked after us both, Lucrezia,” he said emotionally.
“It was my pleasure to do so.”
“Has Alfonso been here?”
“No.”
“He will see justice done,” cried Giulio. “I know Alfonso to be a just man.”
Lucrezia was silent, and Giulio went on: “All Ferrara shall know that Alfonso will not allow any—even the great Cardinal Ippolito d’Este—to deal thus with me.”
“Angela is waiting to see you,” said Lucrezia. “And Giulio, there is another. Ferrante is here.”
He smiled: Lucrezia forced herself to hide the repulsion which the smile aroused in her, for it made the poor mutilated face grotesque.
“Ferrante!” he said. “He was always my friend.”
“Poor Ferrante!” said Lucrezia. “You will have to comfort him. He is both furious and heartbroken.”
“On my account,” whispered Giulio. “It would be thus with Ferrante.”
“I will send Angela to you,” Lucrezia told him, and she left him.
He felt the sweat on his face. He was terrified. Why was there no mirror in his room? Why was he not allowed to see himself? He had cared so much for his looks; he had swaggered before his servants in his fine garments; he had extorted flattery from them. And now?
Angela was in the room. She stood by the door and although he could not see her clearly he sensed her hesitation.
“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