Question

Read this excerpt from “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning:

Answer 1

The most accurate inference we could make is option D, which alludes to the Count's (the speaker's) somber nature. In the poem, he tells about his former lady, who was seemingly easily amused. This, apparently, bothered him; how she smiled at virtually anything teased him to bits. So he "gave commands". Maybe he told her not to be so perky, maybe he had her killed, who knows? But the ambiguity around his statement and the fact that "all smiles stopped together" make us wonder about how far the Count would go to make his Duchess please him.