That painting on the wall is a portrait of my last Duchess. It is such a wonder that she looks like she is alive. Fra Pandolf worked really hard for a day to paint her. Would you like to sit and admire her? I mention Fra Pandolf on purpose because strangers like you do not see that face, the passion and fervour of its glance. I am the only one that sees those eyes (because I'm the only one that draws the curtain that I have drawn for you) and seem to ask me, if they dared, how those eyes ended up there. You are not the first to ask me that. Well, it was not only the presence of her husband what raised the colours of her cheeks. It was probably Fra Pandolf saying "the mantle laps over her wrists too much" or "painting must never ambition to reflect the thin flush that reaches your throat". She thought that it was a courtesy, and it was enough to make her flush.
She was a woman easy to impress. Se enjoyed anything he would see, and her gaze reached everything. It was all one! My favour at her breast, the sunset dropping daylight in the West, the bought of cherries some fool stole from an orchard for her, the white mule she rode around the terrace - all of this would receive a glance of approval or at least made her flush. She thanked men, somehow, as if she ranked my name and lineage with any other gift. But how could someone be mad for such a petty thing. That would be stooping. Even speaking frankly - which I did not do - and saying "this or that disgusts me". Even is she let herself be lectured and never put her intellect to the same level as ours and excuse herself, that would be stooping and I choose never to stoop.
She smiled whenever I passed her, but she smiled to everyone that passed. I gave orders and the smiles ended altogether. here she stands as if she were alive. Would you now stand and come with me. We will join the company below. I repeat that the Count's geneosity is a known warrant that no just pretense of mine for dowry will be disallowed, though her daughter, as I told you before, is my object. It is time to go down together, sir. But take a look at that Neptune taming a sea horse. It is a rare piece that Claus of Insbruck cast in bronze for me.
