When both visitors were there his anxiety seemed less. But if only one
were present he would give himself no peace. And once when Messer Gambara
and she went together within doors, he abruptly interrupted my studies,
saying that it was enough for that day; and he went below to join them.
Half a year earlier I should have had no solution for his strange
behaviour. But I had learnt enough of the world by now to perceive what
maggot was stirring in that egg-shaped head. Yet I blushed for him, and
for his foul and unworthy suspicions. As soon would I have suspected the
painted Madonna from the brush of Raffaele Santi that I had seen over the
high altar of the Church of San Sisto, as suspect the beautiful and
noblesouled Giuliana of giving that old pedant cause for his uneasiness.
Still, I conceived that this was the penalty that such a withered growth of
humanity must pay for having presumed to marry a young wife.
We were much together in those days, Monna Giuliana and I. Our intimacy
had grown over a little incident that it were well I should mention.
A young painter, Gianantonio Regillo, better known to the world as Il
Pordenone, had come to Piacenza that summer to decorate the Church of Santa
Maria della Campagna. He came furnished with letters to the Governor, and
Gambara had brought him to Fifanti's villa.
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