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Lucrezia.
    “You will be cold, standing there,” she said. “Come into my bed. You are no longer a child, Lucrezia. Why, you will soon be ten. You will soon have lovers of your own. There! That is better, is it not? Now, let me tell you this. The Cardinal is my lover. He says I am the most beautiful womanin the world. Woman , you understand, Lucrezia. And soon I shall marry Orsino. But who cares for Orsino! Not I. Nor the Cardinal.”
    “Madonna Adriana cares for him.”
    “Yes. Indeed yes. That is why she is contented that I should please the Cardinal. My family is contented also, Lucrezia.”
    “Contented! But how can that be when you are to marry Orsino?”
    “Yes, yes. And it is a good match. The Farnese and the Orsini will be united, and that is good. One cannot marry a Cardinal … alas … alas!”
    “If Cardinals could marry, my father would have married my mother.”
    Giulia nodded. Then she went on: “You must not be sorry for Orsino. I told you his mother is contented that I am the Cardinal’s mistress. I told you that, did I not?”
    “But she is a good woman. We have thought her harsh, but we must admit that she is good.”
    “Lucrezia, you live in a world of childhood and it is time you left it. Adriana is glad that the Cardinal loves me. She helps me dress when he is coming, helps to make me beautiful. And what does she say when she helps me dress? She says: ‘Do not forget that you will be Orsino’s wife before long. Get the Cardinal to agree to advance Orsino. He has great influence at the Vatican. Make sure that you squeeze the greatest good from this … for yourself and Orsino.’ ”
    “So she is pleased that you and my father are lovers?”
    “Nothing could delight her more. She makes everything easy for us.”
    “And you so soon to marry her son!”
    Giulia laughed. “You see, you do not know the world. If I were to have a love affair with a groom … ah, then I should be beaten. I should be in disgrace, and he, poor fellow, would doubtless have a sword run through him one dark night, or be found in the Tiber with a stone about his neck. But my lover is a great Cardinal and when men of influence love as he loves me then all gather round to catch some of the prizes. That is life.”
    “Then Adriana with all her prayers and sternness, all her righteousness, is not a good woman after all!”
    “Good and bad, little Lucrezia, what are they? It is only little children who have sentimental notions such as yours. The Cardinal is happy to love me; I am happy to be his mistress. And Orsino’s family and my family arehappy because of the great good I can bring to them. Orsino? He does not count, but one might say even he is happy because it means that he will not have to make love to me, which—unnatural monster that he is—I do not believe he is at all eager to do!”
    Lucrezia was silent for a while, thinking more of Adriana than anyone else: Adriana solemnly on her knees before the Madonna and the lamp; Adriana, lips pursed, murmuring, “One must do this because, however unpleasant, it is one’s duty” Adriana, who made one feel that the saints were continually on the watch, recording the slightest fault to be held against one at the day of Judgment, the good woman, who was willing to allow the illicit love affair, between a man of fifty-eight and her prospective daughter-in-law of fourteen, to be conducted in her house, and moreover connived at it and encouraged it because it could bring honors to her son.
    Honors! It was necessary, Lucrezia realized, to make a reassessment of words and their meanings.
    She was indeed a child; there was much that she had to learn; and she was very eager to grow out of childhood, a state in which it seemed innocence was synonymous with folly.

    Giulia had married Orsino, and the ceremony had taken place in the Borgia palace, the first of the witnesses to sign the marriage documents being Roderigo Borgia.
    The married couple returned to Monte