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 noble-souled 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. From Monna
Giuliana the young painter heard the curious story of my having been
vowed prenatally to the cloister by my mother, learnt her name and mine,
and the hope that was entertained that I should walk in the ways of St.
Augustine after whom I had been christened.

It happened that he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a
fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having
seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion
of using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and
daily for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; and all the
time Monna Giuliana would be with us, deeply interested in his work.

That picture he eventually transferred to his fresco, and there--O
bitter irony!--you may see me to this day, as the saint in whose ways it
was desired that I should follow.

Monna Giuliana and I would linger together in talk after the painter had
gone; and this would be at about the time that I had my first lessons
of Curial life from my Lord Gambara. You will remember that he mentioned
Boccaccio to me, and I chanced to ask her was there in the