, "If you have confidence in me,
you need not stand in fear of anything whatever." I recommenced,
"Alas! my lord, what can prevent this coming to the ears of the
Duchess?" The Duke lifted his hand in sign of troth pledge and
exclaimed, "Be assured that what you say will be buried in a diamond
casket." To this engagement upon honor I replied by telling the truth
according to my judgment, namely, that the pearls were not worth above
two thousand crowns. The Duchess, thinking we had stopped talking, for
we now were speaking in as low a voice as possible, came forward and
began as follows:--"My lord, do me the favor to purchase this
necklace, because I have set my heart on them, and your Benvenuto here
has said he never saw a finer row of pearls." The Duke replied, "I do
not choose to buy them."--"Why, my lord, will not your Excellency
gratify me by buying them?"--"Because I do not care to throw my money
out of the window." The Duchess recommenced, "What do you mean by
throwing your money away, when Benvenuto, in whom you place such
well-merited confidence, has told me that they would be cheap at over
three thousand crowns?" Then the Duke said, "My lady! my Benvenuto
here has told me that if I purchase this necklace I shall be throwing
my money away, inasmuch as the pearls are neither round nor
well-matched, and some of them are quite faded. To prove that this is
so, look here! look there! consider this one and then that. The
necklace is not the sort of thing for me." At these words the Duchess
cast a glance of bitter spite at me, and retired with a threatening
nod of her head in my direction. I felt tempted to pack off at once
and bid farewell to Italy. Yet my Perseus being all but finished, I
did not like to leave without exposing it to public view. But I ask
every one to consider in what a grievous plight I found myself!

HOW BENVENUTO LOST HIS BROTHER

From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation

My brother at this period was also in Rome, serving Duke Alessandro,
on whom the Pope had recently conferred the duchy of Penna. This
prince kept in his service a multitude of soldiers, worthy fellows,
brought up to valor in the school of that famous general Giovanni de'
Medici; and among these was my brother, whom the Duke esteemed as
highly as the bravest of them. One day my brother went after dinner to
the shop of a man called Baccino della Croce, in the Banchi, which all
those men-at-arms frequented. He had flung him