he would dispel the light clouds of her melancholy sadness
on the days when the skies should be overcast. Fashioning himself one
out of his imagination, he would throw himself at her feet, kiss,
fondle, caress, bite, and clasp her with as much reality as a prisoner
scampers over the grass when he sees the green fields through the bars
of his cell. Thus he would appeal to her mercy; overcome with his
feelings, would stop her breath with his embraces, would become daring
in spite of his respect, and passionately bite the clothes of his bed,
seeking this celestial lady, full of courage when by himself, but
abashed on the morrow if he passed one by. Nevertheless, inflamed by
these amorous advances, he would hammer way anew at his marble
figures, would carve beautiful breasts, to bring the water into one's
mouth at the sight of those sweet fruits of love, without counting the
other things that he raised, carved, and caressed with the chisels,
smoothed down with his file, and fashioned in a manner that would make
their use intelligible to the mind of a greenhorn, and stain his
verdure in a single day. The ladies would criticise these beauties,
and all of them were smitten with the youthful Cappara. And the
youthful Cappara would eye them up and down, swearing that the day one
of them gave him her little finger to kiss, he would have his desire.

Among these high-born ladies there came one day one by herself to the
young Florentine, asking him why he was so shy, and if none of the
court ladies could make him sociable. Then she graciously invited him
to come to her house that evening.

Master Angelo perfumes himself, purchases a velvet mantle with a
double fringe of satin, borrows from a friend a cloak with wide
sleeves, a slashed doublet, and silken hose, arrives at the house, and
ascends the stairs with hasty feet, hope beaming from his eyes,
knowing not what to do with his heart, which leaped and bounded like a
goat; and, to sum up, so much over head and ears in love, that the
perspiration trickled down his back.

You may be sure the lady was a beautiful, and Master Cappara was the
more aware of it, since in his profession he had studied the mouldings
of the arms, the lines of the body, the secret surroundings of the
sex, and other mysteries. Now this lady satisfied the especial rules
of art; and besides being fair and slender, she had a voice to disturb
life in its source, to stir fire of a heart, brain, and everything; i