The Jewel Merchants. A Comedy in One Act

GUIDO It is a preposterous feature of Duke Alessandro's character that he is always making songs about some beautiful thing or another.

GRACIOSA Such strange songs, Guido! I was singing over one of them just before you came,—

    Let me have dames and damsels richly clad
      To feed and tend my mirth,
    Singing by day and night to make me glad—

But I could not quite understand it. Are his songs thought good?

GUIDO The songs of a reigning duke are always good.

GRACIOSA And is he as handsome as people report?

GUIDO Tastes differ, of course—

GRACIOSA And is he—?

GUIDO I have a portrait of the Duke. It does not, I think, unduly flatter him. Will you look at it?

GRACIOSA Yes, yes!

GUIDO (Drawing out a miniature on a chain.) Here is the likeness.

GRACIOSA But how should you—?

GUIDO (Seeing her surprise.) Oh, it was a gift to me from his highness for a special service I did him, and as such must be treasured.

GRACIOSA Perhaps, then, I shall see yon at court, Messer Guido, who are the friend of princes?

GUIDO If you do, I ask only that in noisy Florence you remember this quiet garden.

GRACIOSA (Looks at him silently, then glances at the portrait. She speaks with evident disappointment.) Is this the Duke?

GUIDO You may see his arms on it, and on the back his inscription.

GRACIOSA Yes, but—(looking at the portrait again)—but … he is … so …

GUIDO You are astonished at his highness' coloring? That he inherits from his mother. She was, you know, a blackamoor.

GRACIOSA And my sisters wrote me he was like a god!

GUIDO Such observations are court etiquette.

GRACIOSA (With an outburst of disgust.) Take it back! Though how can you bear to look at it, far less to have it touching you! And only yesterday I was angry because I had not seen the Duke riding past!

GUIDO Seen him! here! riding past!

GRACIOSA Old Ursula told me that the Duke had gone by with twenty men, riding down toward the convent at the border. And I flung my sewing-bag straight at her head because she had not called me.

GUIDO That was idle gossip, I fancy. The Duke rarely rides abroad without my— (he stops)—without my lavish patron Eglamore, the friend of all honest merchants.

GRACIOSA But that abominable Eglamore may have been with him. I heard nothing to the contrary.

GUIDO True, madonna, true. I had forgotten you did not see them.

GRACIOSA No. What is he like, this Eglamore? Is he as appalling to look at as the Duke?

GUIDO Madonna! but wise persons do not apply such adjectives to dukes. And wise persons do not criticize Count Eglamore's appearance, either, now that Eglamore is indispensable to the all- powerful Duke of Florence.

GRACIOSA Indispensable?

GUIDO It is thanks to the Eglamore whom you hate that the Duke has ample leisure to indulge in recreations which are reputed to be—curious.

GRACIOSA I do not understand you, Guido.

GUIDO That is perhaps quite as well. (Attempting to explain as much as is decently expressible.) To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke.

GRACIOSA Why?

GUIDO It interferes with the pursuit of all the beautiful things he asks for in that song.

GRACIOSA But how does that make Eglamore indispensable?

GUIDO Eglamore is an industrious person who affixes seals, and signs treaties, and musters armies, and collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro would be capable of doing