I did find it eerie how he spoke of his former wife the late Duchess. I had come to negotiate his marriage to yet another young girl from a prominent family, not very unlike the Duchess portrayed in the painting that he showed me with such strange enthusiasm. How alive she seemed to have been on the day the portrait had been painted, how her dark eyes sparkled with life, her cheeks blushing as with secret desire that must have been oozing from her body and surrounding the painter in a sweet embrace.
The Duke himself also noticed this blush of red on her young face and her told me angrily of her disgraceful behavior; he claimed in outrage that she had never appreciated his gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name and furthermore told me how she flirted with a number of men in the most dishonorable way. His indignation was blatantly obvious and Oh as he spoke I realized with horror the truth of the death of his late wife!
As we closed the deal on the life of another maiden, he showed to me another piece of artwork, leaving behind us the poor Duchess to being nothing but a faint glimpse of a young life lost and I thought to myself that no matter the amount of money in this man’s pockets, the splendor of his house and possessions, I took comfort in the thought that the girl about to leave her home to live with him was not my own daughter.
Interesting that the marriage broker does not feel the need to do more than wash his hands of the whole affair - this makes him culpable, doesn't it?
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