My Last Duchess - Rewritten

The other day I experienced the oddest encounter with a Duke at his home. This is what happened:

He walked me down the hall, the Duke – with his squared shoulders in place and an impatient pace in his steps, though with a slight anticipating undertone. Down a darkened corridor we went – why was it so dark, I remember thinking. Only a dim light at the end of the long corridor I was able to see. Went past door after door after door – darkened wooden doors.

At the end of the hall he stopped, sighed and looked at me as to ask me if I was ready. Ready for what, I thought, because I had not got the slightest clue as to what I was about to see. Another sculpture perhaps – I had seen the extensive art collection when I walked through the door into the hall, but I could not figure out what kind of art he felt the need to hide away at the end of a darkened corridor with only one dim light.

I moved further down the corridor and went to stand beside him – a veil of some sort was hanging on the wall hiding something – a frame perhaps. He sighed again, but this time with a hint of pride in his face. So this was something he was proud of I thought and my curiosity awakened and I could now not wait to see what was hidden behind the veil.

He indicated for me to take a step back, not far back, but just so that I would be able to see what was behind the veil and close enough so I would not have to squint. With that he drew the veil to the side and I could then see the Duchess staring back at me. It was not a large portrait, but large enough for me to take a step back by the intensity of it – the eyes of the duchess were so intense that I could not help but feel that there was more to the story of the portrait that I was immediately led on from the Duke.

After staring at the portrait for no more than ten seconds the Duke spoke up for the first time since I entered the home no more than seven minutes ago. “My late wife, the Duchess”. I could feel the coldness in his words and a shiver ran down my spine, because my senses had been proved right – something about the portrait had something hidden.

The Duke then began to talk about his late wife and I could hear the bitterness in his tone when talking about her. His possessive nature shone through his speech and I was pretty sure that something about her death would soon come to the surface – a surface that was so close now and I realised that it never really had been that far from the surface before and the shiver that ran down my spine before spread to the rest of the body and I took yet another small step back from the portrait.

When the Duke then began talking about how she never smiled her beautiful smile for only him and not others, I was completely sure of my assumptions. The Duke had killed his wife in cold blooded murder, and he now had a portrait of her hanging on his wall, with a smile so big that was only for him and not others. On top of that I learned that it was the man with whom the Duchess was in love with who had painted the portrait and that only made the experience more surreal to me.

I could now clearly see the possessive nature of Duke – it shone out of him. He now began telling the tale of how he did not like how she, in his mind did not have much respect for him as a nobleman, as he felt that she should respect the family name. She should also have been caring for him more than any other thing and not have had her eyes wander other place – which was what lead to her death.

After revealing what displeased him about his late wife, he went on to tell a tale of his other arts in the house and not long after that, I was able to walk from the home of the Duke only remembering the surreal experience it was to look into the intense eyes of the Duke’s Last Duchess.