He asked me to sit down and look at his painting.
He called it his last Duchess.
He told me enthusiastically that the famous Frà Pandolf had painted him the picture of his departed first wife, speaking Pandolf’s name in a way that most people only speak of late artists…
He too seemed jealous Pandolf, as if he had been able to move the late Duchess in a way the he himself only could have dreamt of.
Now, however, he has put himself in complete control, as only he controls the curtains that reveal and cover her, making him sole decider of who may or may not move her!
He described how she was easy to joy, and how all but any man could please her, even those without a nine-hundred-year-old-name.
He described how she was easy to smile, and how he stopped those smiles altogether.
I fear he killed her, perhaps even Pandolf too.
He killed her and turned her into a work of art – in his possession and under his control, just like his bronze-statue of Neptune…Taming a sea horse.
Quite matter of fact retelling of the story from the marraige broker's point-of-view, but not too clear who he is telling it to, and why...
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