I stepped into a grated tribune above a chapel festooned with stucco. Pictures of bituminous saints mouldered between the pilasters; the artificial roses in the altar-vases were gray with dust and age, and under the cobwebby rosettes of the vaulting a bird’s nest clung. Before the altar stood a row of tattered arm-chairs, and I drew back at sight of a figure kneeling near them. “The Duchess,” the old man whispered. “By the Cavaliere Bernini.” It was the image of a woman in furred robes and spreading fraise, her hand lifted, her face addressed to the tabernacle. There was a strangeness in the sight of that immovable presence locked in prayer before an abandoned shrine. Her face was hidden, and I wondered whether it were grief or gratitude that raised her hands and drew her eyes to the altar, where no living prayer joined her marble invocation. I followed my guide down the tribune steps, impatient to see what mystic version of such terrestrial graces the ingenious artist had found--the Cavaliere was master of such arts. The Duchess’s attitude was one of transport, as though heavenly airs fluttered her laces and the love-locks escaping from her coif. I saw how admirably the sculptor had caught the poise of her head, the tender slope of the shoulder; then I crossed over and looked into her face--it was a frozen horror. Never have hate, revolt and agony so possessed a human countenance.... The old man crossed himself and shuffled his feet on the marble. “The Duchess Violante,” he repeated. “The same as in the picture?” “Eh--the same.” “But the face--what does it mean?” He shrugged his shoulders and turned deaf eyes on me. Then he shot a glance round the sepulchral place, clutched my sleeve and said, close to my ear: “It was not always so.” “What was not?” “The face--so terrible.” “The Duchess’s face?” “The statue’s. It changed after--“ “After?” “It was put here.” “The statue’s face _changed_--?” He mistook my bewilderment for incredulity and his confidential finger dropped from my sleeve. “Eh, that’s the story. I tell what I’ve heard. What do I know?” He resumed his senile shuffle across the marble. “This is a bad place to stay in--no one comes here. It’s too cold. But the gentleman said, _I must see everything_!” I let the _lire_ sound. “So I must--and hear everything. This story, now--from whom did you have it?” His hand stole back. “One that saw it, by God!” “That saw it?” “My grandmother, then. I’m a very old man.” “Your grandmother? Your grandmother was--?” “The Duchess’s serving girl, with respect to you.” “Your grandmother? Two hundred years ago?”