Any one who could have found courage enough to study him, would have seen his history written by base passions on this noble clay degraded to mud. Here was the man of high birth, who, rich from his earliest youth, had given up his body to debauchery for the sake of extravagant enjoyment. And debauchery had destroyed the human being and made another after its own image. Thousands of bottles of wine had disappeared under the purple archway of that preposterous nose, and left their dregs on his lips. Long and slow digestion had destroyed his teeth. His eyes had grown dim under the lamps of the gaming table. The blood tainted with impurities had vitiated the nervous system. The expenditure of force in the task of digestion had undermined his intellect. Finally, amours had thinned his hair. Each vice, like a greedy heir, had stamped possession on some part of the living body. Those who watch nature detect her in jests of the shrewdest irony. For instance, she places toads in the neighborhood of flowers, as she had placed this man by the side of this rose of love. “Will you play the violin this evening, my dear Duke?” asked the woman, as she unhooked a cord to let a handsome curtain fall over the door. “Play the violin!” thought Prince Emilio. “What can have happened to my palazzo? Am I awake? Here I am, in that woman’s bed, and she certainly thinks herself at home--she has taken off her cloak! Have I, like Vendramin, inhaled opium, and am I in the midst of one of those dreams in which he sees Venice as it was three centuries ago?” The unknown fair one, seated in front of a dressing-table blazing with wax lights, was unfastening her frippery with the utmost calmness. “Ring for Giulia,” said she; “I want to get my dress off.” At that instant, the Duke noticed that the supper had been disturbed; he looked round the room, and discovered the Prince’s trousers hanging over a chair at the foot of the bed. “Clarina, I will not ring!” cried the Duke, in a shrill voice of fury. “I will not play the violin this evening, nor tomorrow, nor ever again--” “Ta, ta, ta, ta!” sang Clarina, on the four octaves of the same note, leaping from one to the next with the ease of a nightingale. “In spite of that voice, which would make your patron saint Clara envious, you are really too impudent, you rascally hussy!” “You have not brought me up to listen to such abuse,” said she, with some pride. “Have I brought you up to hide a man in your bed? You are unworthy alike of my generosity and of my hatred--” “A man in my bed!” exclaimed Clarina, hastily looking round. “And after daring to eat our supper, as if he were at home,” added the Duke. “But am I not at home?” cried Emilio. “I am the Prince of Varese; this palace is mine.” As he spoke, Emilio sat up in bed, his handsome and noble Venetian head framed in the flowing hangings.