“In truth, the old warrior was unable to disguise from himself, that in regard to his own person, years, disposition, and manners, he was by no means fitted to gain or retain the affections of a young beauty like Madonna Portia. On the other hand, he strove to encourage himself by reflecting on his own heroic achievements, and all that poets have written on the love and respect cherished by ladies for warlike valour and renown. Therefore he did not fail to relate often the history of his own exploits in the most brilliant colours to his young wife; and, moreover, to place books in her way, in which the same adventures were fairly recorded. It seemed to him, however, as if she read these volumes without any more lively interest than she would have felt for the wonders told of Hannibal, Scipio, or any other hero, who had been mouldering for centuries in the dust. Consequently he would, notwithstanding the weakness of his health, have tried to refresh his withering laurels by some new campaign, had it not been that his excessive jealousy would by no means permit him to remain long absent from his own house. Sometimes, indeed, he made young spirited horses be paraded at his castle, and mounted them in his wife’s presence, or shot at marks with a cross-bow, which no one but himself could have bent. Yet he could not help feeling, that he no longer shone in such exercises as he had done in his youthful days; while, as to the anxiety which Madonna Portia expressed for him, it was much more like that of a daughter for the safety of a weak old father, than of a wife dreading the loss of a beloved and too venturous husband. How much then must that inglorious combat with the assassins, and his rescue out of their hands by the interference of a handsome youth like Donatello, have wounded the old warrior’s pride! From that day he gradually endeavoured to break off the acquaintance; and as to inviting the young man to his house, that was now wholly out of the question.