< 2 >
"To ring twice?"
"At the doctor's." The young man smiled. "It is the custom."
It was a dazzling March afternoon, with a shower of sun from the mid-blue, and a marshalling of slaty clouds behind the umbercolored hills.For nearly an hour Wyant loitered on the Lizza, watching the shadows race across the naked landscape and the thunder blacken in the west;then he decided to set out for the House of the Dead Hand. The map in his guidebook showed him that the Via Papa Giulio was one of the streets which radiate from the Piazza, and thither he bent his course, pausing at every other step to fill his eye with some fresh image of weather-beaten beauty. The clouds had rolled upward, obscuring the sunshine and hanging like a funereal baldachin above the projecting cornices of Doctor Lombard's street, and Wyant walked for some distance in the shade of the beetling palace fronts before his eye fell on a doorway surmounted by a sallow marble hand. He stood for a moment staring up at the strange emblem. The hand was a woman's -- a dead drooping hand, which hung there convulsed and helpless, as though it had been thrust forth in denunciation of some evil mystery within the house, and had sunk struggling into death.
A girl who was drawing water from the well in the court said that the English doctor lived on the first floor, and Wyant, passing through a glazed door, mounted the damp degrees of a vaulted stairway with a plaster AEsculapius mouldering in a niche on the landing. Facing the AEsculapius was another door, and as Wyant put his hand on the bell-rope he remembered his unknown friend's injunction, and rang twice.
His ring was answered by a peasant woman with a low forehead and small close-set eyes, who, after a prolonged scrutiny of himself, his card, and his letter of introduction, left him standing in a high, cold ante-chamber floored with brick. He heard her wooden pattens click down an interminable corridor, and after some delay she returned and told him to follow her.
< 3 >< 4 >
They passed through a long saloon, bare as the ante-chamber, but loftily vaulted, and frescoed with a seventeenth-century Triumph of Scipio or Alexander -- martial figures following Wyant with the filmed melancholy gaze of shades in limbo. At the end of this apartment he was admitted to a smaller room, with the same atmosphere of mortal cold, but showing more obvious signs of occupancy. The walls were covered with tapestry which had faded to the gray-brown tints of decaying vegetation, so that the young man felt as though he were entering a sunless autumn wood. Against these hangings stood a few tall cabinets on heavy gilt feet, and at a table in the window three persons were seated: an elderly lady who was warming her hands over a brazier, a girl bent above a strip of needle-work, and an old man.
As the latter advanced toward Wyant, the young man was conscious of staring with unseemly intentness at his small round-backed figure, dressed with ****by disorder and surmounted by a wonderful head, lean, vulpine, eagle-beaked as that of some artloving despot of the Renaissance: a head combining the venerable hair and large prominent eyes of the humanist with the greedy profile of the adventurer. Wyant, in musing on the Italian portrait-medals of the fifteenth century, had often fancied that only in that period of fierce individualism could types so paradoxical have been produced; yet the subtle craftsmen who committed them to the bronze had never drawn a face more strangely stamped with contradictory passions than that of Doctor Lombard.
"I am glad to see you," he said to Wyant, extending a hand which seemed a mere framework held together by knotted veins. "We lead a quiet life here and receive few visitors, but any friend of Professor Clyde's is welcome." Then, with a gesture which included the two women, he added dryly: "My wife and daughter often talk of Professor Clyde."
"Oh yes -- he used to make me such nice toast; they don't understand toast in Italy," said Mrs. Lombard in a high plaintive voice.
It would have been difficult, from Doctor Lombard's manner and appearance to guess his nationality; but his wife was so inconsciently and ineradicably English that even the silhouette of her cap seemed a protest against Continental laxities. She was a stout fair woman, with pale cheeks netted with red lines. A brooch with a miniature portrait sustained a bogwood watchchain upon her bosom, and at her elbow lay a heap of knitting and an old copy of The Queen.
< 5 >
The young girl, who had remained standing, was a slim replica of her mother, with an apple-cheeked face and opaque blue eyes. Her small head was prodigally laden with braids of dull fair hair, and she might have had a kind of transient prettiness but for the sullen droop of her round mouth. It was hard to say whether her expression implied ill-temper or apathy; but Wyant was struck by the contrast between the fierce vitality of the doctor's age and the inanimateness of his daughter's youth.
Seating himself in the chair which his host advanced, the young man tried to open the conversation by addressing to Mrs. Lombard some random remark on the beauties of Siena. The lady murmured a resigned assent, and Doctor Lombard interposed with a smile: "My dear sir, my wife considers Siena a most salubrious spot, and is favorably impressed by the cheapness of the marketing; but she deplores the total absence of muffins and cannel coal, and cannot resign herself to the Italian method of dusting furniture."
"But they don't, you know -- they don't dust it!" Mrs. Lombard protested, without showing any resentment of her husband's manner.
"Precisely -- they don't dust it. Since we have lived in Siena we have not once seen the cobwebs removed from the battlements of the Mangia. Can you conceive of such housekeeping? My wife has never yet dared to write it home to her aunts at Bonchurch."
Mrs. Lombard accepted in silence this remarkable statement of her views, and her husband, with a malicious smile at Wyant's embarrassment, planted himself suddenly before the young man.
"And now," said he, "do you want to see my Leonardo?"
" Do I?" cried Wyant, on his feet in a flash.
The doctor chuckled. "Ah," he said, with a kind of crooning deliberation, "that's the way they all behave -- that's what they all come for." He turned to his daughter with another variation of mockery in his smile. "Don't fancy it's for your beaux yeux, my dear; or for the mature charms of Mrs. Lombard," he added, glaring suddenly at his wife, who had taken up her knitting and was softly murmuring over the number of her stitches.
< 6 >
Neither lady appeared to notice his pleasantries, and he continued, addressing himself to Wyant: "They all come -- they all come; but many are called and few are chosen." His voice sank to solemnity."While I live," he said, "no unworthy eye shall desecrate that picture. But I will not do my friend Clyde the injustice to suppose that he would send an unworthy representative. He tells me he wishes a description of the picture for his book; and you shall describe it to him -- if you can."
Wyant hesitated, not knowing whether it was a propitious moment to put in his appeal for a photograph.
"Well, sir," he said, "you know Clyde wants me to take away all I can of it."
Doctor Lombard eyed him sardonically. "You're welcome to take away all you can carry," he replied; adding, as he turned to his daughter: "That is, if he has your permission, Sybilla."
The girl rose without a word, and laying aside her work, took a key from a secret drawer in one of the cabinets, while the doctor continued in the same note of grim jocularity: "For you must know that the picture is not mine -- it is my daughter's."
He followed with evident amusement the surprised glance which Wyant turned on the young girl's impassive figure.
"Sybilla," he pursued, "is a votary of the arts; she has inherited her fond father's passion for the unattainable. Luckily, however, she also recently inherited a tidy legacy from her grandmother; and having seen the Leonardo, on which its discoverer had placed a price far beyond my reach, she took a step which deserves to go down to history: she invested her whole inheritance in the purchase of the picture, thus enabling me to spend my closing years in communion with one of the world's masterpieces. My dear sir, could Antigone do more?"
The object of this strange eulogy had meanwhile drawn aside one of the tapestry hangings, and fitted her key into a concealed door.

< 7 >
"Come," said Doctor Lombard, "let us go before the light fails us."
Wyant glanced at Mrs. Lombard, who continued to knit impassively.
"No, no," said his host, "my wife will not come with us. You might not suspect it from her conversation, but my wife has no feeling for art -- Italian art, that is; for no one is fonder of our early Victorian school."
"Frith's Railway Station, you know," said Mrs. Lombard, smiling. "I like an animated picture."
Miss Lombard, who had unlocked the door, held back the tapestry to let her father and Wyant pass out; then she followed them down a narrow stone passage with another door at its end. This door was iron-barred, and Wyant noticed that it had a complicated patent lock. The girl fitted another key into the lock, and Doctor Lombard led the way into a small room. The dark panelling of this apartment was irradiated by streams of yellow light slanting through the disbanded thunder clouds, and in the central brightness hung a picture concealed by a curtain of faded velvet.
"A little too bright, Sybilla," said Doctor Lombard. His face had grown solemn, and his mouth twitched nervously as his daughter drew a linen drapery across the upper part of the window.
"That will do -- that will do." He turned impressively to Wyant. "Do you see the pomegranate bud in this rug? Place yourself there -- keep your left foot on it, please. And now, Sybilla, draw the cord."
Miss Lombard advanced and placed her hand on a cord hidden behind the velvet curtain.
"Ah," said the doctor, "one moment: I should like you, while looking at the picture, to have in mind a few lines of verse. Sybilla --"
Without the slightest change of countenance, and with a promptness which proved her to be prepared for the request, Miss Lombard began to recite, in a full round voice like her mother's, St. Bernard's invocation to the Virgin, in the thirty-third canto of the Paradise.
< 8 >
"Thank you, my dear," said her father, drawing a deep breath as she ended. "That unapproachable combination of vowel sounds prepares one better than anything I know for the contemplation of the picture."
As he spoke the folds of velvet slowly parted, and the Leonardo appeared in its frame of tarnished gold:
From the nature of Miss Lombard's recitation Wyant had expected a sacred subject, and his surprise was therefore great as the composition was gradually revealed by the widening division of the curtain.
In the background a steel-colored river wound through a pale calcareous landscape; while to the left, on a lonely peak, a crucified Christ hung livid against indigo clouds. The central figure of the foreground, however, was that of a woman seated in an antique chair of marble with bas-reliefs of dancing maenads. Her feet rested on a meadow sprinkled with minute wild-flowers, and her attitude of smiling majesty recalled that of Dosso Dossi's Circe. She wore a red robe, flowing in closely fluted lines from under a fancifully embroidered cloak. Above her high forehead the crinkled golden hair flowed sideways beneath a veil; one hand drooped on the arm of her chair;the other held up an inverted human skull, into which a young Dionysus, smooth, brown and sidelong as the St. John of the Louvre, poured a stream of wine from a high-poised flagon. At the lady's feet lay the symbols of art and luxury: a flute and a roll of music, a platter heaped with grapes and roses, the torso of a Greek statuette, and a bowl overflowing with coins and jewels; behind her, on the chalky hilltop, hung the crucified Christ. A scroll in a corner of the foreground bore the legend: Lux Mundi.
Wyant, emerging from the first plunge of wonder, turned inquiringly toward his companions. Neither had moved. Miss Lombard stood with her hand on the cord, her lids lowered, her mouth drooping; the doctor, his strange Thoth-like profile turned toward his guest, was still lost in rapt contemplation of his treasure.

< 9 >
Wyant addressed the young girl.
"You are fortunate," he said, "to be the possessor of anything so perfect."
"It is considered very beautiful," she said coldly.
"Beautiful -- beautiful !" the doctor burst out. "Ah, the poor, worn out, over-worked word! There are no adjectives in the language fresh enough to describe such pristine brilliancy; all their brightness has been worn off by misuse. Think of the things that have been called beautiful, and then look at that !"
"It is worthy of a new vocabulary," Wyant agreed.
"Yes," Doctor Lombard continued, "my daughter is indeed fortunate. She has chosen what Catholics call the higher life -- the counsel of perfection. What other private person enjoys the same opportunity of understanding the master? Who else lives under the same roof with an untouched masterpiece of Leonardo's? Think of the happiness of being always under the influence of such a creation; of living into it; of partaking of it in daily and hourly communion! This room is a chapel; the sight of that picture is a sacrament. What an atmosphere for a young life to unfold itself in! My daughter is singularly blessed. Sybilla, point out some of the details to Mr. Wyant; I see that he will appreciate them."
The girl turned her dense blue eyes toward Wyant; then, glancing away from him, she pointed to the canvas.
"Notice the modeling of the left hand," she began in a monotonous voice; "it recalls the hand of the Mona Lisa. The head of the naked genius will remind you of that of the St. John of the Louvre, but it is more purely pagan and is turned a little less to the right. The embroidery on the cloak is symbolic: you will see that the roots of this plant have burst through the vase. This recalls the famous definition of Hamlet's character in Wilhelm Meister. Here are the mystic rose, the flame, and the serpent, emblem of eternity. Some of the other symbols we have not yet been able to decipher."

< 10 >
Wyant watched her curiously; she seemed to be reciting a lesson.
"And the picture itself?" he said. "How do you explain that? Lux Mundi -- what a curious device to connect with such a subject! What can it mean?"
Miss Lombard dropped her eyes: the answer was evidently not included in her lesson.
"What, indeed?" the doctor interposed. "What does life mean? As one may define it in a hundred different ways, so one may find a hundred different meanings in this picture. Its symbolism is as many-faceted as a well-cut diamond. Who, for instance, is that divine lady? Is it she who is the true Lux Mundi -- the light reflected from jewels and young eyes, from polished marble and clear waters and statues of bronze? Or is that the Light of the World, extinguished on yonder stormy hill, and is this lady the Pride of Life, feasting blindly on the wine of iniquity, with her back turned to the light which has shone for her in vain? Something of both these meanings may be traced in the picture; but to me it symbolizes rather the central truth of existence: that all that is raised in incorruption is sown in corruption; art, beauty, love, religion; that all our wine is drunk out of skulls, and poured for us by the mysterious genius of a remote and cruel past."
The doctor's face blazed: his bent figure seemed to straighten itself and become taller.
"Ah," he cried, growing more dithyrambic, "how lightly you ask what it means! How confidently you expect an answer! Yet here am I who have given my life to the study of the Renaissance; who have violated its tomb, laid open its dead body, and traced the course of every muscle, bone, and artery; who have sucked its very soul from the pages of poets and humanists; who have wept and believed with Joachim of Flora, smiled and doubted with AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini; who have patiently followed to its source the least inspiration of the masters, and groped in neolithic caverns and Babylonian ruins for the first unfolding tendrils of the arabesques of Mantegna and Crivelli; and I tell you that I stand abashed and ignorant before the mystery of this picture. It means nothing -- it means all things. It may represent the period which saw its creation; it may represent all ages past and to come. There are volumes of meaning in the tiniest emblem on the lady's cloak; the blossoms of its border ar e rooted in the deepest soil of myth and tradition. Don't ask what it means, young man, but bow your head in thankfulness for having seen it!"
< 11 >
Miss Lombard laid her hand on his arm.
"Don't excite yourself, father," she said in the detached tone of a professional nurse.
He answered with a despairing gesture. "Ah, it's easy for you to talk. You have years and years to spend with it; I am an old man, and every moment counts!"
"It's bad for you," she repeated with gentle obstinacy.
The doctor's sacred fury had in fact burnt itself out. He dropped into a seat with dull eyes and slackening lips, and his daughter drew the curtain across the picture.
Wyant turned away reluctantly. He felt that his opportunity was slipping from him, yet he dared not refer to Clyde's wish for a photograph. He now understood the meaning of the laugh with which Doctor Lombard had given him leave to carry away all the details he could remember. The picture was so dazzling, so unexpected, so crossed with elusive and contradictory suggestions, that the most alert observer, when placed suddenly before it, must lose his coordinating faculty in a sense of confused wonder. Yet how valuable to Clyde the record of such a work would be! In some ways it seemed to be the summing up of the master's thought, the key to his enigmatic philosophy.
The doctor had risen and was walking slowly toward the door. His daughter unlocked it, and Wyant followed them back in silence to the room in which they had left Mrs. Lombard. That lady was no longer there, and he could think of no excuse for lingering.
He thanked the doctor, and turned to Miss Lombard, who stood in the middle of the room as though awaiting farther orders.
"It is very good of you," he said, "to allow one even a glimpse of such a treasure."
She looked at him with her odd directness. "You will come again?" she said quickly; and turning to her father she added: "You know what Professor Clyde asked. This gentleman cannot give him any account of the picture without seeing it again."
< 12 >
Doctor Lombard glanced at her vaguely; he was still like a person in a trance.
"Eh?" he said, rousing himself with an effort.
"I said, father, that Mr. Wyant must see the picture again if he is to tell Professor Clyde about it," Miss Lombard repeated with extraordinary precision of tone.
Wyant was silent. He had the puzzled sense that his wishes were being divined and gratified for reasons with which he was in no way connected.
"Well, well," the doctor muttered, "I don't say no -- I don't say no. I know what Clyde wants -- I don't refuse to help him." He turned to Wyant. "You may come again -- you may make notes," he added with a sudden effort. "Jot down what occurs to you. I'm willing to concede that."
Wyant again caught the girl's eye, but its emphatic message perplexed him.
"You're very good," he said tentatively, "but the fact is the picture is so mysterious -- so full of complicated detail -- that I'm afraid no notes I could make would serve Clyde's purpose as well as -- as a photograph, say. If you would allow me --"
Miss Lombard's brow darkened, and her father raised his head furiously.
"A photograph? A photograph, did you say? Good God, man, not ten people have been allowed to set foot in that room! A photograph ?"
Wyant saw his mistake, but saw also that he had gone too far to retreat.
"I know, sir, from what Clyde has told me, that you object to having any reproduction of the picture published; but he hoped you might let me take a photograph for his personal use -- not to be reproduced in his book, but simply to give him something to work by. I should take the photograph myself, and the negative would of course be yours. If you wished it, only one impression would be struck off, and that one Clyde could return to you when he had done with it."
< 13 >
Doctor Lombard interrupted him with a snarl. "When he had done with it? Just so: I thank thee for that word! When it had been re-photographed, drawn, traced, autotyped, passed about from hand to hand, defiled by every ignorant eye in England, vulgarized by the blundering praise of every art-scribbler in Europe! Bah! I'd as soon give you the picture itself: why don't you ask for that?"
"Well, sir," said Wyant calmly, "if you will trust me with it, I'll engage to take it safely to England and back, and to let no eye but Clyde's see it while it is out of your keeping."
The doctor received this remarkable proposal in silence; then he burst into a laugh.
"Upon my soul!" he said with sardonic good humor.
It was Miss Lombard's turn to look perplexedly at Wyant. His last words and her father's unexpected reply had evidently carried her beyond her depth.
"Well, sir, am I to take the picture?" Wyant smilingly pursued.
"No, young man; nor a photograph of it. Nor a sketch, either; mind that, -- nothing that can be reproduced. Sybilla," he cried with sudden passion, "swear to me that the picture shall never be reproduced! No photograph, no sketch -- now or afterward. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, father," said the girl quietly.
"The vandals," he muttered, "the desecrators of beauty; if I thought it would ever get into their hands I'd burn it first, by God!" He turned to Wyant, speaking more quietly. "I said you might come back -- I never retract what I say. But you must give me your word that no one but Clyde shall see the notes you make."
Wyant was growing warm.
"If you won't trust me with a photograph I wonder you trust me not to show my notes!" he exclaimed.

< 16 >
The young man bowed and waved an apologetic hand.
"I do not intrude?" he inquired suavely.
Without waiting for a reply, he mounted the steps of the chapel, glancing about him with the affable air of an afternoon caller.
"I see," he remarked with a smile, "that you know the hour at which our saint should be visited."
Wyant agreed that the hour was indeed felicitous.
The stranger stood beamingly before the picture.
"What grace! What poetry!" he murmured, apostrophizing the St. Catherine, but letting his glance slip rapidly about the chapel as he spoke.
Wyant, detecting the manoeuvre, murmured a brief assent.
"But it is cold here -- mortally cold; you do not find it so?" The intruder put on his hat. "It is permitted at this hour -- when the church is empty. And you, my dear sir -- do you not feel the dampness? You are an artist, are you not? And to artists it is permitted to cover the head when they are engaged in the study of the paintings."
He darted suddenly toward the steps and bent over Wyant's hat.
"Permit me -- cover yourself!" he said a moment later, holding out the hat with an ingratiating gesture.
A light flashed on Wyant.

< 16 >
The young man bowed and waved an apologetic hand.
"I do not intrude?" he inquired suavely.
Without waiting for a reply, he mounted the steps of the chapel, glancing about him with the affable air of an afternoon caller.
"I see," he remarked with a smile, "that you know the hour at which our saint should be visited."http://www.hibenben.com/
Wyant agreed that the hour was indeed felicitous.
The stranger stood beamingly before the picture.
"What grace! What poetry!" he murmured, apostrophizing the St. Catherine, but letting his glance slip rapidly about the chapel as he spoke.
Wyant, detecting the manoeuvre, murmured a brief assent.
"But it is cold here -- mortally cold; you do not find it so?" The intruder put on his hat. "It is permitted at this hour -- when the church is empty. And you, my dear sir -- do you not feel the dampness? You are an artist, are you not? And to artists it is permitted to cover the head when they are engaged in the study of the paintings."
He darted suddenly toward the steps and bent over Wyant's hat.
"Permit me -- cover yourself!" he said a moment later, holding out the hat with an ingratiating gesture.
A light flashed on Wyant.
"Perhaps," he said, looking straight at the young man, "you will tell me your name. My own is Wyant."

陌生人，感到惊讶，但没有惊慌失措，掏出一个coroneted卡，他深深鞠了一躬提供。在卡上刻着： -
伊尔康特奥塔维亚诺塞尔西。
“我非常感谢你，” Wyant说。“我不妨告诉你，你显然希望我的帽子的内衬发现信是不存在的，但在我的口袋里。”
< 17 >
他画了出来，并把它交给它的主人，谁曾变得非常苍白。
“而现在，” Wyant继续说，“你也许会足够好，告诉我，这一切都说明”。
没有误认此请求上计数奥塔维亚诺产生的效果。他的嘴唇动了动，但他只取得了一个无效的笑容。
“我想你知道，” Wyant接着说，他的怒气在看到对方的尴尬的，“已经采取无理的自由增长。我还不知道我已经做出哪一部分发挥，但它是明显，你利用我来服务一些自己的目的，我建议是知道原因的。”
计数奥塔维亚诺先进与恳求的手势。
“先生，”他恳求道，“你允许我说话吗？”
“我希望你，” Wyant哭了。“但不是在这里，”他补充说，听到韦尔热的键的铮铮。“这是暮色苍茫了，我们会在几分钟内横空出世。”
他穿过教堂走去，计数奥塔维亚诺跟着他到冷清的广场。
“现在，” Wyant说，暂停的步骤。
伯爵，谁已经恢复修养的一些措施，开始高调说话，用和解姿态的伴奏。
“我亲爱的先生 - 我亲爱的Wyant先生 - 你发现我的恶劣位置 - 即，作为男人的荣耀，我立刻承认我已经对你的优势 - ！是的，我已经算的上你的爱娇，你的骑士精神 - ？！？太远了，也许我承认，但我能怎么办呢这是成人之美夫人” - 他把一只手放在他的心脏 - ‘！谁我会***士服务’ 他继续随健谈，他故意英语卷走的意大利洪流，通过Wyant，有一定的难度，努力案件的理解。
< 18 >
伯爵奥塔维亚诺，根据他自己的说法，已经到了锡耶纳一些个月前，与他母亲的财产有关的业务; 父系房地产是奥维多附近，这古城的父亲是理事。不久，他在锡耶纳到达后年轻的伯爵会见了伦巴医生的无与伦比的女儿，在爱深深爱上她，就说服了他的父母向她求婚。医生隆巴德没有反对他的西装，但是当定居点的问题出现了才知道，隆巴德小姐，谁拥有她自己的权利的小产权房，收到一个短的时间内投入的全部金额在购买贝加莫莱昂纳多。于是伯爵奥塔维亚诺的父母礼貌地建议她卖的图片，从而恢复了她的独立性; 并从医生伦巴第生硬的拒绝得到满足这个建议，他们已经撤回同意儿子的婚事。这位年轻女士的态度迄今一直被动提交一个; 她极其恐慌她的父亲，也永远不会冒险公开反对他。但她已经知会她奥塔维亚诺不放弃他，耐心地等待，直到事件应采取更有利的转弯意图。她似乎并没有意识到，伯爵叹了口气说，那逃跑的手段在她自己的手寝。她是年龄，只好卖图片，而不需要问她父亲的同意结婚的权利。同时她的追求者不遗余力，使自己在她面前，提醒她，他也正在等待，绝不会放弃她。
医生隆巴德，谁怀疑这个年轻人试图说服西比拉卖图片，曾禁止对恋人，以满足或对应; 因此，他们也被迫秘密沟通，并且有好几次，伯爵天真公开宣布，利用医生的游客作为交换信件的方式。
“你告诉游客到振铃两次？” Wyant介入。
这个年轻人在一个自嘲的姿态伸出手去。可以Wyant先生责怪他呢？他很年轻，他很热心，他迷恋！这位年轻的女士做了他avowing她附件，承诺她不可改变的保真度的最高荣誉; 他应该挨他的热爱也不甘示弱？但他以书面形式向她的目的，他也承认，并非仅仅是重申他的忠诚; 他在他的力量试图通过各种手段诱使她卖的图片。他组织了一个行动计划; 每一个细节都完成; 如果她会，但有这样的勇气来进行他的指示，他会回答的结果。他的想法是，她竟然偷偷退休的一个修道院，其中他的姑姑是院长，并从该据点应办理出售莱昂纳多。他有一个购买者准备好了，谁愿意支付一大笔; 总和，计数奥塔维亚诺低声说，大大超过了年轻女士的原始继承的; 一旦售出图片，它可以，如果需要的话，可以由医生伦巴第的房子力来去除，和他的女儿，在修道院是安全的，会不遗余力的痛苦场面附带去除。最后，如果医生隆巴德足够报复他的同意，拒绝了她的婚姻，她才不得不做出sommation respectueuse，并在规定的延迟结束世界上没有任何力量可以阻止她成为伯爵奥塔维亚诺的妻子。
< 19 >
Wyant的愤怒，在这个简单的浪漫的演奏已经下降。这是荒谬的生气与年轻人谁吐露他的秘密，他在街上遇到的第一个陌生人，并把他的手放在他的心脏，每当他提及他的未婚妻的名字。从业务中，最简单的办法就是把它作为一个笑话。Wyant发挥的墙壁这个新Pyramus和提斯柏，并且是足够的哲学，在他不知情的执行部分笑。
他伸出手笑着计数奥塔维亚诺。
“我不会剥夺你任何更长的时间，”他说，“读你的信很高兴的。”
“哦，先生，一千感谢，当您返回到卡萨隆巴德，你将采取的消息从我 - 她预计今天下午的信？”
“她在信预期？” Wyant暂停。“不，谢谢你我想你明白我来自哪里，我们不这样做那种事。 - 明知”
“可是，先生，服务小姐！”
“我对年轻的女士对不起，如果你告诉我是真的” - 伯爵的表现手憎恨疑问 - “但请记住，如果我下的义务，在这个问题上的任何一个，这是她的父亲，谁也承认我去他家，并让我看到了他的照片。”
“ 他的照片？她的痛苦！”
“好了，房子是他的，在所有的事件。”
“不幸的是 - 因为她是一个地牢！”
“她为什么不离开它呢？” 惊呼Wyant不耐烦。
伯爵紧握着他的手。“啊，你怎么说-有什么力量，什么壮阳如果你会，但它说！她在那口气-你，她的同胞，她已经没有人劝她;！母亲是个**;在父亲是可怕的，她是他的权力，这是我的信念，他会杀了她，如果她拒绝他Wyant先生，我颤抖了她的生活，而她留在那家“！
< 20 >
“哦，来了，说：” Wyant掉以轻心，“他们似乎明白对方不够好，但在任何情况下，你必须看到，我不能干涉 - 至少你会如果你是一个英国人，”他补充说用蔑视的一种逃避。