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[Pausing by the Cardinals.]

Those lights ... those fireflies

Out on the river, do they dance above him

Fast as they swarm and change?

You must not watch them.

It takes my mind off from the pictures sweeping

As in a fever, through it. Fast they come....

[He begins to pace again, his arm in Cardinal Segovia’s.

Cesare’s picture

Of how they parted on the Banchi Vecchi;

The strange masked figure that Giovanni swung

Up to his saddle as he rode away,

Away—

I see him in the midsummer, calm night—

Toward the Jews’ quarter in Sant’ Angelo,

Toward the dark Sistine Convent, and beyond ...

Ha, to the quarter of our deadly foemen,

The Bears, the vile Orsini.

That looks ill.

And he was never seen again. His brother

Says the masked recreant came behind a vine-stock,

And motioned to Giovanni secretly:

He says Giovanni

Was red and vehement as he turned back

To feasting at the table.... Ah, more pictures!

A new one, painted wet upon my brain