James Cabell - The Jewel Merchants. A Comedy in One Act

As the singing ends, the curtain rises upon a corner of Balthazar Valori's garden near the northern border of Tuscany. The garden is walled. There is a shrine in the wall: the tortured figure upon the crucifix is conspicuous. To the right stands a rather high-backed stone bench: by mounting from the seat to the top of the bench it is possible to scale the wall. To the left a crimson pennant on a pole shows against the sky. The period is 1533, and a few miles southward the Florentines, after three years of formally recognizing Jesus Christ as the sole lord and king of Florence, have lately altered matters as profoundly as was possible by electing Alessandro de Medici to be their Duke.

GRACIOSA is seated upon the bench, with a lute. The girl is, to our modern taste, very quaintly dressed in gold-colored satin, with a short tight bodice, cut square and low at the neck, and with long full skirts. When she stands erect, her preposterous "flowing" sleeves, lined with sky blue, reach to the ground. Her blonde hair, of which she has a great deal, is braided, in the intricate early sixteenth fashion, under a jeweled cap and a veil the exact color of this hair.

There is a call. Smiling, GRACIOSA answers this call by striking her lute. She pats straight her hair and gown, and puts aside the instrument. GUIDO appears at the top of the wall. All you can see of the handsome young fellow, in this posture, is that he wears a green skull-cap and a dark blue smock, the slashed sleeves of which are lined with green.

GUIDO Ah, madonna….

GRACIOSA Welcome, Ser Guido. Your journey has been brief.

GUIDO It has not seemed brief to me.

GRACIOSA Why, it was only three days ago you told me it would be a fortnight before you came this way again.

GUIDO Yes, but I did not then know that each day spent apart from you, Madonna Graciosa, would be a century in passing.

GRACIOSA Dear me, but your search must have been desperate!

GUIDO (Who speaks, as almost always hereinafter, with sober enjoyment of the fact that he is stating the exact truth unintelligibly.) Yes, my search is desperate.

GRACIOSA Did you find gems worthy of your search?

GUIDO Very certainly, since at my journey's end I find Madonna Graciosa, the chief jewel of Tuscany.

GRACIOSA Such compliments, Guido, make your speech less like a merchant's than a courtier's.

GUIDO Ah, well, to balance that, you will presently find courtiers in Florence who will barter for you like merchants. May I descend?

GRACIOSA Yes, if you have something of interest to show me.

GUIDO Am I to be welcomed merely for the sake of my gems? You were more gracious, you were more beautifully like your lovely name, on the fortunate day that I first encountered you … only six weeks ago, and only yonder, where the path crosses the highway. But now that I esteem myself your friend, you greet me like a stranger. You do not even invite me into your garden. I much prefer the manner in which you told me the way to the inn when I was an unknown passer-by. And yet your pennant promised greeting.

GRACIOSA (With the smile of an exceptionally candid angel.) Ah, Guido, I flew it the very minute the boy from the inn brought me your message!

GUIDO Now, there is the greeting I had hoped for! But how do you escape your father's watch so easily?

GRACIOSA My father has no need to watch me in this lonely hill castle. Ever since I can remember I have wandered at will in the forest. My father knows that to me every path is as familiar as one of the corridors in his house; and in no one of them did I ever meet anybody except charcoal-burners, and sometimes a nun from the convent, and—oh, yes!—you. But descend, friend Guido.

Thus encouraged, GUIDO descends from the top of the wall to the top of the bench, and thence, via its seat, to the ground. You are thereby enabled to discover that his nether portions are clad in dark blue tights and soft leather shoes with pointed turned-up toes. It is also noticeable that he carries a jewel pack of purple, which, when opened, reveals an orange lining.

GUIDO (With as much irony as the pleasure he takes in being again with this dear child permits.) That "Oh, yes, you!" is a very fitting reward for my devotion. For I find that nowadays I travel about the kingdom buying jewels less for my patrons at court than for the pleasure of having your eyes appraise them, and smile at me.

GRACIOSA (With the condescension of a great lady.) Guido, you have in point of fact been very kind to me, and very amusing, too, in my loneliness on the top of this hill. (Drawing back the sleeve from her left arm, she reveals the trinket there.) See, here is the turquoise bracelet I had from you the second time you passed. I wear it always—secretly.

GUIDO That is wise, for the turquoise is a talisman. They say that the woman who wears a turquoise is thereby assured of marrying the person whom she prefers.

GRACIOSA I do not know about that, nor do I expect to have much choice as to what rich nobleman marries me, but I know that I love this bracelet—

GUIDO In fact, they are handsome stones.

GRACIOSA Because it reminds me constantly of the hours which I have spent here with my lute—

GUIDO Oh, with your lute!

GRACIOSA And with your pack of lovely jewels—

GUIDO Yes, to be sure! with my jewels.

GRACIOSA And with you.

GUIDO There is again my gracious lady. Now, in reward for that, you shall feast your eyes.

GRACIOSA (All eagerness.) And what have you to-day?

GUIDO opens his pack. She bends above it with hands outstretched.

GUIDO (Taking out a necklace.) For one thing, pearls, black pearls, set with a clasp of emeralds. See! They will become you.

GRACIOSA (Taking them, pressing them to her cheek.) How cool! But I—poor child of a poor noble—I cannot afford such.

GUIDO Oh, I did not mean to offer them to you to-day. No, this string is intended for the Duke's favorite, Count Eglamore.

GRACIOSA (Stiffening.) Count Eglamore! These are for him?

GUIDO For Count Eglamore.

GRACIOSA Has the upstart such taste?

GUIDO If it be taste to appreciate pearls, then the Duke's chief officer has excellent taste. He seeks them far and wide. He will be very generous in paying for this string.

GRACIOSA drops the pearls, in which she no longer delights. She returns to the bench, and sits down and speaks with a sort of disappointment.

GRACIOSA I am sorry to learn that this Eglamore is among your patrons.

GUIDO (Still half engrossed by the contents of his pack. The man loves jewels equally for their value and their beauty.) Oh, the nobles complain of him, but we merchants have no quarrel with Eglamore. He buys too lavishly.

GRACIOSA Do you think only of buying and selling, Guido?

GUIDO It is a pursuit not limited to us who frankly live by sale and purchase .Count Eglamore, for example, knows that men may be bought as readily as merchandise. It is one reason why he is so hated—by the unbought.

GRACIOSA (Irritated by the title.) Count Eglamore, indeed! I ask in my prayers every night that some honest gentleman may contrive to cut the throat of this abominable creature.

GUIDO (His hand going to his throat.) You pray too much, madonna. Even very pious people ought to be reasonable.

GRACIOSA (Rising from the bench.) Have I not reason to hate the man who killed my kinsman?

GUIDO (Rising from his gems.) The Marquis of Cibo conspired, or so the court judged—

GRACIOSA I know nothing of the judgment. But it was this Eglamore who discovered the plot, if there indeed was any plot, and who sent my cousin Cibo to a death—(pointing to the shrine)—oh, to a death as horrible as that. So I hate him.

GUIDO Yet you have never even seen him, I believe?

GRACIOSA And it would be better for him never to see me or any of my kin. My father, my uncles and my cousins have all sworn to kill him—

GUIDO So I have gathered. They remain among the unbought.

GRACIOSA (Returning, sits upon the bench, and speaks regretfully.) But they have never any luck. Cousin Pietro contrived to have a beam dropped on Eglamore's head, and it missed him by not half a foot—

GUIDO Ah, yes, I remember.

GRACIOSA And Cousin Georgio stabbed him in the back one night, but the coward had on chain-armor under his finery—

GUIDO I remember that also.

GRACIOSA And Uncle Lorenzo poisoned his soup, but a pet dog got at it first. That was very unfortunate.

GUIDO Yes, the dog seemed to think so, I remember.

GRACIOSA However, perseverance is always rewarded. So I still hope that one or another of my kinsmen will contrive to kill this Eglamore before I go to court.

GUIDO (Sits at her feet.) Has my Lord Balthazar yet set a day for that presentation?

GRACIOSA Not yet.

GUIDO I wish to have this Eglamore's accounts all settled by that date.

GRACIOSA But in three months, Guido, I shall be sixteen. My sisters went to court when they were sixteen.