All this reading perturbed me very oddly, as one is perturbed who having long dwelt in darkness is suddenly brought into the sunlight and dazzled by it, so that, grown conscious of his sight, he is more effectively blinded than he was before. For the process that should have been a gradual one from tender years was carried through in what amounted to little more than a few weeks.
My Lord Gambara took an odd interest in me. He was something of a philosopher in his trivial way; something of a student of his fellow-man; and he looked upon me as an odd human growth that was being subjected to an unusual experiment. I think he took a certain delight in helping that experiment forward; and certain it is that he had more to do with the debauching of my mind than any other, or than any reading that I did.
It was not that he told me more than elsewhere I could have learnt; it was the cynical manner in which he conveyed his information. He had a way of telling me of monstrous things as if they were purely normal and natural to a properly focussed eye, and as if any monstrousness they might present to me were due to some distortion imparted to them solely by the imperfection of my intellectual vision.
Thus it was from him that I learnt certain unsuspected things concerning Pier Luigi Farnese, who, it was said, was coming to be our Duke, and on whose behalf the Emperor was being importuned to invest him in the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza.
One day as we walked together in the garden--my Lord Gambara and I--I asked him plainly what was Messer Farnese's claim.
“His claim?” quoth he, checking, to give me a long, cool stare. He laughed shortly and resumed his pacing, I keeping step with him. “Why, is he not the Pope's son, and is not that claim enough?”
“The Pope's son!” I exclaimed. “But how is it possible that the Holy Father should have a son?”
“How is it possible?” he echoed mockingly. “Why, I will tell you, sir. When our present Holy Father went as Cardinal-legate to the Mark of Ancona, he met there a certain lady whose name was Lola, who pleased him, and who was pleased with him. Alessandro Farnese was a handsome man, Ser Agostino. She bore him three children, of whom one is dead, another is Madonna Costanza, who is wed to Sforza of Santafiora, and the third--who really happens to have been the first-born--is Messer Pier Luigi, present Duke of Castro and future Duke of Piacenza.”