When he had dropped his price from a hundred lire to twenty, Irene, only too anxious to be rid of her irksome follower, paid him, and hurried away with her purchase, for which she had not only lost all interest, but which she by that time positively detested. On her return home, she showed it to the landlord of her _pension_. He shook his head pityingly, twirled his finger in front of his nose, smacked his lips, and announced that “la pauvre signorina a été volée comme dans un bois.”
Irene began to think that old, mediæval Rome had bewitched her. On many occasions, she started out with the intention of visiting some museum or picture gallery, but always it was as if some magic power was drawing her towards those dingy streets, with their stench and their dirt, and their smell of cookery, where the poor of Rome were preparing their unceremonious dinners out-of-doors. Perhaps, indeed, she may have felt that there was something in common between those gloomy localities and her own joyless life.
She was greatly attracted by one grim-looking palace, situated at a particularly dingy, dirty spot, in the neighbourhood of the Ghetto. A terrible deed had once been perpetrated in this palace. Its owner, that famous Cenci, so noted for his depravity, had fallen in love with Beatrice, the daughter of his first marriage, and persecuted her with his shameful desires. The whole family rose against the mad old villain, and, under the influence of her brothers and her step-mother, Beatrice poisoned her father. The crime was discovered, Beatrice was imprisoned, made a full confession, and was executed.
Having heard by chance that a famous portrait of Beatrice Cenci, the work of Guido Reni, is preserved at the Palazzo Barberini, Irene went to see it. She expected to see a queenly, tragic beauty, and found, instead, a simple girl, almost a child, in the very springtime of life—an innocent young soul to whom love and passion can as yet have had no meaning. The artist has represented her in prison, dressed in the white prisoners’ attire. Her little face is worn and drawn through sleepless nights, her beautiful eyes are red with tears, her little childish lips are swollen, just as all children’s lips are swollen when they cry. The whole touching little face seemed to say quite clearly: “Yes—I am a criminal! Everyone tells me that I must pay for my crime with my life; that I must leave the lovely world that I love so much, leave the sunshine and the birds and the flowers, and go away into a cold tomb. What can I do? I have no strength to protest! But you, who will live instead of me, do not curse poor Beatrice! Love her! Pity her!”