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“You shall not, I say. Dry your eyes. Look here is a kerchief. Dry them and smile. Smile!”
    But it was not possible to smile with all her grief upon her. Lucrezia tried, but she remembered the kindness of Giorgio and how he had carried her on his shoulder and looked so pleased when people had admired her yellow hair; she remembered how little Ottaviano had a habit of creeping close to her and slipping his little hand in hers; she remembered how he used to lisp her name. She could not smile, because she could not forget that she would never see Giorgio and Ottaviano again.
    Cesare seemed as though he were finding it difficult to breathe, which meant he was very angry. He took her by the neck, and this time there was more anger than tenderness in the gesture.
    “It is time you knew the truth,” he said. “Have you not guessed who our father is?”
    She had not thought of possessing a father until Giorgio came into the house, and then, as Vannozza called him husband, she had thought of him as father, but she knew better than to say that Giorgio was their father; so she was silent, hoping Cesare would relax his hold on her neck and let the tenderness return to his fingers.
    Cesare had put his face close to hers; he whispered: “Roderigo, Cardinal Borgia, is not our uncle, foolish child; he is our father.”
    “Uncle Roderigo?” she said slowly.
    “Of a certainty, foolish one.” Now his grip was tender. He laid his lips on her cool cheek and gave her one of those long kisses which disturbed her. “Why should he come here so often, do you think? Why should he love us so? Because he is our father. It is time you knew. Now you will see that it is unworthy to cry for such as Giorgio and Ottaviano. Do you see that now, Lucrezia?”
    His eyes were dark again—not with rage perhaps, but with pride because Uncle Roderigo was their father and he was a great Cardinal who,they must pray each day, each night, might one day be Pope and the most powerful man in Rome.
    “Yes, Cesare,” she said, for she was afraid of Cesare when he looked like that.
    But when she was alone she went into a corner and continued to weep for Giorgio and Ottaviano.

    But even Cesare was to discover that the death of those whom he had considered insignificant could make a great difference to his life.
    Roderigo, still solicitous for the welfare of his ex-mistress, decided that, since she had lost her husband, she must be provided with another; therefore he arranged a marriage for her with a certain Carlo Canale. This was a good match for Vannozza since Carlo was the chamberlain of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, and a man of some culture; he had encouraged the poet, Angelo Poliziano, in the writing of Orfeo , and had worked with distinction among the humanists of Mantua. Here was a man who could be useful to Roderigo; and Canale was wise enough to know that through Roderigo he might acquire the riches he had so far failed to accumulate.
    Roderigo’s notary drew up the marriage contracts and Vannozza prepared to settle down with her new husband.
    But as she had gained a husband she was to lose her three eldest children. She accepted this state of affairs philosophically for she knew that Roderigo could not allow their children to remain in her house beyond their childhood; the comparatively humble home of a Roman matron was not the right setting for those who had a brilliant destiny before them.
    Thus came the greatest change of all into Lucrezia’s life.
    Giovanni was to go to Spain, where he would join his eldest brother, Pedro Luis, and where his father would arrange for honors to fall to him; and those honors should be as great as those which he had given to Pedro Luis. Cesare was to stay in Rome. Later he was to train for a Spanish Bishopric, and to do this he must study canon law at the universities of Perugia and Pisa. For the time being he was with Lucrezia but they were soon to leave their mother’s house for that of a kinswoman of their