Less than a year later, she would be dead.
The official cause of her death was given as 'putrid fever,' but it was rumoured that she had been murdered by her husband."
"Liquid was her motion, like honey dropping from a spoon. She emerged from the shadow of her cage as if she had the whole stretch of the jungle at her command, the filthy mud floor of florence rolling under her paws. No pussycat, she. She simmered, she crackled, she seethed with fire, her face astonishing in its livid symmetry. Lucrezia had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. The furnace-bright back and sides, the pale underbelly. The marks on her fur, Lucrezia saw, were not stripes, no-- the word was insufficient for them. They were a bold, dark lace, to adorn, to conceal; they defined her, they saved her." (36)
"Still clutching each other's hands, Lucrezia and Emilia advance into the room, Emilia holding the candle. The chamber before them is a dark cavern, in any corner of which may be waiting a monster as yet unknown to them. The trembling circle of waxy light pushes at the blackness. Lucrezia feels, within her, the rise of what she htinks of as her spirit-- the unfettered part of of herself to which no one, not even she, has access. It lives somewhere deep inside her, under the layers of costly palazzo clothes, mostly hibernating, as if under a covering of leaves, until called into action. Then it might uncurl, crawl out into the light, blinking, bristling, furling its filthy fists and opening its jagged red mouth. In this black and unfamiliar room, Lucrezia feels it, senses it stirring, raising its head, and starting to howl.
She lifts her chin, seizes the candle from Emilia and thrusts it out at arm's length. She is not afraid, no, she is not. A beast-- muscled and brave-- lives within her. She tells herself this over the cantering of her heart. Let the gouls that hover in the corners of the room see what they are dealing with: she is the fifth child of the ruler of Tuscany; she has touched the fur of a tigress; she has scaled a mountain range to be here. Take that, darkness." (128)
"Lucrezia does what she always does in situations such as this. She did not grow up with four older siblings, who continually put her down, kept her in her place, excluded, teased and belittled her, and learn nothing. The dynamic he is hoping to create is as familiar to her as the shape of her own fingernails. She is expert at dodging such invisible blows.
'How are you, cousin?' She murmurs. She will not raise her voice to him any louder than this; if he wishes to hear her, let him bend down from his saddle. 'I see you have been successful in your hunt.'" (157)
"Her smile and suppressed hilarity have vanished, as if they never existed; there is no danger now that she might laugh. She stands before her furious husband in the posture of a penitent. She pictures herself from the outside: a girl with her shoulders slumped, her head lowered, hands upturned. No one would think she was anything other than apologetic and remorseful, filled with regret for her misdemeanour. Only she knows that within, just under her chilled skin, something quite other is taking place: flames, vibrant and consoling, lick at her insides, a fire kindles, cracks and smoulders, throwing out smoke that infiltrates every corner of her, every fingernail, every inch of her limbs. Her hair surrounds her-- all he can see of her is the top of her head. He must believe she is listening to his lecture, to his chiding, but no. She is stoking this conflagration, letting it blaze, encouraging it to sear every inside space. He will never know, will never reach this part of her, no matter how violently he grips her arm or seizes her wrists." (214)
___________
3.5/5 This book is masterfully written. It was a bit slow which the only reason why I did not give it 5 stars, and yet, I also love that part about it, as it is a reflection of woman's lives in those times, which were oppressive and slow. I love that O'Farrell gives a voice and a fire to this woman, honoring not only her but all of the forgotten women who were "required to do as she has done, to be uprooted from her family and her place of birth and bedded down in another, where she must learn to thrive and reproduce and speak little and do less and stay in her rooms and cut off her hair and avoid excitement and eschew stimulation and submit to whatever nightly carresses come her way." (312) Reading the Author's note was fascinating at the end, and seeing how all the threads of truth from various lives in history were so well weaved into this historical fiction. I love that O'Farrell brings these forgotten human beings to life in such a poetic unraveling.
