touch, like the warm nudes of Titian; voluptuously opulent, like the great goddesses of Rubens; white and bloodless as a virgin's hands.
Donina. These are sallow like wax—like the dead.
Leonardo. No, Donina, they are all alive, they are not like the dead; they live. When I hold them upside down, they are like little ladies, with the petals and the corolla here for skirts. This might be a stately marchioness, a Madame Pompadour, with her wide rose panniers—the stem her slender waist, and these two green leaves by the side, her great, puffed-out sleeves. Although something is lacking… wait! Let us make a foolish little head for our marchioness out of this petal, with a long, tapering neck so thin, as the poet says, that it is shaped for the guillotine. This might be an Infanta of Spain with her spreading hoop-skirts, and this a magnificent Dogaressa of Venice, imperial in her purple! When you hold them like this, isn't it true that roses resemble ladies in flowers?
Donina. Yes, they do. How lovely! They are just like ladies. Look, Nunu! But you won't look. You're foolish enough to be afraid that they might be really, and fall in love with you. But I'll spoil them all first. There! There! [Throwing roses at him.
Nunu. Look out! [Throwing roses hack at her] It's a battle of flowers.
Donina. Look out yourself!
They run off, pelting each other with roses.
Imperia. It cannot be death, Leonardo. Donina is so happy!
Leonardo. Deceptive happiness! You know the cost.
Imperia. Yes, but Donina could not live without him. In spite of all that he has done to her, I had to bring him here, to keep him, by flattery, by fear. The wretched boy wants
