"Saint Peter, as the man of genius who laid the foundation of our
double power," the Pope said to Don Juan, "deserves this
monument. Sometimes, though, at night, I think that a deluge will
wipe all this out as with a sponge, and it will be all to begin
over again."
Don Juan and the Pope began to laugh; they understood each other.
A fool would have gone on the morrow to amuse himself with Julius
II. in Raphael's studio or at the delicious Villa Madama; not so
Belvidero. He went to see the Pope as pontiff, to be convinced of
any doubts that he (Don Juan) entertained. Over his cups the
Rovere would have been capable of denying his own infallibility
and of commenting on the Apocalypse.
Nevertheless, this legend has not been undertaken to furnish
materials for future biographies of Don Juan; it is intended to
prove to honest folk that Belvidero did not die in a duel with
stone, as some lithographers would have us believe.
When Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he settled in
Spain, and there in his old age he married a young and charming
Andalusian wife. But of set purpose he was neither a good husband
nor a good father. He had observed that we are never so tenderly
loved as by women to whom we scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira
had been devoutly brought up by an old aunt in a castle a few
leagues from San-Lucar in a remote part of Andalusia.
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