.

"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN".
And now, lest I grow tedious and weary you with this narrative of mine, it may be well that I but touch with a fugitive pen upon the events of the next three years of the history of Pesaro.
Early in 1498 the Lord Giovanni showed himself once more abroad, and he seemed again the same weak, cruel, pleasure-loving tyrant he had been before shame overtook him and drove him for a season into hiding.
Madonna Paola and her brother, Filippo di Santafior, remained in Pesaro, where they now appeared to have taken up their permanent abode.

Madonna Paola--following her inclinations--withdrew to the Convent of Santa Caterina, there to pursue in peace the studies for which she had a taste, whilst her splendid, profligate brother became the ornament--the arbiter elegantiarum--of our court.
Thus were they left undisturbed; for in the cauldron of Borgia politics a stew was simmering that demanded all that family's attention, and of whose import we guessed something when we heard that Cesare Borgia had flung aside his cardinalitial robes to put on armour and give freer rein to the boundless ambition that consumed him.
With me life moved as if that winter excursion and adventure had never been.

Even the memory of it must have faded into a haze that scarce left discernible any semblance of reality, for I was once again Boccadoro, the golden-mouthed Fool, whose sayings were echoed by every jester throughout Italy.

My shame that for a brief season had risen up in arms seemed to be laid to rest once more, and I was content with the burden that was mine.