CHAPTER SIXTY

“I brought you here intending to make you my wife, wedding you as legally as you wanted, and treat you as the queen that my wife was. All you had to do was say 'yes’ to me... A simple three-letter word that would have given you all you could ask for; money, cars, clothes, vacations to any country of your choice, all you would have had to do was just name it. But you didn't say 'yes’. And even when you didn't, I still made sure that you were treated well, that you were kept in a beautiful room such as this, the one my dear and late wife used to occupy when she was here. I made sure that you never suffered any kind of harm and that you were always fed and properly clothed. And even when you decided to take your own life, I sent for my own doctor to come down and check on you and do all she could for you to be fine... And what did you do, after all these?”

Don Fabrizio was in Mercedes’ room the following morning, engaging her compulsorily in a lengthy and initially one-sided conversation