“I am familiar with these legends. Our family chronicle tells that the Red Knight appeared in several places at once…”

“Space and time,” the Baron replied, “are not subject to immutable laws. Their limitations are more elastic…”

“Are you,” I asked, “a mathematician as well as a historian?”

“Why?”

“In my youth, I had a friend—a distinguished Arabian mathematician—who resembled you very much, Baron, and I often noticed that those who resemble each other physically have much in common mentally.”

“Our thoughts shape our features, no doubt.”

“Or, perhaps, our features shape our thoughts…”

“Truth,” the Baron replied, “is an equation permitting of many solutions and it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line of division. Even sex and personality are not always defined. Human character, too, may be a double equation. The unknown quantity may stand for both good and evil.”

“You are indeed a philosopher.”

“My nephew and niece,” the Baron continued, “are a double equation. They look alike and they think the same thoughts. You can substitute one for the other…”

“Remarkable children,” I added.

“And very lovely. But there they are, whispering to each other. I am quite certain they are conspiring to keep you with us beyond tomorrow.”

Antonio and Antonia advanced toward us.

“How delicate is youth!” I said.

“Nothing,” the Baron added, “surpasses the loveliness of spring. I wish I could keep them from growing older! Before long I shall lose them. Each will go and lose himself in the labyrinth of love and life…”

“Worse still, perhaps…they will lose each other!”

Antonia and Antonio raced toward us. Each offered me a rose.

The boy’s rose was white, hers red. My face flushed. I was a little embarrassed, a pleasurable sensation. ‘How many centuries have passed Cartaphilus,’ I thought, ‘since you have last blushed! You are still young… It is well.’

“You are too kind,” I said, at loss for words.

“Without you, Count, we might be dead…”Antonia remarked archly.

“You exaggerate your peril.”

“No, no, Count,” the Baron interposed. “You do not know the Florentines. Art and crime both flourish within our walls.”

“Count,” said the girl, “you must know many stories…”

“Tell us one,” said the boy.

“A story!” the girl repeated.

“They still are children,” the Baron remarked, “even if they pretend to be grown up.”

Kotikokura ran, the dogs after him, barking lustily.

“It is strange, Count—those two dogs, ordinarily ferocious toward strangers, have become from the first moment inseparable companions of your man.” “He is a lover of animals, Baron, and animals, no doubt, scent his affection at once.”

Antonio and Antonia, on either side of me, we walked slowly through the garden. The delicate pressure of their arms—one barely heavier than the other—delighted me. It was like the warm pulsation of the heart of a bird.

The Baron, summoned by the Prince on business of state, apologized for his absence and asked the scatterbrains—as he was pleased to call the children whenever he was most affectionate—to entertain me.

We were sitting in a corner of the enormous reception hall, whose walls had been frescoed by the old masters of Florence, Antonio on my right, Antonia on my left. Kotikokura sat opposite us, a dog on either side of him.

I raised the chin of Antonio with my forefinger, then that of Antonia, and looked into their eyes.

“Who are you?” I asked.

They smiled.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“We are Toni,” Antonia answered.

“Both Toni?”

They nodded.

“Are you one or two?”

“We are one and two.”

“Where did I meet you before?”

“You met me…far, far away,” said Antonia, speaking like a child that is telling a fairy tale.

“And me still farther,” added Antonio with boyish eagerness.

“He always tries to outdo me, Count. It is the vanity of the male…”

“Silence, woman!” the boy commanded. “Man is the master.”

“No!” she exclaimed.

“Woman must remain the inferior of man—always,” the boy insisted.

“Toni!” she exclaimed. “How can you say that?”

“Except you, my dear. But you are not a woman.”

“Well, I shall be one.”

“Never!”

“Yes…and I shall be the queen of a great nation where women rule over men.”

“Do you not think that woman is the equal of man, Count?” Antonia asked.

“Some women are the equal of goddesses.”

“See?”

“Then some men are the equal of gods, Count.”

“They are.”

“And is not a god greater than a goddess?”

“Sex distinctions are not important among the gods…”

“See, Toni? But Count, tell us the story you promised!”

They pulled their chairs nearer to me.

“Ready!” they both exclaimed.

“Once upon a time, there were two children—a boy and a girl– —”

“No, no, Count.”

“We are no longer children.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Some of the things I shall tell, you may not understand.”

They laughed.

“Count,” Antonio whispered, “we have read Aretino and Boccaccio.”

Antonia blushed a little and nodded.

“What!” I exclaimed in mock reproof.

For a moment, they were nonplussed but, catching a faint smile about my lips, they burst into laughter. Each placed an arm upon my shoulders, and their voices mingling into one, said: “You cannot deceive us, Count. You too believe that the beautiful is the good. Uncle sometimes tries to appear severe on moral questions. Dear uncle—he considers himself responsible for our welfare. But you are like an older brother. You can afford to be candid with us…”

“You are right, little sister and brother.”

“Don’t call us little,” Antonia reprimanded me. “Call us sister and brother.”

I placed my arms about their waists. “Brother and sister, you are supremely good, because you are supremely beautiful…and as long as you will be beautiful, you will be good. Ugliness is the only sin…”

“Tediousness is the only evil,” Antonia added sagely.

I related divers experiences. By merely calling the centuries years and the years months, I discovered that, after all, one could squeeze upon a tiny canvas what had been spread leisurely upon an enormous wall. Although I used various names to hide my identity, they knew perfectly well that I was telling my own experiences.

Salome and Ulrica intrigued Antonia, Flower-of-the-Evening and Damis fascinated Antonio. They asked questions, apparently very innocently and merely for the sake of elucidation, but in reality they showed that uncanny prescience of sex which sometimes startles us in the very young.

I thought of the white rose, symbol of purity, whose perfume and pollen are but sexual allurement to entice the bee and the butterfly. Under the petal of their youth, the children’s senses were stirred, and the perfume of their desire was wafted to me.

They snuggled against me. Suddenly, Antonia stood up. “Why, my dear, the Count must be thirsty and hungry too.”

Antonio clapped his hands. “Why, of course! You will never be a woman, sister. You will never think of important trifles.”

She smiled. Was her smile irony? Was it wisdom? Was it pity? Was she a daughter of the Sphinx?

A servant entered. Antonia ordered wine and cakes and fruits in such abundance that I burst out laughing.

“You overestimate my capacity.”

Antonia filled our cups. We drank to beauty, which is truth, and to truth which is beauty.

“Oh,” she exclaimed suddenly, “we have forgotten him.” She pointed to Kotikokura who was smiling, his eyes half-closed. “He is such a queer and dear fellow,” she whispered.

She filled a cup for him and brought him some cakes and fruit.

I told them anecdotes about Africa and India. Cheered by the wine, they laughed uproariously.