Fair Verona

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Antonio first saw her in the night, at Carnival on the Via Cappello. He had just staggered out of the inn that came to be called the Casa di Giulietta, because of its marble balcony. A surge of revelers filled the torchlit street. Harlequins, lace doves, street minstrels, and drunken louts—laughing, dancing, singing, and colliding, tripping over cobbles, falling into fountains, and pissing on the bonfires.

Standing under “Romeo’s” balcony, with enough good red bardolino aboard to float a boat, Antonio wondered what mischief he meant to get into. Should it be a woman, or a fight? Or maybe both. Then he saw her. His heavenly vision. Lady Love in a gold lace mask and a wide-sleeved gown. She turned, winked, blew a kiss, then was gone, whirled away by the throng.

Without taking fuddled eyes off the crowd, he grabbed Proteus, his manservant, who was busy tipping the innkeeper. “Did you see her? Who was she?”

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