117/147 The duke's heart seemed hardened. Apartments inferior to his quality were assigned him, and to these he was conducted by a courtier with ill-disguised insolence. The princesses refused him access to their lodgings, and his old enemies openly manifested their derision for the kill-joy and the skeleton who had returned to spoil their festival. Tasso, querulous as he was about his own share in the disagreeables of existence, remained wholly unsympathetic to the trials of his fellow-creatures. Self-engrossment closed him in a magic prison-house of discontent. |