The Fool Errant Part 4

"Man," I said, "what is it to me, do you suppose, whether I am in a madhouse or a prison this night? I intend for Siena, and shall certainly get there in good time. Now I will ask you to leave me."

"Tis your honour is for leaving, not I," said he, "and though I shall be taking a liberty, it's in a case of bad-is-the-best I do believe." He took off his jacket and put it on the bed.

"What are you proposing, Beppo?" said I.

"A strait-waistcoat," said he, and came at me with determination.

I was his master in a very few minutes, for I was much stronger than he reckoned for. When I had him at my discretion, I let him get up and thus addressed him:

"I have every reason to be extremely offended with you," I said, "but I believe that you have acted honestly. Let me, however, recommend you not to interfere in the private and personal affairs of gentlemen until you have fitted yourself to understand them. I am going upon a journey in a manner which appears becoming to one who is responsible for these lamentable troubles. I shall leave my property here in your charge, but will ask you to accept such of those articles as are on the floor as may be of use to you. When you see me again it will be as your indulgent master; but he who now bids you farewell is unworthy to shake your hand."

He nevertheless took my hand and kissed it devotedly immediately afterwards he had fallen upon my discarded trifles.

"Excellency! Excellency!" he cried, gasping, "what bounty! what splendour of soul!" He fingered my watch, listened to it. "It goes yet-- it is a famous watch!" He babbled like a happy child. "Mechlin stuff, every thread of it!" He smoothed out the lace ends of my cravat. So he ran through the silly things one after another--shoes which he could not wear, a sword which he could not use, a coat which must exhibit him a monkey--he grovelled before me and would have kissed my foot, but that I shrank from him in disgust. "Horrible, venal Venetian," I said, "thou hast shown me one more degraded than I." He was out of sight with his bundle of treasures before I could finish my reproof, and I busied myself with my last preparations.

I wrote two letters: the first was to Dr. Lanfranchi, the second to my father. To the doctor I said what was, I think, becoming, namely, that his wife was as spotless as the snow, and that the very blackness of my guilt did but show her whiteness more dazzling. I added an expression of my undying sorrow for having brought misfortune upon her whom I must always love, and him whom I had once respected, and a.s.sured him that I did not intend to rest until I had repaired it. This I addressed to the university.

I explained briefly to my father the reason of my temporary absence from Padua; and upon reconsideration of my plans, desiring to avoid any affectation of extravagance, added a cloak, a small bundle of clean linen, a staff and a few gold pieces to my thin equipment. At four o'clock in the afternoon I went out into the street and directed my steps towards the gate of San Zuan.

Leaving Padua, I turned and looked for the last time upon her domes and towers. "Farewell, once proud city, now brought low by my deed," I said.

"Keep, if thou must, the accursed memory and name of Francis Antony Strelley, gentleman--Poisoner of Homes, Stabber-in-secret, Traitor in Love. I leave him behind me for the worst thou canst do. He that quits thee now is another than he: Francesco Ignoto, Pilgrim, in need of Grace."

Then I addressed myself stoutly to the hills; and it is a circ.u.mstance worthy of remark that the further I pushed the more certainly I recovered my spirits. I suppose there never was yet in this world a young man to whom the future did not appeal more urgently than the present, or who would not rather undertake an adventure without a shilling to his name than in his post-chaise and four. It is, I take it, of the essence of romance that the lady's castle-prison of enchantment lies beyond the forest, across the hills or over sea; and most a.s.suredly that damsel who is to be won by means of a courier leading a spare horse is as little worth your pains as she whose price is half a guinea. I, in that commencement of my pilgrimage, then, was happy because I was doing something, and hopeful because I could not see my way!

CHAPTER VII

I AM MISCONCEIVED AT THE HOSPITAL

I am conscious that the reader may find much to condemn in my last chapter. He may think my schemes chimerical, my methods undisciplined; he may say that I am perverse. I shall only urge in defence of what I did that I deeply loved, and had deeply injured, the lovely Aurelia. She had departed from me in misunderstanding and anger; she did not believe in my devotion, she could not understand my behaviour. Was it surprising, then, if I felt that I must find her at all costs? Was it wonderful that I wished her to know of my repentance, or that I wished to repair my wrong-doings? For eight months I had enjoyed daily and hourly communion with her--and I don't pretend to say that the horrible loss of that had a good deal to do with my precipitate departure, any more than that the hope of finding her was what gave the spring to my feet and brought back the young blood to my heart. No pilgrim to Loretto or Compostella more longingly set his eyes to where he believed his hopes to lie than did I watch for the first sign of the Apennines, which barred my way to Siena. Having thus briefly defended myself against misconception, I shall say no more on that head.

After my first night under the stars--wondrous night of wakefulness and hopeful music, throughout which I lay entranced at the foot of a wooded hill and was never for a moment uncompanioned by nightingale, cicala and firefly--I began to suffer from footsoreness, a bodily affliction against which romance, that certain salve for the maladies of the soul, is no remedy, or very little. Crossing the hills, over burning roads, through th.o.r.n.y brakes or by slopes of harsh gra.s.s, my heels and the b.a.l.l.s of my toes became alarmingly inflamed; and an acacia-spine, lodging in the sole of one foot, made matters no better. That second day of mine I could barely hobble twelve miles, and nothing but resolution could do that much for me. The night came and found me ill; I slept not; though I had provided myself with food, I could not touch it. Luckily, I was discovered by some shepherd boys early in the morning and directed to the town of Rovigo at some half a league's distance, where they said there was a hospital.

Seeing that my foot was now so bad that the touch of a hand upon it was torment, I think it had gone hard with me if Rovigo had stood another half-league away. I shall not readily forget the n.o.ble charity of one of those boys, who, seeing the inflammation set up by the thorn in my foot, ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and bound it round the instep--my first experience of the magnanimity of the poor, but by no means my last.

I limped into Rovigo and learned the direction of the hospital, at whose gate I was kept with a sorry crew of wretches for a mortal hour while the brother-in-charge finished his siesta.

Two friars, a soldier disguised in drink, a young Jew, and myself completed the company, which was allowed to make itself free of a flagged and whitewashed hall, absolutely devoid of furniture, and smelling at once sour and stale. I am sorry and ashamed to remember that the Jew was the only person of my four fellows in misfortune who kept up any semblance of manners or proper reserve. He differed, indeed, markedly from the others, not only in his behaviour, which was at least conformable, but in his appearance of alacrity and cheerful health.

Seeing that I suffered as much from the ribaldry of my fellow-guests as from my bodily pains, he came and sat by my side, and encouraged me with the a.s.surance that it was far better to wait for the brother-in-charge to awake in the course of nature than to disturb him out of his sleep.

"Mighty little chance for me, for example," he said, "if Brother Hyacinth don't have his nap to the full. He'll be as savage as a starved wolf, understand, and will send a man to h.e.l.l sooner than to admit him if he have a good foot left to take him there."

"Why, then," said I, "he will never send me for sure, for I have no feet."

"Be not so sure, dear sir," returned the Jew. "You don't know Brother Hyacinth as well as I do. There was a fellow came here on a day all spent and bleeding. He had lost a toe under a coach-wheel. If you will believe it, this dear host of ours bade him go walk on his hands, and offered him the cloister to get perfect in. Now, with me, I know it will go hard, unless those fools cease their din." The two friars had been dicing with the soldier, and had won his boots. Each had taken one from him, and were now wrangling who should have both. I was struck by the sinister expression of one of them, a Capuchin of great strength, with a long white beard. More than enough of him in due course. I told the Jew that my case was so bad I cared not greatly whether I was received or no. A man, I said, could die anywhere. "Why, yes," he said, "so he can-- and live anywhere also. One is as easy as the other, if you but give your mind to it. But one thing I will tell you," he added, "it is not so easy as you might think to live cheaply when you have the means of living dear. I shall be lucky if I spend this night as I desire--but you will see. Hush! here is our man." I had been about to ask him what was his malady, for he appeared to me the picture of health, and shining with it; but just then a square-headed religious, with small angry eyes and prominent bones, came into the hall, attended by a clerk, a sleek young fellow, who called out "Silence," and was instantly obeyed. The two friars were on their knees in a trice, and chattering their Hail Marys; the soldier, after some efforts to rise, had managed to lift himself by the wall, and, being propped up against it, was saluting all and sundry with great impartiality. The Jew only was good enough to help me with the support of his arm.

His was the first case. "Your name?" said Brother Hyacinth, and was answered "Giovanni-Battista-Maria-Bentivoglio."

"Write," said Brother Hyacinth to his clerk, "Jew, name unknown, active liar." This done, he continued his questions.

"Your means?"

"Alas, none," replied the Jew.

"Search him," said Brother Hyacinth.

The clerk thereupon turned out his pockets, which were empty of everything but holes. Not content with that, however, he felt all over his body, and when he had, as I may say, drawn all the coverts blank, knelt down and pulled off the man's shoes. The Jew was unable to repress an exclamation, which I naturally set down to his disgust at the indignity. But I found that this was not so. The clerk very neatly picked out a small key from between his toes and held it up to his master.

"I thought as much," said Brother Hyacinth. "Go." The young Jew sighed, shrugged, and stood back without a word; and while I was considering what his imposture could have been it was my turn.

Brother Hyacinth examined me with keen displeasure. "Who are you?" he asked me. I told him "Francesco-Antonio Strelli"--and he bade the clerk write these names down. "Nationality?" he asked next. I told him "Inglese." One of the friars, that evil, bearded fellow, I noticed, had drawn near and was listening with all his might. Now it was to be noticed of him that he breathed very short and fast, and that his breath struck like fire upon my skin. The interrogatory was renewed.

"Your place of immediate origin?" I was asked.

I said, "Padua."

"Your present occupation?"

"Repentance," I said, and spoke the truth.

"Your means of support?"

"Grace," said I, and he stamped on the ground.

"You are trifling with me--I advise you to take care. Answer me truthfully of what you repent."

This angered me. I told him shortly that, like everybody else in the world of my way of thinking, I repented of sin.

He turned to his amanuensis. "Write down that the young man refuses to give an account of himself," he said harshly; and then asked me what I wanted of the hospital.

I said with heat, "My brother, I had required of it what I now see I am not to expect, charity, namely, both of judgment and act. I am afflicted, as you ought to have seen at once; I need your wisdom--but need most your sympathy--" To my amazement he cut me short, as he had done with the Jew, by the brief command, "Search him." I recoiled as well as I could in my fainting and helpless condition.

"Do you dare insult a sick man?" I cried; and to the clerk, who was about to put me to this indignity, I said, "Touch me at your peril, sir; for though I die for it, you will pay for your temerity."

The Jew, who had been looking on at my examination (quite unabashed at the mortification of his own), here interposed by telling me that the thing was a common form and must be gone through with. I was about to shake him off for his impertinence when a chance phrase of his, "free lodging," enlightened me. This, then, was not what I understood by a hospital--using the applied sense of the word--but one of those original inst.i.tutions, so-called, which were, of course, guest-houses for the poor. The moment I understood that, I saw that I and Brother Hyacinth had been at cross-purposes. I pulled out my handful of money and spilled some pieces upon the floor. Instantly the great friar behind me clapped his foot upon them. The Jew hunted down the rest.

Brother Hyacinth now recoiled. "What does this mean?" he asked. "Are you a fool, or a thief, or an impudent rascal?"

"You are mistaken," I replied, "I am none; but it is clear that I have deceived you. Had I understood the real objects of your hospital--which, I am compelled to add, you have most successfully concealed--I should not have been before you. I am ill and in great pain. I supposed that you could give me a.s.sistance. And even now, should that be possible, I would accept it, and pay for it." Brother Hyacinth, with keen displeasure, said that mine was a case for the police, and that, while he should decline my money, he was minded to detain my person for their consideration; but the Jew thereupon broke in with more a.s.surance than I should have thought him capable of. "Your pardon, very reverend," he said, "but this is a case for the best physician in Rovigo, and the best bed in the best inn. This gentleman, as I knew very well from the first, is acting for a wager. Only your astuteness has prevented him from winning it. He has failed, but not by much; it is an honourable defeat.

He very willingly bestows upon you two ducats for the beneficent purposes of the hospital--those very two, in fact, which the reverend frate behind him has covered with his foot. With the others he will return to his n.o.ble parents, being furnished with a certificate from your reverence to the effect that he has failed in his endeavour."

The clerk, who had by this time extracted the two pieces from beneath the foot of the Capuchin (who loudly denied that they were there), was now whispering with Brother Hyacinth. After a short time he drew me apart and told me that but for him I should certainly be sent to prison.

The brother-in-charge, he said, believed me to be a highway thief--or professed that he did--against all reason; for said the clerk, "As I told his reverence, if your honour had been a thief it is very unlikely that we should have had the pleasure of your company at the hospital.

His reverence has made difficulties--it has been hard to convince him, though your honour's generosity to the hospital has not been without effect. I flatter myself that my arguments have been useful. Any further service I can do your honour, I shall very thankfully undertake."

I expressed myself obliged to him, and added that though it might be very true that I deserved prison, I had other acts of penitence in view which could only be properly performed in Tuscany. I said, "You would be justified--if you knew the whole of my history--in declining what I nevertheless urge upon your benevolence--this crown-piece namely---" He a.s.sured me that no crime of mine, however unnatural, could cause him a momentary scruple, took the coin, spat upon it, pocketed it, and said that he was my servant and orator to the end of time. At this moment the great Capuchin--he of the covering foot--took me by the arm and begged the favour of a word in my ear. He was a hideous villain, broad- shouldered, scarred, hugely bearded, and had a prominent tooth in his lower jaw, rather loose, which stuck out like a tusk. I have spoken of his breath, which was as the blast of a furnace.