The Fool Errant Part 7

"Was not that fine comedy in an old grey-bearded Capuchin dog?" cried the frate, leaping about and cracking his fingers. "Could you have bettered it? Could any man living have bettered it? Confess me an old rogue-in-grain, or I break every bone in your body."

"It is not for me to confess you one thing or another, Fra Clemente--to call you so"--I replied; "except that you have made me party to some abominable falsehoods. However, I have benefited by them, and am willing to believe that you acted for the best, which is more than I can say for your endeavours upon our last meeting at Rovigo. May I remind you of that?"

If I had hoped to startle him I was very much mistaken. The Capuchin at once sobered down, and became confidential and affectionate. He put his arm round my neck and spoke with feeling. "You have as good a memory as I have, I see," he said, laughing pleasantly. "I had not intended to recall to your mind a time when I confess to having been the victim of prejudice. And without going so far as to say that I followed you solely to remove your suspicions--that would not be the truth--I shall own that I had you much in my thoughts, and hoped more than once that we might cross paths. My prayer is answered. I shall set to work to convince you of my good intentions towards you. Perfect confidence of man to man-- shall it not be so? If I cannot help you it will be surprising: you have seen how I can help myself."

I did not again remind him that I had seen that very clearly when, at Rovigo, his foot had been clapped upon my coins; but Fra Clemente, if that were his name, saw that it was remembered.

"Your money, let me say, would have been safer with me than with that oily thief Issachar," he said calmly, "but let that pa.s.s. You saw fit to trust him, and now you can judge how far I am to be trusted. I have nothing to complain of and nothing to hide. I hope you can say the same." I was silent.

"Let me tell you," he went on, "that my name in religion is Palamone-- Fra Palamone"--here his tones became lighter, as he soared from the injured benefactor's into a jauntier suit. "Yes, I am that Fra Palamone, known all over Tuscany for the most wheedling, good-natured, cunning, light-fingered and light-hearted old devil of a Capuchin that ever hid in St. Francis' wound. Hey! but I'm snug in my snuff-coloured suit. My poor old father--G.o.d have him after all his pains!--put me there, to lie quiet and nurse my talent, and so I do when times are hard. But the waxing moon sees me skipping, and you will no more keep me long off the road than your cur upon it. I must be out and about--in the kitchen to tease the wenches, into the taverns for my jug of wine, off to the fairs, where the ducats blow like thistle-down; under the gallows to see my friends dance, at the gaol doors against delivery; the round of the pillories, a glance at the galleys--with a nose for every naughty savour and an ear for every salted tale. I have prospered, I was made to prosper. This good belly of mine, this broad, easy gullet, these hands, this portly beard, which may now get as white as it can, since I have done with gossip Fra Clemente--a wrist of steel, fingers as hard as whipcord, and legs like anchor-cables; all these were fostered and made able by brown St. Francis' merry sons. Fra Palamone, dear unknown, Fra Palamone, ever your servant! And now--"here, with another revolting change, he turned his lips back to show his tooth--"And now," said he, "you fish-eyed, jelly-gutted, staring, misbegotten bottle of bile, who in the deuce's name lent you the impudence to listen to my confidential histories without so much as letting me know your fool's name--hey?"

The ferocious invective of this peroration accorded so ill with his prattling exordium that I was left with nothing but a gaze. This I gave him liberally; but he went on, lashing himself into fury, to use every vernacular oath he could lay tongue to. He swore in Venetian, in Piedmontese, in Tuscan. He swore Corsican, Ligurian, Calabrian, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabian and Portuguese. He shook his fists in my face, dangerously near my astonished eyes; he leaped at me, gnashing his teeth like a fiend; he bellowed injuries, shocking allegations impossible to be proved, horrible guesses at my ancestry, he barked like a dog, bayed at me on all fours; finally whirling his staff over his head, he rushed at me as if to dash my brains out--then, cooling as suddenly as he had boiled over, stopped short, looked quizzically at me, blew out his cheeks and let his breath escape in a volley. "Poh!" says he, "Poh! what an old Palamone we have here," threw down his staff and came towards me all smiles, his arms extended.

"Admirable youth!" he cried heartily, "give me your hands. I love you dearly; we shall be fast friends, I can see. Kiss me, boy, kiss me."

I should have resented this comedy of thunderstorms more hotly than I did if I had not believed the friar to be mad. But I was very much offended by the t.i.tles of dishonour most improperly bestowed upon me, and was determined to have done with their inventor. "Sir," I said, "you have done me a service, I allow, and I am much obliged to you; but I am constrained to point out that I have carried your baggage on my shoulder for some five or six miles. You gave me your confidences unasked and undesired. It matters, no thing to me whether your name be Palamone or Graffiacane, nor how far you choose to disgrace your habit or molest the charitable. Now you have acted like a maniac, and if I did my duty I should give proper information in the proper quarter. Instead of that, I restore you your bundle, and wish you a good evening."

Fra Palamone had been watching me, studying my face intently as I spoke, his arms folded over his labouring chest. He had, before the close of a dignified, if somewhat sententious, address, recovered his breath, and completely his gravity. "My dear young gentleman," he said, "I admire your spirit as much as your person and manner. All three puzzle me, I must say. So young and so rhetorical! So simple and so polished--an egg!

an egg! Are you English, Dutch, Irish? What the devil are you? You won't tell me, and I don't know. But with all you say of my whirligig self I entirely and heartily agree. That at least is to the good. I propose that we sit down here and now, and discuss your affairs--for what better can we do? A gra.s.sy bank! the scent of leaves! a fading sun--the solemn evening air! Nature invites! Come, what do you say? We will eat and drink of the best, for I and my sack are no mean caterers. We'll make all snug for the night, and rise up betimes better friends than ever for our late little difference of opinion."

Nothing could have been less to my taste; the man inspired me with extreme disgust. "Fra Palamone," I said firmly, "our ways separate here.

I go to Pistoja, you where you please; or, do you go to Pistoja, I shall take the other road. I commend you to G.o.d, I salute you, I thank you, and hope I shall never see you again."

"English!" cried Fra Palamone, slapping his forehead. "Now I know with whom I am dealing. Who else commends his enemy to G.o.d and hopes that the devil will step in?" He looked me up and down triumphantly, grating his upper lip with that fierce tusk of his. "If I were in the humour, boy,"

he said, "which you may thank Madonna I am not, I could have you on your back in two ticks, and your hands tied behind you. I could take every paul off you--ah, and every st.i.tch down to your shirt. But no! you are a gentleman. I prefer to take your hand, being confident that we shall meet again in a few days' time from now. Hold your way to Pistoja, since so you will have it. I am never deceived in my man. I know you and all your concerns as well as if you were my own son--and better, a deal. You have your troubles before you, brought upon you by your own headiness-- your own insufferable piety and cra.s.s conceit. And I, young sir, and I am one of them. That you will find out."

"I bid you farewell, sir," says I very stiff.

"But I say, To our next meeting!" he cried, and plunged down the hillside. I heard him for a long time shouting songs at the top of his voice.

Resting no more on the road, I pressed my way southward, descending through chestnut woods to the olives, the garlanded vines, the wonderful husbandry of a generous land, amazed and enchanted by the profusion I beheld. The earth seemed to well forth rich blood at the mere tread of a foot. Boys and girls, young men and women, half naked but glowing with beauty and vigour, watched their beasts on the woody slopes or drove the plough through the deep soil, following after great oxen, singing as they toiled. The ground sent up heat intoxicating to the blood of a northern wanderer. It was the Land of Promise indeed, flowing with milk and honey, a pastoral land of easy love and laughter, where man clove to woman and she yielded to him at the flutter of desire, yet all was sanctioned by the Providence which fashioned the elements and taught the very ivy how to cling. Was there not deep-seated truth, methought, in those old fables which told of the Loves of the Nymphs, the Loves of the Fauns? Was there not some vital well-spring within our natures, some conduit of the heart which throbbed yet at the call of such instincts? I was more sure of it than I had ever been before. The Loves of the Nymphs--the clinging ivy, the yielding reed! The Loves of the Fauns-- buffeting wind and kissing rain! These shy brown girls who peered at me from between the trees; these musing shepherd lads calling them upon oaten pipes--"Panaque, Silvanumque senem, nymphasque sorores." I saw them, I saw them! I walked fast! my feet raced with my thoughts. My heart was beating, my blood was hot, my inclinations were pastoral, but enthusiastic. I was disposed to admire, and prepared to prove that I admired. I could have embraced a sapling and swooned as I called upon Dryas or Syrinx. Then, by-and-by, in the fulness of the time I saw a slim solitary girl ahead of me in a glade, walking bolt upright with a huge f.a.ggot of sticks upon her head. It was growing dusk. I could see little of her save that she was tall and walked superbly well from the hips, that her skirts were thin and close about her person, that she was alone, young and over-burdened. I quickened my steps.

She stopped, she turned to face me; I saw her black hair close- curtaining her whiteness; I saw her steady eyes under dark and level brows; I saw she was very thin and as wild as a hawk. I was foolishly agitated, she not at all.

"Buona sera," said she. She stood easily, upright, her burden on her head. Her hands were on her hips, she was perfectly simple, as simple as a nymph, and as handsome in her proud, calm, savage way.

I returned her greeting, and more for the sake of getting countenance than for the answer, asked her to direct me to some lodging not too far off. She took some time in replying, but her eyes never left mine. She gave me a steady scrutiny, in which were neither vulgar curiosity nor equally vulgar stupidity to be discerned. It seemed that she was busy with her thoughts how she was to answer me, for when she had looked her full she shrugged and turned her head stiffly, saying, "There is none, for your excellency."

"G.o.d knows," said I, "how excellent I am, and that where there is lodging for the meanest upon earth there is lodging for me."

"What G.o.d knows," she said, "He mostly keeps to Himself. I speak of what I see. Your excellency is on a frolic."

"My excellency died three weeks ago," I told her. "Oblige me by not referring to it again; and if you will not give me direction, let me carry your f.a.ggot for you."

"Why, how will that help your excellency?" says she.

"By satisfying you that I have some t.i.tle left to the name," I replied.

"Believe me, I need the good opinion of my fellow-creatures. Will you not humour me?"

"I cannot, sir," she said. "I can cease to carry my f.a.ggot, but that won't help you very much."

I insisted--I don't know why; she stared at me with raised brows, then jerked the f.a.ggot to the ground.

"Try," she said, and folded her arms across her chest, waiting.

It is a fact that I tussled, laboured and wrought at the accursed thing, an ineffectual Hercules. Its weight was really enormous; how her slim neck could have borne it without cracking puzzles me still, though I know how like a Caryatid she was formed. She did not laugh at me, or smile, she merely watched me--and so goaded me to put out all my strength, which was considerable. Knack, of course, was a-wanting. I got it upon end, put my head against it, lifted it--and it fell behind my back. Twice I did this, and grew dank with humiliation. Then I rushed at it, lifted it bodily on high, and crammed it down on my head. Clumsy malapert that I was! It slipped to my shoulder, thence upon the girl's bare foot. "Hey!" she cried sharply, "now I hope you are satisfied." I saw that her cheek was bleeding as well as her foot. I would have struck off my fumbling hands at the wrists for this vexatious affair.

"Forgive me," I said, "forgive me, pray," and went to her. I implored her pity, execrated my clumsiness; I was born, I said, to be fatal to ladies. Hereupon she looked at me with some interest.

"You?" she said. I bore the brunt of her extraordinarily intent eyes with great modesty. "Yes," she continued, "that may be true, for I see that you are a signore. It is the prerogative of signori to ruin ladies."

I was stabbed more deeply than she knew, and said at once, "It is true that I was born a gentleman, it is true that I have ruined a lady, but I repudiate your conclusion with horror. I beg of you to allow me to stanch your wound."

She smiled. "Perhaps it may not need it. Perhaps I may not desire it.

But try--try." She offered me her cheek, down which a thin stream of blood had wandered as it would. A ridiculous difficulty presented itself; I hovered, undecided. "Suck the wound, suck the wound," said the girl, "we shall not poison each other." I obeyed: the flow of blood ceased. I knelt down and treated her foot in the same simple fashion.

When I stood up again she thanked me with what seemed shining eyes and emotion in the voice.

"I don't know what sort of ladies you have ruined," said she, "but you have a pleasant manner of reparation. The scratch on my cheek smarts, but not unduly--my foot is as sound as ever it was." She helped me perch the f.a.ggot on my head, and we walked on together. This last generosity had touched me.

Her name, she told me, was Virginia Strozzi, and her people were very poor folk of Condoglia. Condoglia was a village on a spur of the mountains, the property, with the bodies and souls of its inhabitants, of a great lord, a marchese. She was sixteen years old and had never tasted meat. Condoglia was but a mile away; it was getting dark. Would I spend the night there? "Your honour must not look for decency," she said with a sad patience which was very touching to me; "you can judge of what you will find by what you see of me. Rags cover my leanness and wattles cover my rags. As I am, so are my father and mother, sisters and brothers--and so I suspect were theirs. You will sleep on litter, you will eat black bread, and drink foul water. It is what we do year in and year out, except that sometimes we go without the bread. What do you say?"

"I say," I replied, "that I am thankful for your kindness to one who has used you ill. My maladroitness was horrible."

"Your amendment was, however, handsomely done," she said--and added fiercely, "Let me tell you that n.o.body has ever touched my foot with his lips before. I owe you for that."

"You are generous indeed, Virginia," I said; "I shall be proud to be in your debt for a lodging." We were not long in reaching Condoglia, which, so far as I could see, was no more than a row of hovels on the summit of a crag; and then we entered the meanest dwelling I have ever seen.

It was like a gipsy's tent, made of mud, thatched with furze, and consisted of a single room, on whose floor of beaten dung huddled a family of starving wretches--hollow-eyed, pale, gaunt, and almost naked; a round dozen of them. There were a man, bright and peaked with hunger; a poor drudge of a woman, worn to a rag before her time, with a dying child upon her empty breast; a grown son and seven children--all crouched there close together like pigs in a yard to keep life in their bodies. I saw no signs of food, and I reflected that outside this misery and want the rich Tuscan earth was a-steam with fecund heat, and bore a thousandfold for every germinating seed. To them, faint and desperate as they were, the entrance of Virginia, herself as thin as a rod, and of myself, a stranger, caused no surprise. They looked to the door as we came in, but neither stirred nor spoke; indeed, it was Virginia who did what was necessary. She brought from her bosom a loaf of rye-bread; she fetched a flask of oil; she broke up the one and soaked it in the other and distributed the victual--first to the guest, then to the children and her parents, last to herself. The bread was musty, the oil rank; but the children tore at it as if they had been young wolves--all but one, who was too weak to hold its own, and might have died that night had I not taken it upon my knee and put some food between its grey lips. No one spoke; it grew dark; there was no candle or other light. I sat awhile in the absolute silence, then fell fast asleep with the child on my knees, wrapped in my cloak. In the morning, when I awoke, Virginia was gone.

Deeply touched by what I had seen, and still more by the desperate patience with which afflictions so bitter were borne, before I went away I gave the husbandman all the silver money I had left, some few liras, and reserved for my future needs one single ducat, the last gold piece I had. The man thanked me exorbitantly in a voice broken with grat.i.tude, yet almost in the same breath admitted the insufficiency of the gift.

"We shall send Virginia into Pistoja to-morrow," he said. "It has come to this, that her brothers and sisters are dying, and she must do what she can."

I asked, "Will you send her to beg?"

The question was evaded. "She'll do well enough when she's been fed and cleaned, for she's a well-made, handsome girl. There is a great man there--we shall keep the wolf from the door by what she sends us-and maybe have something over. Misery teaches all trades to a man, you see."

I trembled and turned pale. "I entreat you," I said, "to do no such dreadful thing. I have serious reasons for asking--very serious. There is one thing which we cannot afford to lose, even if we lose life itself in keeping it. And it is a thing for which we pay so dear now and again that we cannot value it too highly. I mean our self-respect."

The peasant looked round upon his hovel and sleeping brood with those famine-bright eyes of his. "Must I keep my self-respect sooner than some of them? Must I not throw one to the wolves sooner than a half-dozen?"

He gave over his unhappy survey with a shrug. "It seems I have nothing to get rid of here," he said quietly, "except that valuable thing."

I pulled out my gold piece. "Will that keep it safe for you?" I asked.

The gleam of the man's eyes upon it was terrible to see. "Will you engage the word of a man that, in exchange for this, you will never do what you have proposed?"

"St. Mary help me, I will, sir," he said. The coin changed hands.

"Where is Virginia?" I asked him, and he told me that she and Gino her brother had been up before the light and were spreading dung. "Now,"

said I, "it is proper that I should tell you that I am without a farthing in the world. I say that, not because I grudge you the money, but that you may see how entirely I trust you."