The Fool Errant Part 22

"Your wife, my dear!" I exclaimed. "I should like to know what old fellow could play the woman beside you." "Seeing that I get my living by so doing, I don't mind owning that there is no one," he agreed. "The trouble is that I should do it too well. When you see Il Nanno you will admit that my proposals are as prudent as they seem the reverse. I'll go and fetch him, and you shall judge. Remember always that his name is Aristarcho; it would be a mortal affront to use that nickname of ours, for he is sensitive to a degree, like all these hunchbacks, and as fierce as a wild cat. Stay here--I will bring him up to you." He disappeared into the house, and presently returned, followed by his proposed wife.

Signor Aristarcho was a dwarf of the most repulsive and uncompromising type. He cannot have been much more than four feet in height; he had a head nearly as large as his body, the strong-jawed, big-nosed, slit- mouthed head of some Condottiere of old, some Fortebraccio or Colleone of history and equestrian statuary. His eyes were small, staring, but extremely intelligent, his flesh spare and strained under the skin; he was beardless and as warty as a toad's back; he never smiled, spoke little and seemed to be afraid lest the air should get within him and never get out again, for he only opened the corner of his mouth to emit a word or two, and screwed it down immediately he had done. His poor deformed body was like that of Punchinello, a part for which he was famous in the theatres--protuberant before, hunched up between his shoulders behind, and set upon little writhen fleshless legs like wooden spigots. In manner he was excessively punctilious, grave, collected, oracularly sententious. I know that he was exquisitely sensitive to ridicule and remorseless in punis.h.i.+ng it. It was not hard to understand-- the moment I set eyes upon this poor monster--that, with the young and beautiful Belviso masquerading as a woman by his side, trouble must succeed trouble without end. On the other hand, I could not for the life of me see how the parts were to be reversed with any reasonable a.s.surance. But the good youth himself had no misgivings.

After an exchange of careful courtesies I addressed myself to the dwarf.

"Signor Aristarcho," I said, "this charitable young man has a.s.sured me of your active sympathy with my anxieties. You see before you a victim of fortune's extremest spite, who can sue for your favours with nothing but his tears----"

"Don't shed them," says he at the side of his mouth, "they are precious."

"--and offer you nothing in return but his thanks. But I am speaking to a gentleman----"

"You are not," he said gruffly. "You are speaking to a man."

"--of honour," I pursued, "and sensibility. In a word, I am speaking to a Christian. If then you, a Christian, can save the soul of my young and newly wedded wife--ah, Jesu! my darling from the lions----"

He put up his hand. "No more," he said; "I will do what I can."

I said, "Sir, my boundless grat.i.tude----"

"No more," he stayed me; "I am paid already."

"Alas, sir----" I felt that I must go on; but he would not have it.

"You have called me a Christian," he said. "No one has ever called me that before. I thank you. I would die for you."

"Live for me!" I cried. "Sir, sir, sir, I do find that the lower my bodily fortunes descend, the nearer I get to the kingdom of Heaven."

Aristarcho bowed gravely and said, "I thank you. Count upon me."

He bowed again profoundly, and I returned the salute. When he had retired I told Belviso that I saw nothing in his state to deserve our pity, but that, on the contrary, I envied him the possession of a constant and discerning mind.

My friend replied, "Yes, yes, he is a good fellow and will serve you well. You have earned his grat.i.tude; but let me warn you again never to hurt his feelings. You will be sorry for it for many a day."

When we went down, long after dark, to the inn kitchen, I found the actors seated at supper and was kindly received. Belviso presented me to the princ.i.p.als--to a pleasant, plump old gentleman, who looked like the canon of a cathedral foundation, and was, in fact, the famous Arlecchino 'Gritti; to the prima donna, a black-browed lady, who, because she came from Sicily, was called La Panormita, her own name being Brigida, and her husband's Mingh.e.l.li; to the cheerfulest drunkard I ever met, who played the lovers' parts, and was that same Mingh.e.l.li; to the sustainers of Pantaleone, Scaramuccia, Matamorte, Don Basilio, Brigh.e.l.la and the rest of them--a crew all told of some twenty hands, all males with the exception of La Panormita. The reason of that was that the company was very poor, and that fine women did not get sufficiently lucrative side- issues, as I may term them, to be tempted to join it. And again there were several restrictions placed by some States--such as those of the Church--upon female performers, only to be overcome by heavy fees to the officials. If it was inconvenient to them to drop Signora Mingh.e.l.li in one place and pick her up at another, to have had more women in the same case might well have ruined them. They therefore had with them half a dozen boys and lads, of whom Belviso was by far their best--Pamfilo, Narcisso, Adone, Deifobo and the like, wicked, graceless little wretches as they were. Belviso took the leading woman's part in La Panormita's absence, and when she was present he came second. Notably he was Columbine in the comedy, and, as they said, one of the most excellent. I found all these people, as I have never failed to find Italians of their sort, simple, good-hearted and careless, sometimes happy, sometimes acutely miserable; but always patient and reasonable, and always expressing themselves unaffectedly, in very strong language. Of their kindness I cannot say too much; of their moral behaviour I must not.

Their profession, no doubt, which forced them to exhibit themselves in indelicate or monstrous situations for the pleasure of people who were mainly both, had made them callous to much which is offensive to a man of breeding. Il Nanno was a great exception to their rule. I never knew him, but once, behave otherwise than as a gentleman. I never heard him hold unseemly conversation. Belviso, too, was, as far as I was concerned, honest, decent and self-respecting. I am inclined to hope, and have some grounds for believing, that he had given himself a worse character than he deserved. All I shall say about him here is that, had he been my son, I could not have been troubled by anything which he said or did so long as I was in his company.

Sufficient of my story had been made common property by Il Nanno to save me the trouble of trying to enlist their sympathies. They were mine from the moment of my appearance in their midst. They were entirely willing to let my two champions go to Lucca on my account, and I was glad to hear that the company would not stand to lose much by so generous an act. They were on their way to Siena, and except for an open-air performance or two in mean villages would not need either Belviso or the dwarf until they reached that city, where the pair would rejoin them.

They offered me their protection and hospitality in the frankest manner-- in such terms, indeed, that I could not but have accepted them had my necessities been lighter than they were. I took them thankfully, and asked leave further to propose that, as I had a good memory and a person not otherwise unsuitable, I might place myself and my abilities at their whole disposal. "Use me, gentlemen," said I, "if I suit you; make me of service elsewhere than on your scene if I do not. By so doing you will lighten my load of debt, and make me feel less of a stranger and a burden. I have won two friends already by the recital of my sorrows"-- here I placed a hand on Belviso's shoulder and gave the other to Il Nanno--"let me hope that I can gain yet more by some exhibition of my talents."

This was loudly applauded. "Stand up, Don Francis," said Belviso to me, "and spout us out whatever bombast you can remember."

I gave them, first, the opening speech of the Orfeo of Politian, where the sad shepherd accounts his plight, his pursuit of the nymph Euridice, her abhorrence of him, and the like. All eyes were fixed upon me; I saw those of La Panormita glisten. The smooth-flowing verses moved her. They were silent when I had done, which a little disconcerted me; but presently the dwarf snapped out, "More." Emboldened, I began upon the Aminta of Ta.s.so, reciting the opening speech of Daphne in the fourth act. To my delight the part of Silvia, which Virginia in our old days at Pistoja had been wont to take, was caught up and continued by Belviso.

We fired each other, capped each other, and ended the great scene. The last six lines of it, to be spoken by the Choragus, were croaked by Il Nanno in his bull-frog's voice. We stopped amid a storm of bravas, and La Panormita, with a great gesture, crowned us with flowers. I was made free of the company by acclamation.

Belviso set off early in the morning with his monstrous old wife of the occasion. He embraced me warmly before he left me. "Keep a good heart, Don Francis," he said, "and trust in your friends. All that is possible shall be done, you may be sure. I shan't dare to look you in the face if I come back without your Virginia."

CHAPTER x.x.xV

TEMPTED IN SIENA, BELVISO SAVES ME

The company, of which I was now enrolled a member, moved on towards Siena, that city for which--as Aurelia's cradle--I had a feeling of profound reverence; towards which now, in spite of all that had occurred, I could not approach without a quickening of the pulse, an aching heart, and a longing mind. We travelled with a large caravan of donkeys and mules to carry the baggage and women--La Panormita, her gross old mother, and two hags, who called themselves the mothers, and were really the owners, of the boys. The rest of us, the men and the boys themselves, trudged afoot. We begged, jigged, or bullied for food as we went, having scarcely any money among us; for just now, after a disastrous week in Florence, the company was by way of starving until it could earn some pence-halfpence in Siena. The first night we slept in a rick-yard--a bitter wet night it was; the next, we reached Certaldo, and cajoled the landlord of the Ghirlanda out of house-room. This he only consented to upon the condition of our giving free entertainment then and there to his customers. We had been all day on the road; but what choice is open to the needy traveller? Footsore, muddy to the eyes, hungry, thirsty as we were--our clothes of the stage sodden with rain, our finery like wet weeds, our face-powder like mud and our paints like soup--we must perforce open our packs, don our chill motley, daub our weary faces, and caper through some piece of tomfoolery which, if it had not been so insipid, would have been grotesquely indecent. All I remember about it now is that it was called La Nuova Lucrezia ossia La Gatteria del Spropositi, a monstrous travesty of the story of Lucrece.

One of the castrati--Pamfilo by name--played the part of Lisetta, "una putta di undici anni," and exhibited the most remarkable turn of satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since.

Horrible in a manner as it was, it would have redeemed any performance.

This demon of ingenuity and wit was little more than fourteen years old, and sang like an angel of Paradise. Another of them was the Lucrezia, the Roman matron--put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would have sustained it had he been present. Adone, his understudy, took his place. My own share in the mummery was humble and confusing. In toga and cothurnus I had to read a pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the audience. I don't believe that I was more thankful than they were when I had done. The less I say about the rest of the evening and night the better. The people of Certaldo more than maintain the popular reputation of their great townsman, Boccaccio. They are as light-hearted, as impertinent, as amorous as he; and they diverted themselves with our company in a manner which did credit to his example. Such things, I hope I may say, were very little to my taste; but it was necessary for me not to seem singular, and I fancy that I did not.

After a similar night's entertainment at Poggibonsi we set out, intending to be at Siena that same night. I need hardly say that the so near prospect filled me with various and contending emotions. I might hope, in the first place, to find Belviso there, returned with Virginia, my faithful and tender wife. To know her safe, to have her by my side, to be conscious, as I could not fail to be, of her deep and ardent love for me testified in every glance of her eyes--such could not fail to be a satisfaction to any honest, any sensible man. Such, too, I hope they were. But I must needs confess that not this confident expectation (for confident I was of Belviso's success) alone moved me and elated me at the moment. No, it is the truth that, the nearer I came to Siena, the more I realised the abiding influence of Aurelia upon my heart and conscience. I could not but tremble at the thought that in so few hours I should be treading the actual earth which her feet had lightly pressed during the years when she must have been at her happiest, and if not also at her loveliest--since when was she not at that?--a.s.suredly at her purest and most radiant hour; before she had been sullied by the doctor's possessory rights, before she had been hurt by my dastardly advances. This, then, this it was which really affected me, to feel like some pilgrim of old, to Loreto, may be, or Compostella, to Walsingham, to Rome--nay, to the very bourne and goal of every Christian's desire, Jerusalem, the Holy City, itself--to feel, I say, singularly uplifted, singularly set apart and dedicated to the privilege which was now at last to be mine. From the moment of departure from Poggibonsi to that moment when I saw, upon a background of pure green sky, the spear-like shafts, the rose-coloured walls and churches of Siena, I kept my eyes steadily towards my Mecca, speaking very little, taking no heed of the manner of our progress. I had other sights than those to occupy me. I saw hedge-flowers which Aurelia might have plucked, shade where she might have rested, orchards where she might have tasted fruit, wells which might have cooled her feet. Some miles before I was in actual sight of my desired haven I was in a thrill and tension of expectancy, wrought upon me by these hopeful auguries, which I cannot describe. I was in a perpetual tremble, my lips were dry. We pa.s.sed Castiglioncello; we rested for noonday at Monteriggione; at Castello del Diavolo, in full sight of all men, I kissed the stony road. In my own country, I know very well, I should have been hooted as a madman, but here, where a man does what nature, or something higher, prompts him without shame or circ.u.mspection, I was never molested. My companions were undoubtedly curious. Pamfilo said that I was going to meet my amica at Siena; La Panormita supposed that I regretted some bouncing girl of Certaldo. But I was soaring now to such a height that I cared nothing. We entered the Porta Camollia at half-past five o'clock in the evening, and trailed up the steep Via di Citta, between houses like solemn cliffs, and in the midst of a throng which, in the dusk of that narrow pa.s.s, seemed like dense clouds, lit up by innumerable moons, to our lodging at an inn called Le Tre Donzelle. These moons I found out were the wide straw hats of the lovely daughters of Siena, sisters of Aurelia, companions of her maiden hours! It made my heart jump into my throat to see in the doorway of the inn a girl of her own tender and buoyant shape, to hear her very tones, with that caressing fall which never failed to move me, and to see the quick turn of a crowned head exactly in her own manner. Before many hours were over I found myself stabbed more or less vividly by every young woman I met. There was no escaping from Aurelia in Aurelia's own city.

Indifferent alike to the orgies of my companions or to their reproaches of me for not sharing them, I spent a solitary, wakeful night in great exaltation of mind; with the first ray of dawn I was out and about, gaining in entire loneliness my first view of the sacred city. I stood, awestruck and breathless, under the star-strewn roof of the great church; I knelt where Aurelia's knees must have kissed the storied pavement. I walked in the vast Campo, which has been called, and justly called, the finest piazza in Europe; wondered over the towered palace of the ancient Commune; prayed at the altar of St. Catherine. Prepared then by prayer and meditation, I made solemn and punctilious visits to what I must call the holy places of Aurelia's nation: the Madonna del Bordone, the Madonna delle Grazie, and the Madonna called of Provenzano. Before each of these ladies--mournful, helpful, heaven-conversing deities--I prayed devoutly, on my knees. I anointed the feet of each with my tears, I offered up to each the incense of a sigh from my overcharged heart.

From the last and most gracious of the three ladies I received what seems to have been a remarkable counsel.

I fell into conversation with the sacristan of her church--Santa Maria di Provenzano is its name--who told me the tale of this wonder-working image, a mutilated bust of the Holy Virgin, veiled and crowned. He said that his Madonna was kind to all the unfortunate world, and famous all over it, but that to the most unfortunate of all she was mother and friend. "And whom do you call the most unfortunate of all?" I asked him.

He looked at me as he uttered these curious words. "The most unfortunate of all, sir," he said, "are they that have to pretend to love when they do not feel it. And theirs is the cla.s.s of which our Madonna is the patroness."

Padrona degli Sventurati, Helper and Friend of those who must serve Love without loving! What a G.o.ddess was this! I drew apart from my informant and communed alone with the mysterious Emblem. "O most tender Advocate of them that need Thee," said I, "O loving Mother of Sinners! Clean Champion of the unclean, Stem, Leaf, Blossom and Fruit of the abounding promise of Heaven that a seed of hope may fructify in our ineffable corruption! cast down Thy compa.s.sionate eyes upon me too, that in their light I may strive again."

This was my prayer, a general one for grace rather than a particular for some specific grace. Now for what I consider to have been a direct answer to it. On the steps of the church, on going out, I saw Belviso waiting for me. I saw that he was alone--and that at once brought before my mind the picture of Virginia, the brave and pa.s.sionate dark-browed girl, my stormy lover and my wife; whom I, alas, was hired by grat.i.tude and the sacrament to love, though love her as I ought I did not. I stood speechless and thunderstruck. Here now, sinner, is the answer to thy prayer! Art not thou, poor Francis, one of Love's hirelings? Dost not thou need the Padrona degli Sventurati? I asked myself these questions; Belviso would answer them for me.

He told me how he had sped. He had been to Lucca and seen Teresa, Gioiachino's wife. Gioiachino, poor fellow, was in prison, but not for long, it was thought. Virginia was gone, but Aquamorta remained in the city. My poor girl had left a note for me with Teresa, which Teresa handed on to Belviso and he to me--to this effect. I read it with tears:

"MASTER, LORD, AND EXCELLENT HUSBAND," it began--("Padrone, Signor, ed egregio marito mio")--"Thy child is unhappy, but having learned from thee how necessary it is to regard her own honour, is resolved to fly danger rather than brave it. I have gone to Arezzo with all thy money safe in my bosom, to put the breadth of Tuscany between me and my persecutor. Make thy affairs as thou wilt, thou art free of Virginia, who will never blame thee. If thou need her or what she hath of thine, thou wilt find her at Arezzo, an honest woman,

"Who kisses thy hands,

"VIRGINIA."

Without a word of explanation I returned to the church and held up my letter before the veiled image of the Madonna of Provenzano. "Here, lady, is my duty," I said, "here is my hire. The lowliest of thy clients, I will never s.h.i.+rk the yoke put upon me. Yet do Thou, Patroness, make it sweet!" I kissed the letter and put it in my bosom; then I went back to Belviso, embraced him, thanked him for his extraordinary pains on my behalf, and said that as soon as possible after the forthcoming performances of the company I should go to Arezzo.

He sighed and looked unhappy. "I knew that you would leave us," he said; "it was only to be expected."

"Yes, yes, Belviso," said I, "I must indeed rejoin Virginia. I see very well that she is my only means of redemption."

"And what is to become of me, Don Francis?" says he suddenly, catching hold of my hand and staying me in the street. "What is to become of me without you, who are in turn MY only means of redemption?"

I said, "My poor youth, you are putting upon me more than I can bear--or rather you are putting a fresh weight upon Virginia. If by her I can be redeemed, and by me only you can be redeemed, then that untried girl is charged with the redemption of both of us--a singular tax for one whose redemption was originally my own care."

He agreed with me that the position was unusual, but affirmed with energy that he had truly stated it so far as he was concerned. "I owe you, sir," he said, "the dearest thing a lad can possess, which is his self-respect restored, his courage reborn. In the light of your approbation I can face even my miserable trade and hope to grow up as I should. If you cast me off I am undone----"after which, as I made no immediate reply, with a pretty gesture, as of a girl wheedling for a favour, he touched my cheek with his hand and begged me to take him with me to Arezzo. I told him I would consider of it; but made no promise.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

MY UNREHEa.r.s.eD EFFECT AND ITS MIDNIGHT SEQUEL