If there is not much to be said for the Via della Gatta in these days,
there was even less when Ippolita was the reigning toast. It was
cloistered (as now), it was cobbled, shabby-white, secret, blind; it
echoed silence, was a place for slippering crones, for furtive cats, and
the smell of garlic and charcoal fires. Of nights, by the same token, it
was not the place to choose for an after-supper walk. The watch used to
go through it with swords before and daggers behind. Lanterns were
little use save to reveal the cut-throat blackness all about.
Now, on the very night when Matteo was fuddled, Ippolita in tears,
Alessandro in a fever, and the more reputable Padovani turning down
their beds, the watch came rattling at the Sub-Prefect's door to report
a dead Jew in the Via della Gatta. Of all nights in the year, this, the
eve of the Glorious Ippolita's home-bringing, to be vexed by a dead Jew!
Messer Alessandro was exceedingly annoyed.
"Take your accursèd Jew," he said to the lieutenant, "and stuff him
underground. I am busy, I am absorbed in work. When I have leisure I
will attend to him. You can dig him up again. And I take this
opportunity to tell you, Lieutenant, that your visit is most
inopportune. For six months you have brought me nothing of the sort, and
to-night, for example, you plump a Jew on my doorstep. Bury your beastly
Jew and leave me in peace."
"But, Excellency," stammered the Lieutenant, "your Excellency will see
that I have no control over the assassins of Padua. This Jew has not
died happily. There is a great hole under his ribs. He is scarcely cold
yet."
"That is soon remedied," said Alessandro; "put him in the ground."
"But, Excellency, a murdered Jew, a Jew in holes--"
"The Jews have been damned from the beginning of our dispensation,"
cried the Sub-Prefect in a rage. "Well, I add my malediction. I say,
Damn your Jew!" And he shut the door in the face of the watch.
The Lieutenant was hungry. If his chief could damn the Jews, so could
he.
"Corporal," says he, "I am going to supper. Do what you like with the
Jew, so long as you put him decently away when you have finished. Good
night."
The Corporal conferred with his men. Here was the Jew--what should they
do with him? One of the archers suggested a source of profit. He might
be shown in the wine-shops at a quattrino a head. Agreed. Off they set.
They showed him at the Codalunga--there were some low-browed hovels
there, as was usual about the gates: the Jew did well. Thence they
skirted the walls by the Riviera Santa Sofia, tried him at the outer
gate of the Carmine, worked their way from tavern to tavern, till they
came to the Vicolo Agnus Dei. It was a thousand pities Matteo was drunk
in his bed; he had quattrini enough and would not have missed the treat
for the world. Ippolita, whimpering in hers, wondered what the buzzing
and sliding of shoes in the street below could be about. She had
troubles of her own, poor girl, but she could not stand this. Up she
got: a single glance out of window was enough. She shuffled on a shift
and a petticoat, snatched a shawl, and tiptoed out. Annina, her bosom
friend, had no troubles. She was half undressed, but she too slipped a
shawl over her head and went peering into the alley. There she met
Ippolita, and joined hands. Flaring torches, a swarm of eager black
heads, whispers, grunting, the archers' plumed helmets--"Madonna! What's
all this?" cried the two girls together in a stew of curiosity. A dead
Jew? A murdered Jew? O Gesù! They borrowed a quattrino apiece from a
neighbour and were richly rewarded. Ah, the blood, the staring, his grey
old fingers! There was a something, if you like, to talk about at the
house door; and a something to dream of, per Bacco! I believe the Jew
engulfed all her annoyances of the past and all her fret over the
immediate future.
When they had done with him, came the question of his interment. It was
the small hours, very near the time to relieve guard. The Jew's hosts
found themselves out by the Porta Santa Croce--an empty quarter of the
town, abounding in gardens.
"Over the wall with him," said the Corporal; "we'll plant him here." It
was done. The Jew, who, by the look of him, had earned more money an
hour after death than in all the years of his life, was put a foot and a
half underground among the pumpkins in a garden of the Via di Vanzo.
Padua went to sleep.