THIS man had been arrested as a Lutheran. He was an excellent companion;
but, from the point of view of his religion, I found him the biggest
scoundrel in the world, to whom all kinds of vices were acceptable. His
fine intellectual qualities won my admiration; but I hated his dirty
vices, and frankly taxed him with them. This friar kept perpetually
reminding me that I was in no wise bound to observe faith with the
castellan, since I had become a prisoner. I replied to these arguments
that he might be speaking the truth as a friar, but that as a man he
spoke the contrary; for every one who called himself a man, and not a
monk, was bound to keep his word under all circumstances in which he
chanced to be. I therefore, being a man, and not a monk, was not going
to break the simple and loyal word which I had given. Seeing then that
he could not sap my honour by the subtle and ingenious sophistries he so
eloquently developed, the friar hit upon another way of tempting me. He
allowed some days to pass, during which he read me the sermons of Fra
Jerolimo Savonarola; and these he expounded with such lucidity and
learning that his comment was even finer than the text. I remained in
ecstasies of admiration; and there was nothing in the world I would not
have done for him, except, as I have said, to break my promised word.
When he saw the effect his talents had produced upon my mind, he thought
of yet another method. Cautiously he began to ask what means I should
have taken, supposing my jailers had locked me up, in order to set the
dungeon doors open and effect my flight. I then, who wanted to display
the sharpness of my own wits to so ingenious a man, replied that I was
quite sure of being able to open the most baffling locks and bars, far
more those of our prison, to do which would be the same to me as eating
a bit of new cheese. In order then to gain my secret, the friar now made
light of these assertions, averring that persons who have gained some
credit by their abilities, are wont to talk big of things which, if they
had to put their boasts in action, would speedily discredit them, and
much to their dishonour. Himself had heard me speak so far from the
truth, that he was inclined to think I should, when pushed to proof, end
in a dishonourable failure. Upon this, feeling myself stung to the quick
by that devil of a friar, I responded that I always made a practice of
promising in words less than I could perform in deeds; what I had said
about the keys was the merest trifle; in a few words I could make him
understand that the matter was as I had told it; then, all too
heedlessly, I demonstrated the facility with which my assertions could
be carried into act. He affected to pay little attention; but all the
same he learned my lesson well by heart with keen intelligence.
As I have said above, the worthy castellan let me roam at pleasure over
the whole fortress. Not even at night did he lock me in, as was the
custom with the other prisoners. Moreover, he allowed me to employ
myself as I liked best, with gold or silver or with wax according to my
whim. So then, I laboured several weeks at the bason ordered by Cardinal
Ferrara, but the irksomeness of my imprisonment bred in me a disgust for
such employment, and I took to modelling in wax some little figures of
my fancy, for mere recreation. Of the wax which I used, the friar stole
a piece; and with this he proceeded to get false keys made, upon the
method I had heedlessly revealed to him. He had chosen for his
accomplice a registrar named Luigi, a Paduan, who was in the castellan’s
service. When the keys were ordered, the locksmith revealed their plot;
and the castellan who came at times to see me in my chamber, noticing
the wax which I was using, recognised it at once and exclaimed: “It is
true that this poor fellow Benvenuto has suffered a most grievous wrong;
yet he ought not to have dealt thus with me, for I have ever strained my
sense of right to show him kindness. Now I shall keep him straitly under
lock and key, and shall take good care to do him no more service.”
Accordingly, he had me shut up with disagreeable circumstances, among
the worst of which were the words flung at me by some of his devoted
servants, who were indeed extremely fond of me, but now, on this
occasion, cast in my teeth all the kind offices the castellan had done
me; they came, in fact, to calling me ungrateful, light, and disloyal.
One of them in particular used those injurious terms more insolently
than was decent; whereupon I, being convinced of my innocence, retorted
hotly that I had never broken faith, and would maintain these words at
the peril of my life, and that if he or any of his fellows abused me so
unjustly, I would fling the lie back in his throat. The man, intolerant
of my rebuke, rushed to the castellan’s room, and brought me the wax
with the model of the keys. No sooner had I seen the wax than I told him
that both he and I were in the right; but I begged him to procure for me
an audience with the castellan, for I meant to explain frankly how the
matter stood, which was of far more consequence than they imagined. The
castellan sent for me at once, and I told him the whole course of
events. This made him arrest the friar, who betrayed the registrar, and
the alter ran a risk of being hanged. However, the castellan hushed the
affair up, although it had reached the Pope’s ears; he saved his
registrar from the gallows, and gave me the same freedom as I had before.