THE CASTELLAN was subject to a certain sickness, which came upon him
every year and deprived him of his wits. The sign of its, approach was
that he kept continually talking, or rather jabbering, to no purpose.
These humours took a different shape each year; one time he thought he
was an oiljar; another time he thought he was a frog, and hopped about
as frogs do; another time he thought he was dead, and then they had to
bury him; not a year passed but he got some such hypochondriac notions
into his head. At this season he imagined that he was a bat, and when he
went abroad to take the air, he used to scream like bats in a high thin
tone; and then he would flap his hands and body as though he were about
to fly. The doctors, when they saw the fit coming on him, and his old
servants, gave him all the distractions they could think of; and since
they had noticed that he derived much pleasure from my conversation,
they were always fetching me to keep him company. At times the poor man
detained me for four or five stricken hours without ever letting me
cease talking. He used to keep me at his table, eating opposite to him,
and never stopped chatting and making me chat; but during those
discourses I contrived to make a good meal. He, poor man, could neither
eat nor sleep; so that at last he wore me out. I was at the end of my
strength; and sometimes when I looked at him, I noticed that his
eyeballs were rolling in a frightful manner, one looking one way and the
other in another.
He took it into his head to ask me whether I had ever had a fancy to
fly. I answered that it had always been my ambition to do those things
which offer the greatest difficulties to men, and that I had done them;
as to flying, the God of Nature had gifted me with a body well suited
for running and leaping far beyond the common average, and that with the
talents I possessed for manual art I felt sure I had the courage to try
flying. He then inquired what methods I should use; to which I answered
that, taking into consideration all flying creatures, and wishing to
imitate by art what they derived from nature, none was so apt a model as
the bat. No sooner had the poor man heard the name bat, which recalled
the humour he was suffering under, than he cried out at the top of his
voice: “He says true-he says true; the bat’s the thing-the bat’s the
thing!” Then he turned to me and said: “Benvenuto, if one gave you the
opportunity, should you have the heart to fly?” I said if he would set
me at liberty, I felt quite up to flying down to Prati, after making
myself a pair of wings out of waxed linen. Thereupon he replied: “I too
should be prepared to take flight; but since the Pope has bidden me
guard you as though you were his own eyes, and I know you a clever devil
who would certainly escape, I shall now have you locked up with a
hundred keys in order to prevent you slipping through my fingers.” I
then began to implore him, and remind him that I might have fled, but
that on account of the word which I had given him I would never have
betrayed his trust: therefore I begged him for the love of God, and by
the kindness he had always shown me, not to add greater evils to the
misery of my present situation. While I was pouring out these
entreaties, he gave strict orders to have me bound and taken and locked
up in prison. On seeing that it could not be helped, I told him before
all his servants: “Lock me well up, and keep good watch on me; for I
shall certainly contrive to escape.” So they took and confined me with
the utmost care.