DURING my promenade through the market, I met Giovan Battista Santini,
and he and I were taken back to supper by the priest. As I have related
above, we supped at the early hour of twenty, because I made it known
that I meant to return to Trespiano. Accordingly they made all ready;
the wife of Sbietta went bustling about in the company of one Cecchino
Buti, their knave of all work. After the salads had been mixed and we
were preparing to sit down to table, that evil priest, with a certain
nasty sort of grin, exclaimed: “I must beg you to excuse me, for I
cannot sup with you; the reason is that some business of importance has
occurred which I must transact for my brother Sbietta. In his absence I
am obliged to act for him.” We all begged him to stay, but could not
alter his determination; so he departed and we began our supper. After
we had eaten the salads on some common platters, and they were preparing
to serve the boiled meat, each guest received a porringer for himself.
Santini, who was seated opposite me at table exclaimed: “Do you notice
that the crockery they give you is different from the rest? Did you ever
see anything handsomer?” I answered that I had not noticed it. He also
prayed me to invite Sbietta’s wife to sit down with us; for she and that
Cecchino Buti kept running hither and thither in the most extraordinary
fuss and hurry. At last I induced the woman to join us; when she began
to remonstrate: “You do not like my victuals, since you eat so little.”
I answered by praising the supper over and over again, and saying that I
had never eaten better or with heartier appetite. Finally, I told her
that I had eaten quite enough. I could not imagine why she urged me so
persistently to eat. After supper was over, and it was past the hour of
twenty-one, I became anxious to return to Trespiano, in order that I
might recommence my work next morning in the Loggia. Accordingly I bade
farewell to all the company, and having thanked our hostess, took my
leave.
I had not gone three miles before I felt as though my stomach was on
fire, and suffered such pain that it seemed a thousand years till I
arrived at Trespiano. However, it pleased God that I reached it after
nightfall with great toil, and immediately proceeded to my farm, where I
went to bed. During the night I got no sleep, and was constantly
disturbed by motions of my bowels. When day broke, feeling an intense
heat in the rectum, I looked eagerly to see what this might mean, and
found the cloth covered with blood. Then in a moment I conceived that I
had eaten something poisonous, and racked my brains to think what it
could possibly have been. It came back to my memory how Sbietta’s wife
had set before me plates, and porringers, and saucers different from the
others, and how that evil priest, Sbietta’s brother, after giving
himself such pains to do me honour, had yet refused to sup with us.
Furthermore, I remembered what the priest had said about Sbietta’s doing
such a fine stroke of business by the sale of his farm to an old man for
life, who could not be expected to survive a year. Giovanni Sardella had
reported these words to me. All things considered, I made my mind up
that they must have administered a dose of sublimate in the sauce, which
was very well made and pleasant to the taste, inasmuch as sublimate
produces all the symptoms. I was suffering from. Now it is my custom to
take but little sauce or seasoning with my meat, excepting salt; and yet
I had eaten two moderate mouthfuls of that sauce because it was so
tasteful. On further thinking, I recollected how often that wife of
Sbietta had teased me in a hundred ways to partake more freely of the
sauce. On these accounts I felt absolutely certain that they had given
me sublimate in that very dish.