I AM MISCONCEIVED AT THE HOSPITAL
I am conscious that the reader may find much to condemn in my last
chapter. He may think my schemes chimerical, my methods undisciplined;
he may say that I am perverse. I shall only urge in defence of what I
did that I deeply loved, and had deeply injured, the lovely Aurelia. She
had departed from me in misunderstanding and anger; she did not believe
in my devotion, she could not understand my behaviour. Was it
surprising, then, if I felt that I must find her at all costs? Was it
wonderful that I wished her to know of my repentance, or that I wished
to repair my wrong-doings? For eight months I had enjoyed daily and
hourly communion with her--and I don't pretend to say that the horrible
loss of that had a good deal to do with my precipitate departure, any
more than that the hope of finding her was what gave the spring to my
feet and brought back the young blood to my heart. No pilgrim to Loretto
or Compostella more longingly set his eyes to where he believed his
hopes to lie than did I watch for the first sign of the Apennines, which
barred my way to Siena. Having thus briefly defended myself against
misconception, I shall say no more on that head.
After my first night under the stars--wondrous night of wakefulness and
hopeful music, throughout which I lay entranced at the foot of a wooded
hill and was never for a moment uncompanioned by nightingale, cicala and
firefly--I began to suffer from footsoreness, a bodily affliction
against which romance, that certain salve for the maladies of the soul,
is no remedy, or very little. Crossing the hills, over burning roads,
through thorny brakes or by slopes of harsh grass, my heels and the
balls of my toes became alarmingly inflamed; and an acacia-spine,
lodging in the sole of one foot, made matters no better. That second day
of mine I could barely hobble twelve miles, and nothing but resolution
could do that much for me. The night came and found me ill; I slept not;
though I had provided myself with food, I could not touch it. Luckily, I
was discovered by some shepherd boys early in the morning and directed
to the town of Rovigo at some half a league's distance, where they said
there was a hospital.
Seeing that my foot was now so bad that the touch of a hand upon it was
torment, I think it had gone hard with me if Rovigo had stood another
half-league away. I shall not readily forget the noble charity of one of
those boys, who, seeing the inflammation set up by the thorn in my foot,
ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and bound it round the instep--my
first experience of the magnanimity of the poor, but by no means my
last.
I limped into Rovigo and learned the direction of the hospital, at whose
gate I was kept with a sorry crew of wretches for a mortal hour while
the brother-in-charge finished his siesta.
Two friars, a soldier disguised in drink, a young Jew, and myself
completed the company, which was allowed to make itself free of a
flagged and whitewashed hall, absolutely devoid of furniture, and
smelling at once sour and stale. I am sorry and ashamed to remember that
the Jew was the only person of my four fellows in misfortune who kept up
any semblance of manners or proper reserve. He differed, indeed,
markedly from the others, not only in his behaviour, which was at least
conformable, but in his appearance of alacrity and cheerful health.
Seeing that I suffered as much from the ribaldry of my fellow-guests as
from my bodily pains, he came and sat by my side, and encouraged me with
the assurance that it was far better to wait for the brother-in-charge
to awake in the course of nature than to disturb him out of his sleep.
"Mighty little chance for me, for example," he said, "if Brother
Hyacinth don't have his nap to the full. He'll be as savage as a starved
wolf, understand, and will send a man to hell sooner than to admit him
if he have a good foot left to take him there."
"Why, then," said I, "he will never send me for sure, for I have no
feet."
"Be not so sure, dear sir," returned the Jew. "You don't know Brother
Hyacinth as well as I do. There was a fellow came here on a day all
spent and bleeding. He had lost a toe under a coach-wheel. If you will
believe it, this dear host of ours bade him go walk on his hands, and
offered him the cloister to get perfect in. Now, with me, I know it will
go hard, unless those fools cease their din." The two friars had been
dicing with the soldier, and had won his boots. Each had taken one from
him, and were now wrangling who should have both. I was struck by the
sinister expression of one of them, a Capuchin of great strength, with a
long white beard. More than enough of him in due course. I told the Jew
that my case was so bad I cared not greatly whether I was received or
no. A man, I said, could die anywhere. "Why, yes," he said, "so he can--
and live anywhere also. One is as easy as the other, if you but give
your mind to it. But one thing I will tell you," he added, "it is not so
easy as you might think to live cheaply when you have the means of
living dear. I shall be lucky if I spend this night as I desire--but you
will see. Hush! here is our man." I had been about to ask him what was
his malady, for he appeared to me the picture of health, and shining
with it; but just then a square-headed religious, with small angry eyes
and prominent bones, came into the hall, attended by a clerk, a sleek
young fellow, who called out "Silence," and was instantly obeyed. The
two friars were on their knees in a trice, and chattering their Hail
Marys; the soldier, after some efforts to rise, had managed to lift
himself by the wall, and, being propped up against it, was saluting all
and sundry with great impartiality. The Jew only was good enough to help
me with the support of his arm.
His was the first case. "Your name?" said Brother Hyacinth, and was
answered "Giovanni-Battista-Maria-Bentivoglio."
"Write," said Brother Hyacinth to his clerk, "Jew, name unknown, active
liar." This done, he continued his questions.
"Your means?"
"Alas, none," replied the Jew.
"Search him," said Brother Hyacinth.
The clerk thereupon turned out his pockets, which were empty of
everything but holes. Not content with that, however, he felt all over
his body, and when he had, as I may say, drawn all the coverts blank,
knelt down and pulled off the man's shoes. The Jew was unable to repress
an exclamation, which I naturally set down to his disgust at the
indignity. But I found that this was not so. The clerk very neatly
picked out a small key from between his toes and held it up to his
master.
"I thought as much," said Brother Hyacinth. "Go." The young Jew sighed,
shrugged, and stood back without a word; and while I was considering
what his imposture could have been it was my turn.
Brother Hyacinth examined me with keen displeasure. "Who are you?" he
asked me. I told him "Francesco-Antonio Strelli"--and he bade the clerk
write these names down. "Nationality?" he asked next. I told him
"Inglese." One of the friars, that evil, bearded fellow, I noticed, had
drawn near and was listening with all his might. Now it was to be
noticed of him that he breathed very short and fast, and that his breath
struck like fire upon my skin. The interrogatory was renewed.
"Your place of immediate origin?" I was asked.
I said, "Padua."
"Your present occupation?"
"Repentance," I said, and spoke the truth.
"Your means of support?"
"Grace," said I, and he stamped on the ground.
"You are trifling with me--I advise you to take care. Answer me
truthfully of what you repent."
This angered me. I told him shortly that, like everybody else in the
world of my way of thinking, I repented of sin.
He turned to his amanuensis. "Write down that the young man refuses to
give an account of himself," he said harshly; and then asked me what I
wanted of the hospital.
I said with heat, "My brother, I had required of it what I now see I am
not to expect, charity, namely, both of judgment and act. I am
afflicted, as you ought to have seen at once; I need your wisdom--but
need most your sympathy--" To my amazement he cut me short, as he had
done with the Jew, by the brief command, "Search him." I recoiled as
well as I could in my fainting and helpless condition.
"Do you dare insult a sick man?" I cried; and to the clerk, who was
about to put me to this indignity, I said, "Touch me at your peril, sir;
for though I die for it, you will pay for your temerity."
The Jew, who had been looking on at my examination (quite unabashed at
the mortification of his own), here interposed by telling me that the
thing was a common form and must be gone through with. I was about to
shake him off for his impertinence when a chance phrase of his, "free
lodging," enlightened me. This, then, was not what I understood by a
hospital--using the applied sense of the word--but one of those original
institutions, so-called, which were, of course, guest-houses for the
poor. The moment I understood that, I saw that I and Brother Hyacinth
had been at cross-purposes. I pulled out my handful of money and spilled
some pieces upon the floor. Instantly the great friar behind me clapped
his foot upon them. The Jew hunted down the rest.
Brother Hyacinth now recoiled. "What does this mean?" he asked. "Are you
a fool, or a thief, or an impudent rascal?"
"You are mistaken," I replied, "I am none; but it is clear that I have
deceived you. Had I understood the real objects of your hospital--which,
I am compelled to add, you have most successfully concealed--I should
not have been before you. I am ill and in great pain. I supposed that
you could give me assistance. And even now, should that be possible, I
would accept it, and pay for it." Brother Hyacinth, with keen
displeasure, said that mine was a case for the police, and that, while
he should decline my money, he was minded to detain my person for their
consideration; but the Jew thereupon broke in with more assurance than I
should have thought him capable of. "Your pardon, very reverend," he
said, "but this is a case for the best physician in Rovigo, and the best
bed in the best inn. This gentleman, as I knew very well from the first,
is acting for a wager. Only your astuteness has prevented him from
winning it. He has failed, but not by much; it is an honourable defeat.
He very willingly bestows upon you two ducats for the beneficent
purposes of the hospital--those very two, in fact, which the reverend
frate behind him has covered with his foot. With the others he will
return to his noble parents, being furnished with a certificate from
your reverence to the effect that he has failed in his endeavour."
The clerk, who had by this time extracted the two pieces from beneath
the foot of the Capuchin (who loudly denied that they were there), was
now whispering with Brother Hyacinth. After a short time he drew me
apart and told me that but for him I should certainly be sent to prison.
The brother-in-charge, he said, believed me to be a highway thief--or
professed that he did--against all reason; for said the clerk, "As I
told his reverence, if your honour had been a thief it is very unlikely
that we should have had the pleasure of your company at the hospital.
His reverence has made difficulties--it has been hard to convince him,
though your honour's generosity to the hospital has not been without
effect. I flatter myself that my arguments have been useful. Any further
service I can do your honour, I shall very thankfully undertake."
I expressed myself obliged to him, and added that though it might be
very true that I deserved prison, I had other acts of penitence in view
which could only be properly performed in Tuscany. I said, "You would be
justified--if you knew the whole of my history--in declining what I
nevertheless urge upon your benevolence--this crown-piece namely---" He
assured me that no crime of mine, however unnatural, could cause him a
momentary scruple, took the coin, spat upon it, pocketed it, and said
that he was my servant and orator to the end of time. At this moment the
great Capuchin--he of the covering foot--took me by the arm and begged
the favour of a word in my ear. He was a hideous villain, broad-
shouldered, scarred, hugely bearded, and had a prominent tooth in his
lower jaw, rather loose, which stuck out like a tusk. I have spoken of
his breath, which was as the blast of a furnace.
"I see," he said with an odious leer, "that you are a game-cock. I knew
you by your ruffle. It was gallantly tried, and nearly successful. I
like your spirit much. Come with me, and you shall not fail again. You
and I will take the road together, live at our ease, and live for
nothing, and brave it with the best notwithstanding. What do you say?
Shall we shake hands upon it?" Monster that he was, as he hovered over
me there, grinning, moving his tooth, he inspired me with loathing. I
felt the blood tingle in my cheek.
"Better a Jew than a thieving renegade," says I. "That is my answer to
you. Go in peace."
He said, "As you will," and turned to his affairs. I left the hospital
with the benevolent Jew, whose name was Issachar.