I FALL IN AGAIN WITH FRA PALAMONE
The Capuchin's employment was precisely what I have stated, though all
probability is against it. I was curious enough to watch him and could
make no mistake. He had a copious beard descending to his stomach, the
half snowy white, the half a lustrous black. Upon a depending twig he
had fixed a tin-edged mirror, in his hand was a small tooth-comb. With
this he raked his beard over and over again, occasionally dipping it in
a tin cup at his side. He looked in the glass, picked up a strand of
beard, examined it minutely underneath, dipped his comb and raked,
dipped and raked again. My gradual advance, due, as I have said, to
curiosity, not presumption, did not disconcert him at all; he began to
speak without so much as looking at me, whereby I was able to hope that
I was not recognised. On my side it had not taken long to ascertain that
I knew the Capuchin very well--if not by his white half-beard, then by
that jutting tusk of his--at once so loose and so menacing. It was that
very same who at the hospital of Rovigo had looked at me so hard, had
burnt my cheek with his hot breath and urged the value of his friendship
so clamantly against that of the Jew's; Fra Palamone, as I remembered
his name. Nor could I forget why I had decided against him, nor in what
terms. It had been because, when I had brought my handful of money
flooding out of my pocket, two ducats had been covered by this man's
foot and had been buried deep in his toes.
"Buon di," said he in cheerful Tuscan speech. "Are you come upon a like
errand of accommodation, by chance? You are welcome to a corner of my
dressing-room. We'll strike a bargain. If you dip my beard, I'll dip
yours."
I said that would be bad commerce on my part, since I had no beard.
"You, sir," I added, "have a remarkable one, which I confess I regret to
see coloured."
"A fig for your regrets, little man," said the other. "Politics is the
cry. If your passport described you as a middling-sized man with a black
beard and a running at the nose, you'd be doing as I am. But you'll
never have such a passport as that."
"My passport," I told him, "is destroyed. It described me as a young Jew
with an assured manner and a pendulous nose."
This caused the Capuchin to look upon his visitor. Whether he knew me or
not, then or before, he made no sign. "There's no flattery in that," he
said, "but you could have done it. A manner's a manner, and there's an
end; but I could swell any man's nose for him and say thank you. And
what does your present passport bear?"
I said, "I have none. The Holy Office having confiscated it, ejected me
from Bologna because I wore a crucifix and prayed to the Madonna."
"Ah," says he, "I've known a man hanged in that city for less. But what
you say convinces me of one thing: you will be all the better for
company."
"How so?" said I.
"Why," says the Capuchin, "you tell me you were talking to the Madonna."
"It is true that I was addressing her in her image."
"Very well; that's a proof positive to me that you had nobody else to
address--a most unwholesome state of affairs. How does my beard strike
you? Black as blackness, I fancy."
He was right. I assured him that it was now as black as Erebus and
pleased him extremely. I told him, however, that I thought he would have
more difficulty with the rest of his description, which gave him a
middle size and a cold in the head. He was, in person, gigantic, and in
health appeared to be as sound as a bell.
"I shall get through," said the friar, "on my beard, and where that goes
I can follow as easily as a tomcat his head. But I have a trick of
bending the knees which will serve me for some hundreds of yards--and if
you suppose that I can't snivel you are very much mistaken. Listen to
this." He hung his head, looked earnestly at the ground: then he
sniffed. Sniffed, do I say? It was as if all the secret rills of the
broad earth had been summoned from their founts. No noise more miserably
watery could have proceeded from a nose. He beamed upon me. "Am I a wet
blanket?" he cried. "Now, friend, shall we go?" He had packed up his
tools in his begging-bag and stood ready to depart. I reminded him that
I had no papers.
"That need not disturb you at all," he said. "You pass in as my convert.
All you have to do is to do nothing and keep your mouth shut. If you
cannot speak you cannot answer; that is good logic, I hope. We will
discuss our several affairs presently in the reasonable air of Tuscany.
I stifle in the Pope's dominions. You might say that there was not room
enough for two such men." He blew out his shining cheeks till his eyes
disappeared; he looked like a swollen tree-bole with a mossy growth
dependent; then he deflated them with a bang, and shouted with laughter
--a single expression of delight, sharply reverberant--and suddenly
stopped. "Poh! what a rattle you'll think me," he said. "Come--and
remember that you are a deaf-mute."
To get a thing granted it is no bad way to take it for granted. This is
what the Capuchin did. I was young and he was old, I undecided and he
perfectly clear in his intention. There was little more--even to my too
charitable eyes--in his favour, certainly not his looks. He was a huge,
straddling, positive kind of a fellow with an air of specious, bluff
benevolence about him which gave way to examination. He had a very ugly
mouth under his beard, cut up sideways by the pressure of his long tooth
to emerge; his eyes were small, greedy and near together; they looked
different ways. His nose was huge and glowing, broad-rooted as a tree
and pitted with the smallpox. On his left brow he had a savage scar. His
strength and determination were very extraordinary; I was to learn
within a few weeks how strong he was, how ferocious and dangerous. His
age might be guessed at near sixty for all his vivacity, for at close
quarters I could see unmistakably the senile arc in either eye, and, as
the reader knows, his hair and beard were very white. Debauchery may
have left these marks upon him, but had not worn out his force. That, at
any rate, was still enough to resolve the irresolute Francis, an
incurable believer in the native goodness of mankind, to obey him in
this instance. I am by nature pliant and easily led, and I have never
been one for half measures. Therefore I received upon my staff the
Capuchin's bundle in addition to my own, and followed my leader towards
the guard-house, within sight of which, crooking his knees together
under his frock, drawing in his shoulders, poking his head, the sturdy
rogue reduced his apparent size and expression more materially than
could be believed. His calculating eyes grew weak and watery, he
snivelled at the nose, drew his breath sharply as if it hurt him--almost
visibly shrank into himself. I looked at him with amazement, but the
officers seemed to know him very well.
"Ho, Fra Clemente," says one, "on the round again, it appears!" The
Capuchin quavered his admission, his hand shook as he proffered his
passport. Yes, yes, poor Brother Clement must live, find consolation if
he could. A festival at Prato called him, a great affair; but he was
getting very sadly, as his friends might see, could not keep the road
much longer. The Customs officers gave him back his papers with scarcely
a glance to spare for them, and had no ears for his maundering, so
occupied were they with me, his companion. "Whom have we here, Fra
Clemente?" said one presently, and sent my heart into my throat. But the
Capuchin sniggered and touched his nose with his finger; there was an
air of low cunning about him very unpleasant to observe. "This, Sor
Giacomo," says he with a cackle, "is a little surprise for the Grand
Duke--a specimen, a rarity, a pretty thing. This is a Scythian youth,
deaf and dumb from his birth, but very taking, as you can see. 'Tis the
best thing I've picked up on my travels for many a year, and a fortune
to me. Why, if I can present this handsome lad to his Highness, you may
have me back upon you in my bishop's coach and six! And there will still
be men of my religion who will have got more for doing less, let me tell
you. You're never going to spoil an old friend's industry for the sake
of a dumb heathen!"
"Heathen!" cries the fellow. "Is he a heathen? Do you suppose you may
offer the Grand Duke a heathen? You'll have the Inquisition upon you, my
man, for certain sure, and the Cardinal Archbishop for once on their
side. Into the water with him before you touch Florence, or out with
your knife. Make a Christian or a Jew of him."
"Ay," says his colleague, handling me as if I had been an Odalisque,
"Ay, and the prince, between you and me, is near his time. His menagerie
may go to the dogs for all he cares, Jews and infidels, blacks and
whites and all. He sees little but the doctors and the priests in these
days."
"What! Has it come to that?" says the Capuchin, peering through what
seemed to be rheumy eyes. "If it have indeed, then may Heaven be his
friend, for he'll need one. Tut! so I've spent my ducats for nothing, it
seems." He shook his pretended convoy roughly by the shoulder. "Accursed
Scythian, that ever I set eyes upon thee! Forty ducats, signori, of hard
money to a Venice ship's-chandler who had him, I know, from a Tripoli
merchant for half the sum. And a hardy, healthy, tall, propagating rogue
he is, by the looks of him. Well, well, you may keep him for me. I am
just a broken old man!" He spat upon the ground and appeared to ruminate
upon his hard fortune.
I was greatly disgusted by now at the false position in which I had been
put, and should assuredly have found my tongue had I not perceived that
the trick was succeeding. One of the officers said that he would go to
perdition rather than have a mute heathen on his hands, the other
encouraged the Capuchin to hope for the best. The Grand Duke might
rally; he had the strength of a cow and the obstinacy of an old woman.
In fact, I was pushed over the frontier after my supposed owner without
further ceremony, and soon joined him. The old scoundrel moved painfully
off, dragging one leg after the other; but no sooner had the winding of
the road concealed him than, erect and replete once more, he clapped me
heartily on the back and began to crow and caper his delight in the
mountain airs. I watched him with mingled feelings, half gratitude, half
disgust.