VIRGINIA AND I FALL OUT, BUT ARE RECONCILED
I confess that I have never been able to feel the force of that argument
which says, for example, that because a man is a sheep-stealer he must
needs be a bad husband. As well might one set out to prove that a
parricide must inevitably prove an indifferent cook. In the person of
Fra Palamone, of whose scoundrelly proclivities I had had more than an
inkling already, it is undoubtedly true that many agreeable qualities
were to be found. He was, to use my illustration again, an admirable
cook; he was a good talker, a companionable man, a kindly host. Having
got my measure, as it were, and won of me by persuasion, what he had
failed to win by force, he was sensible enough to see that, if he wished
to keep me, he must curb his vile passion of rage. And so, for a while,
he did.
Trudging our road to Prato early in the morning, he was very gay.
Virginia stepped along by my side, a free-moving young creature who
never seemed to tire; but he struck out in front of us, most of the time
singing at the top of his voice very discreditable songs, or with a
joke, salutation, sarcasm or criticism for everybody we passed on the
way. Wearying of this, because, as he said, it was poor work fencing
with bunglers, he kept us closer company for the rest of the journey,
and was most entertaining. He talked, he joked, he told tales, he told
lies. He was shrewd, caustic, tender, witty, extravagant, uproarious,
turn and turn about, but he never lost sight of his aim. Probably there
never was a man of looser conversation who kept a tighter hold upon the
direction of his discourse. The end of all his oratory came when he made
us, his pupils as he called us, acquainted with his plans.
"This festa," he said, "whither we go, will bring all the world to
Prato, if it have not done so already; and as this same world is the
orange which I and you, my apprentices, propose to suck, let us lose no
time in getting our teeth well into the rind. In this way, namely: there
are three days' junketing before us, to which we will minister exactly
what the revellers need. Tomorrow, when they translate the blessed
remains of Santa Caterina de' Ricci, we shall sell objects of devotion
to the faithful." As we were now sitting by the roadside for our midday
meal, he produced a variety of objects from a bag at his feet.
"Observe," he continued, "these images--lilies, bambini, nourishing
matrons, curly-headed deacons; these flaming hearts, these hearts stuck
upon swords: a holy traffic indeed! Here, too," and he extricated a
budget tied in blue tape-ribbon, "are the lives of all the frati worthy
of record, and of a good few, between you and me and this damsel, not to
be found recorded. Here, in this napkin, is everything requisite to make
Santa Caterina de' Ricci the happiest of dead ladies--as, portraits of
her mother, of her mother's sisters, of her father and all his
relatives, of the young man who drowned himself at Pontassieve for her
love, and of that other young man who, on the contrary, did not, but
made himself a priest and became her spiritual director. Here are the
palace in which she was born, the escutcheon of the De' Ricci which she
despised, her governess's house, the convent where she made her vows,
and the cell where, if she did not die, she might very easily have died.
Here you have the great doctors and captains of the Dominican Order,
here is Albert the Great, here seraphic Thomas, here murdered Peter,
here Catherine, here Rose--admirable engravings, as you see, mostly
after the admired John. Here then is our day's work cut out for us--a
happy toil! On the next, having done our humble service to the souls of
all these persons, we must be careful not to forget their bodily needs.
I shall exercise my skill in dentistry for trifling rewards, and you, my
young Aesculapius, will prove to others, as you have already proved to
me, that the strong wrist and willing arm are not lacking among your
personal endowments. I am persuaded that these duties will occupy the
whole of the second day, for Prato will be full to suffocation by that
time, and there will hardly be a head whose recesses we may not have to
explore. By these means, having secured (as I hope) the public
confidence, the time will be ripe for my great design. After worship,
relaxation, the release from pain; after pain, pleasure comes. On that
third day, my children, we will set up a faro-bank, the profits of
which, if skill be employed, will more than counterbalance what we have
cheerfully lost in our efforts to do good. The reward, I say, is
certain, and who shall call it undeserved? Not I, for one. Now,
children, to the road once more! Happy fortunes attend us! Pray for old
Palamone, who loves you dearly and thinks about you night and day."
He got up as he was finishing this speech of his and took to the road
before I could object--as I did object--to some of his propositions. But
I told Virginia that I intended to leave him at Prato and push on to
Florence, as I had no intention of helping him cheat his neighbours.
"What!" I cried, "a Strelley of Upcote, a gentleman and an old Catholic,
to clown it in a fair! Never in the world!"
Virginia, walking staidly beside me, considered this outburst in silence
before she delivered herself. '"You speak," she then said, "as I would
have you speak, but not at all as you have decided to speak. You cannot
at one and the same moment be Francesco of Upcote and Francesco Ignoto;
you cannot exalt yourself and degrade yourself. If you choose to be a
gentleman, why did you discard your coat?"
I laughed at her. "My child," said I, "on your showing a man cannot be a
gentleman in his bed--or in his bath." But she held to her opinion.
"I think you understand me very well. You choose to go a pilgrimage, to
encounter dangers and humiliations, and yet the moment a fine one is
proposed to you, you jump back after your gentleman's estate. You tell
me that you have peddled crucifixes: what more does Palamone expect of
you? Be what you choose, Don Francis; kiss me or kiss your Aurelia; go
afoot or in a coach; beg or give, sink or swim. You have two hands, you
will say. It is true; but you have only one person. If, with a fistful
of gold in your right hand, you go about begging with your left, you
will be contemptible as well as ridiculous."
"I agree with that," I said, "but--"
"Here again," said she, breaking in upon me, "you have a choice; and it
is obvious. I am not able to speak for Donna Aurelia, or so you will
tell me; but I will give a great golden heart to the Girdle of Prato
that while she may love a ridiculous Don Francis, she will turn her back
on the other."
"Love!" I said, echoing her. "Love, my good girl! Of what are you
speaking? Donna Aurelia love me? You must be mad."
"It is certain that I must be," she replied, "unless it is your honour
who is mad. Pray let me understand what it is that you want of the lady
when you find her."
"Her pardon," I said, and made her furious. She glared, bit her lip,
stamped. With arms tight folded to restrain her heaving chest, she
stopped short and nodded her words into me one by one, as if she were
directing artillery at a siege. "Well, very well, Don Francis," she
said; "then I tell you plainly that you will find misery and her
together, if you propose to pray at her feet instead of taking her in
your arms--she of Siena! She of Siena, my word!--you will be miserable,
and make her miserable."
I told her to be quiet, but she would not; she grew wild, staring about
and straining out her arms. "I will be no party to this folly--I will
not--I will not," she said half to herself, but Palamone was listening
with a comical, wry face, rubbing his beard.
She took no notice. "I know better than you what a girl needs, and what
her rights are. One woman to humour your whims is enough, I should hope
--Look at me, look at me, Don Francis!" I had never seen her in this
state before--a beautiful starving creature, like some wild thing
baulked of her desire. Her eyes were gaunt, she held out her hands to
me; I was much concerned--it was really Palamone who got her to be
quiet.
He came and touched her on the shoulder. "Have patience, my daughter,"
he said, and added some quick words under his breath, whose sense was
lost to me. Meantime a little company of passers-by had collected about
us, and watched for the event. "We will not discuss our affairs before
these citizens," said the frate, "more especially as the lady, whose
name you toss to and fro, is not here to applaud or condemn. No doubt
but you will find her in Prato, if, as you say, she is of the Sienese
nation. Why, to the translation of the blessed remains are to come Donna
Violante, wife of the Grand Prince, and Donna Camilla Pallavicini, his
mistress. Next to a saint, a Grand Duke's mistress would draw every
woman in Siena--and we are to have both. The thing is not worth
discussion. She will be there. Hey, then, children, AVANTI!"
We went on without any more words; Virginia, all her spirit gone out of
her, presented the most woebegone appearance. It would have been evident
to me that she was deeply ashamed of herself had I not been too incensed
to think anything about her. We entered the town of Prato about five
o'clock in the evening, and found it crammed to the walls with
sightseers and those who expected to offer them sights. The Piazza was
like the camp about a fair, the inns were like anthills, the very
churches were full. On the morrow was to be the great procession of
religious to enact the translation of the remains. No lodgings were to
be had better than a stall in the stable of the Sparrow-hawk. There it
was that we established our camp; and that done, I left my companions
and wandered alone about the town, hardly hoping, and not able, to find
my beloved, remote and much injured Aurelia.
Late at night I returned and threw myself upon the straw which was to be
my bed. I was tired, and fell asleep at once, but not comfortably.
Restlessness possessed me, I turned and tossed about, was distressed by
dreams of incredible and fruitless labours and of mental anguish, whose
cause I could not define. Presently after I was awakened by a sense of
something touching my feet, and lay for a time awake, wondering what it
might be. Some person or another was touching me there--softly, very
softly, and in kindness. I heard gentle whispering--I felt the touch as
of velvet on my feet; and then a drop fell, warm and wet. I said, "Who
are you who kiss my feet?" and was answered, "It is I--Virginia--my
lord."
"What do you there, Virginia?" I asked her. "What do you need of me?"
"Your pardon," she said; and I heard her crying softly to herself in the
dark.
"My child," I said, and held out my hand to her, "you know that I am no
man to have pardons worth a woman's accepting, but I can assure you of
Aurelia's pity and pardon for what you have said against her. Draw near
and you shall have it from my hands."
The straw rustled as she crept on hands and knees towards me. Her face
encountered my hands and rested between them. It was burning hot, and so
were her lips, which kissed my palms alternately and thirstily as if she
were lapping water. "Forgive me, my lord, forgive me," she urged me.
"Oh, I am dreadfully ashamed! Forgive me this once, I am wretched."
"Child," I said, "think no more of it. I have no grudge against you--all
my thoughts are kindly. Lie down, Virginia, and sleep. Our friendship is
too strong for a tiff to break it." She kissed my palms again and again
and crept off the straw. I heard her shut the door of the stable after
her. Where she passed the night I know not; but I remarked that in our
subsequent wanderings she never let me know how or where she did sleep.
She met me next morning, her usual cool, nonchalant, reasonable self.