FRA PALAMONE BREAKS THE LAW, AND I MY CHAIN
For his second day's campaign, when he set up as a dentist (in
spectacles and a fine black beard), Fra Palamone chose me to be arrayed
in a loose punchinello suit of red cotton, covered with the signs of the
zodiac in tinsel; for, said he, "Mystery is half our battle won
beforehand. Hermes Trismegistus himself had not been the philosopher he
was if he had been understood, and to this day Aristotle is undervalued,
not for saying what he meant, but for saying it all." He gave me a
peaked felt hat for my head, and exhorted me to have no fears. "Tooth-
drawing," he said, "is as easy as kissing any day. Reflect, Francis,
upon this, and let it be your comfort throughout the coming conflict,
that there is no jaw-bone in the head of mortal man so strong as his
wrist. With your wrist and elbow you can knock a man down; but show me
the jaw that will do so much. I will say nothing of Samson, who is not
in debate; moreover his weapon was borrowed and his enemies were God's
enemies. Now, here is another fact, full of encouragement for you. The
stronger a man is in the jaw, the harder he will pull against your
forceps. Pray, what chance has a tooth the most rooted against your pull
and the patient's? Not the faintest! Out it comes, and there is one poor
sufferer the less in Prato. Courage then; pull and pull again." I
promised him that I would pull my stoutest, but curtly declined his
suggestion that I should try my hand upon Virginia's mouth, although she
made no demur. Sooner should Prato swim in blood, I said, than I lay
violent hands upon my friend.
And in blood swam Prato that day, and Fra Palamone bathed in it
eloquently. He called himself Conqueror of Pain, and piled up his
captures like the trophies of a Roman triumph. I can still hear the
soul-congealing yell with which he hailed every new token of his
prowess, and still see the packed Piazza surge, as it was swept by it
like corn in a breeze. "Woe unto you, heathen masticator," he would cry,
holding high the forceps and its victim, "Woe unto you when you meet
Palamone, Tyrant of Pain! Blessed be the pincers and the fork, which
have gained the celestial paradise for Sant' Agnese, and the terrestrial
for this worthy man! I tell you, signori," he would say, looking round
upon the gaping company, "I would rather be in this man's shoes than in
the Grand Duke's, or in those of my blood-brother in God, the Patriarch
of Venice. Ha! he will break up larks' bones this night! and where are
the sheep's trotters to deny him entry? Where are the walnuts or the
peach stones whose kernels are removed from him? Ahi, signori! do you
think, if Signor Dives had had so wholesome a mouth he would have left
to Lazarus the bones? Not he--but the pith of every one of them had gone
to make him sleeker. Avanti, signori, avanti! Let the next in torment
come up." He had abundant custom, and seemed never to tire; but my turn
came at last, introduced by a string of panegyric which spoke of me as
the Nerve-Acrobat, the Lodestone of Ivory, the Electrical Indian Boy, at
whose touch teeth flew from their sockets and tartar dissolved in smoke.
Pale, but with resolution, I grasped the weapon which he handed me.
To my consternation and half-undoing, I saw in the chair the sinewy form
and honest brown face of Ercole, the heroic lover. He saluted me with a
smile and wave of the hand. He was here to encourage me, he said. Every
man must make a beginning, and there was nothing like a friendly face.
Very much unnerved, I asked him which tooth he proposed to lose.
"Whichever you prefer," he said. "I am here ready. Take this one for
instance." He tapped a fine grinder in his lower jaw. I asked him did it
pain him?
"Why no," he said, "it doesn't in a manner ache; but it will give you
some trouble, I believe, and I'm quite ready to oblige a friend with
whom I have shared confidences. Take your pleasure of my mouth by all
means. I recommend this one as a twister." Displaying here two rows of
pearls, he tapped the biggest of them and awaited my attack.
"I would sooner starve than touch such beauty as this," I said.
"Please yourself," he replied, "but observe, by your refusal I lose
three pauls. There's a matter of a wager between me and a friend which
shall let the most blood."
"Moreover, my young apprentice," said Fra Palamone with severity, "you
shall understand that breaking your covenant with me involves the
breaking of my stick upon your back."
"Via!" says Ercole, "where is your nerve, master? Do you think I haven't
time enough at San Benedetto to grow a fresh crop!"
A terrible struggle ensued, but Ercole won his wager with ease.
Public confidence being now thoroughly established in Fra Palamone's
view, he opened his faro-bank on the last day of the fair, with Virginia
and me for decoys--to all appearance a young married couple from the
sea-board, who were to play and win ten florins. I was dressed, more or
less, as a gentleman of the provinces--and looked, I doubt not, like a
clown--in a white, flowered silk vest, white breeches and stockings, and
a coat of full green velvet. I carried a sword, my hair in a bag, my hat
under my arm. Virginia, on the other hand, looked very handsome in her
high-necked damask dress; her hair done upon the top of her head, with a
little powder, and a patch at the corner of her mouth. We were given a
page in attendance, who was the son of an apothecary in the town, and
made our ten florins with ease. That being all the bargain, we spent the
rest of the day as we chose--which was not punting against Fra Palamone.
He must have made sixty times that amount.
Towards evening the Piazza, grew very gay. An opera was given at the
theatre, after which the ladies of the place took the air, walking up
and down with their gentlemen. Drolls, marionettes, quack-doctors, a
strolling company of comedians from Venice, tumblers and jugglers were
holding their performances before great assemblies of the meaner sort;
but the gentry kept the middle of the square, and there too Virginia and
I, in our finery, braved it with the best. It was remarkable to me to
see how easily and simply she carried herself in a dress and a company
entirely strange to her. She had no mauvaise honte, for she made no
pretence; she was not self-conscious, for she deceived nobody; she did
not smirk nor make herself in any way ridiculous. She was still herself,
put in a position where--as she had the wit to see--staidness was the
natural thing; therefore staid she was. I would have defied any fine
gentleman of London to have known her for the little half-naked peasant
she had been but one day ago. Of course, in Prato the truth was to be
known at a glance. There was nobody there, I suppose, who could not have
picked out her village; nor did she attempt to conceal it. "You dress me
like a lady for your purposes," she would say, "you may depend upon me
to do my best."
Clear-minded, brave, honest, noble-hearted Virginia, how well I remember
thee at this hour! And have I not cause? Should I not be grateful? Am I
not? Ah, but God knoweth that I am!
Now, as we were promenading in that company, I chanced to see Fra
Palamone talking under a lamp to a tall spare gentleman splendidly
dressed in tawny velvet and gold lace. I observed in particular that he
had a long, pale, harassed face, a hooked nose, and eyes so light in
colour that they seemed almost white. His hands were exceedingly
restless, always fidgeting with something; and he himself, for ever on
the start to go, seemed not so much listening to, as enduring, the tale
told him. Some person of consequence he evidently was, for two lacqueys
stood near him--one holding his cloak, another his sword and gloves.
Twice we had passed up and down at no great distance from him before I
asked carelessly of Virginia, "Who is the frate's noble friend?" She did
not answer me at once, but pressed my arm and walked rather faster. When
we were beyond the company of promenaders she said: "I have seen those
two for a long time, and know that gentleman very well. It is the
Marchese Semifonte, to whom my village, and my family, and I myself
belong, body and soul."
The poor girl was trembling, though she spoke steadily enough and looked
at me with unfaltering eyes. But she was grave and I horrified.
"But what,"--I began--"what do you mean, child? The marchese--your--oh,
horrible thought! Is this the blackest treachery?"
"Fra Palamone finds me in his way," said Virginia, "and wishes to have
you to himself in Florence. He thinks that I know too much about him,
and has told the marchese that I am here. He wishes to get rid of me by
some simple means. Nor could he have hit upon a better. Well," she said,
looking gently at me, "I am in your hands. Shall I go?"
I hurried her off at once to our inn, the Sparrow-hawk, where I was
lucky enough to find the padrona, Monna Bianca by name. She was a buxom
woman of forty summers, good-tempered, an excellent manager of house and
husband, and not unreasonably proud of her discernment. She had found me
out, she had told me, in the twinkling of an eye. I was a gentleman,
either English or Irish, and (as she put it) had my leg in the wrong
bed. Supposing my affair to be one very common to her experience, she
had begun by deploring my weakness for Virginia, whom she had called
Robaccia, Cosa di Niente, and the like; but I had cut her short by
telling her the whole of my own story and part of the girl's. She had at
once admitted her mistake, begged my pardon, taken a fancy to me, and
now proved a good friend in this urgent need.
I told her the shameful turn of affairs, and begged her to take care of
Virginia while I was employed in challenging the marchese to fight, and,
if possible, in running him through the body. I said that if she had had
the eyes to see my masquerade, it was not to be supposed that Semifonte
would misunderstand me; but she stopped me at once. "Do no such thing,
Don Francis," said she. "You will be attacking the wrong man. The
marchese is no better than he should be, but he is perfectly galant'
uomo, and would throw no sort of difficulty in your way. But you are
crediting him with too much zeal. He has many irons in the fire, as we
say; and, after all, Miss Virginia is not the only wench in the world."
"Per Bacco," said Virginia, "that's true."
"Your aim," Monna Bianca continued, "should be that old sack of
iniquity, Fra Palamone, the most wily, audacious rogue of a friar in all
a friar-ridden land. Now, I'll help you there--I and your Virginia
together. Leave us, Don Francis, leave us alone for a while. Take the
air, avoid the marchese, and by the morning you shall hear some news."
Such indeed proved to be the case. The Grand Duke Cosimo, it seems, on
the pressure of his friends the Jesuits, had published an edict, which
was then in full force, that any man entering a house where a
marriageable woman might be living could be arrested and imprisoned
without trial. [Footnote: Mr. Strelley is perfectly right. One of the
first acts of Gian Gastone, Cosimo's successor, was to repeal this
preposterous decree. The first and only good thing that I ever heard of
him.--M. H.] By means of this Monna Bianca and Virginia laid Fra
Palamone by the heels. The girl was sent to spend the night with Monna
Bianca's sister-in-law, who lived with her husband (a notary public) and
own sister in the suburbs of Prato, just outside the Porta Fiorentina.
Thither Fra Palamone went in pursuit of his infamous plans, and there he
was found by the sbirri of the Holy Office. The case was clear enough
against him, for I need not say that there was no love lost between the
frate and the Jesuits. Much as may be urged against that learned body of
politicians, no one has ever laid a pandering to profligacy or chicane
to their account. The sister of Monna Bianca's sister-in-law was a
marriageable woman, Fra Palamone was in the house with her, and was
there caught by the Inquisition and haled off to their house of
correction. Virginia and I set out at liberty to Florence, decently
clad, decently shod, with the remains of our ten florins in my breeches
pocket. I remember Monna Bianca's parting advice very well. "Farewell,
Don Francis," it was, "good luck to you and this honest girl. Pursue
your Aurelia as ardently as you will, you are only doing after your age
and degree in the world. Let me advise you to write to Padua for your
portmanteau and effects. You will love your mistress none the less for a
good coat to your back, nor she you, I promise you. Besides, I believe
in a gentleman living as a gentleman. Marry off your Miss Virginia, who
has her wits about her, to your valet, or to anybody else's valet who
will take her. Your position with regard to her does you infinite credit
with me; but I cannot answer for Madam Aurelia. Or rather, I can answer
for her that it will do you precisely the reverse. And--I have a son of
my own, remember--inform your father of your whereabouts in Florence. To
meet again, Don Francis--addio!"
That was a reasonable friendly soul; but it was not to be supposed that
she could understand the reverential attitude of a young man to his
mistress.