TEMPTED IN SIENA, BELVISO SAVES ME
The company, of which I was now enrolled a member, moved on towards
Siena, that city for which--as Aurelia's cradle--I had a feeling of
profound reverence; towards which now, in spite of all that had
occurred, I could not approach without a quickening of the pulse, an
aching heart, and a longing mind. We travelled with a large caravan of
donkeys and mules to carry the baggage and women--La Panormita, her
gross old mother, and two hags, who called themselves the mothers, and
were really the owners, of the boys. The rest of us, the men and the
boys themselves, trudged afoot. We begged, jigged, or bullied for food
as we went, having scarcely any money among us; for just now, after a
disastrous week in Florence, the company was by way of starving until it
could earn some pence-halfpence in Siena. The first night we slept in a
rick-yard--a bitter wet night it was; the next, we reached Certaldo, and
cajoled the landlord of the Ghirlanda out of house-room. This he only
consented to upon the condition of our giving free entertainment then
and there to his customers. We had been all day on the road; but what
choice is open to the needy traveller? Footsore, muddy to the eyes,
hungry, thirsty as we were--our clothes of the stage sodden with rain,
our finery like wet weeds, our face-powder like mud and our paints like
soup--we must perforce open our packs, don our chill motley, daub our
weary faces, and caper through some piece of tomfoolery which, if it had
not been so insipid, would have been grotesquely indecent. All I
remember about it now is that it was called La Nuova Lucrezia ossia La
Gatteria del Spropositi, a monstrous travesty of the story of Lucrece.
One of the castrati--Pamfilo by name--played the part of Lisetta, "una
putta di undici anni," and exhibited the most remarkable turn of
satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since.
Horrible in a manner as it was, it would have redeemed any performance.
This demon of ingenuity and wit was little more than fourteen years old,
and sang like an angel of Paradise. Another of them was the Lucrezia,
the Roman matron--put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous
peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would have sustained it had he
been present. Adone, his understudy, took his place. My own share in the
mummery was humble and confusing. In toga and cothurnus I had to read a
pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the
audience. I don't believe that I was more thankful than they were when I
had done. The less I say about the rest of the evening and night the
better. The people of Certaldo more than maintain the popular reputation
of their great townsman, Boccaccio. They are as light-hearted, as
impertinent, as amorous as he; and they diverted themselves with our
company in a manner which did credit to his example. Such things, I hope
I may say, were very little to my taste; but it was necessary for me not
to seem singular, and I fancy that I did not.
After a similar night's entertainment at Poggibonsi we set out,
intending to be at Siena that same night. I need hardly say that the so
near prospect filled me with various and contending emotions. I might
hope, in the first place, to find Belviso there, returned with Virginia,
my faithful and tender wife. To know her safe, to have her by my side,
to be conscious, as I could not fail to be, of her deep and ardent love
for me testified in every glance of her eyes--such could not fail to be
a satisfaction to any honest, any sensible man. Such, too, I hope they
were. But I must needs confess that not this confident expectation (for
confident I was of Belviso's success) alone moved me and elated me at
the moment. No, it is the truth that, the nearer I came to Siena, the
more I realised the abiding influence of Aurelia upon my heart and
conscience. I could not but tremble at the thought that in so few hours
I should be treading the actual earth which her feet had lightly pressed
during the years when she must have been at her happiest, and if not
also at her loveliest--since when was she not at that?--assuredly at her
purest and most radiant hour; before she had been sullied by the
doctor's possessory rights, before she had been hurt by my dastardly
advances. This, then, this it was which really affected me, to feel like
some pilgrim of old, to Loreto, may be, or Compostella, to Walsingham,
to Rome--nay, to the very bourne and goal of every Christian's desire,
Jerusalem, the Holy City, itself--to feel, I say, singularly uplifted,
singularly set apart and dedicated to the privilege which was now at
last to be mine. From the moment of departure from Poggibonsi to that
moment when I saw, upon a background of pure green sky, the spear-like
shafts, the rose-coloured walls and churches of Siena, I kept my eyes
steadily towards my Mecca, speaking very little, taking no heed of the
manner of our progress. I had other sights than those to occupy me. I
saw hedge-flowers which Aurelia might have plucked, shade where she
might have rested, orchards where she might have tasted fruit, wells
which might have cooled her feet. Some miles before I was in actual
sight of my desired haven I was in a thrill and tension of expectancy,
wrought upon me by these hopeful auguries, which I cannot describe. I
was in a perpetual tremble, my lips were dry. We passed Castiglioncello;
we rested for noonday at Monteriggione; at Castello del Diavolo, in full
sight of all men, I kissed the stony road. In my own country, I know
very well, I should have been hooted as a madman, but here, where a man
does what nature, or something higher, prompts him without shame or
circumspection, I was never molested. My companions were undoubtedly
curious. Pamfilo said that I was going to meet my amica at Siena; La
Panormita supposed that I regretted some bouncing girl of Certaldo. But
I was soaring now to such a height that I cared nothing. We entered the
Porta Camollia at half-past five o'clock in the evening, and trailed up
the steep Via di Citta, between houses like solemn cliffs, and in the
midst of a throng which, in the dusk of that narrow pass, seemed like
dense clouds, lit up by innumerable moons, to our lodging at an inn
called Le Tre Donzelle. These moons I found out were the wide straw hats
of the lovely daughters of Siena, sisters of Aurelia, companions of her
maiden hours! It made my heart jump into my throat to see in the doorway
of the inn a girl of her own tender and buoyant shape, to hear her very
tones, with that caressing fall which never failed to move me, and to
see the quick turn of a crowned head exactly in her own manner. Before
many hours were over I found myself stabbed more or less vividly by
every young woman I met. There was no escaping from Aurelia in Aurelia's
own city.
Indifferent alike to the orgies of my companions or to their reproaches
of me for not sharing them, I spent a solitary, wakeful night in great
exaltation of mind; with the first ray of dawn I was out and about,
gaining in entire loneliness my first view of the sacred city. I stood,
awestruck and breathless, under the star-strewn roof of the great
church; I knelt where Aurelia's knees must have kissed the storied
pavement. I walked in the vast Campo, which has been called, and justly
called, the finest piazza in Europe; wondered over the towered palace of
the ancient Commune; prayed at the altar of St. Catherine. Prepared then
by prayer and meditation, I made solemn and punctilious visits to what I
must call the holy places of Aurelia's nation: the Madonna del Bordone,
the Madonna delle Grazie, and the Madonna called of Provenzano. Before
each of these ladies--mournful, helpful, heaven-conversing deities--I
prayed devoutly, on my knees. I anointed the feet of each with my tears,
I offered up to each the incense of a sigh from my overcharged heart.
From the last and most gracious of the three ladies I received what
seems to have been a remarkable counsel.
I fell into conversation with the sacristan of her church--Santa Maria
di Provenzano is its name--who told me the tale of this wonder-working
image, a mutilated bust of the Holy Virgin, veiled and crowned. He said
that his Madonna was kind to all the unfortunate world, and famous all
over it, but that to the most unfortunate of all she was mother and
friend. "And whom do you call the most unfortunate of all?" I asked him.
He looked at me as he uttered these curious words. "The most unfortunate
of all, sir," he said, "are they that have to pretend to love when they
do not feel it. And theirs is the class of which our Madonna is the
patroness."
Padrona degli Sventurati, Helper and Friend of those who must serve Love
without loving! What a Goddess was this! I drew apart from my informant
and communed alone with the mysterious Emblem. "O most tender Advocate
of them that need Thee," said I, "O loving Mother of Sinners! Clean
Champion of the unclean, Stem, Leaf, Blossom and Fruit of the abounding
promise of Heaven that a seed of hope may fructify in our ineffable
corruption! cast down Thy compassionate eyes upon me too, that in their
light I may strive again."
This was my prayer, a general one for grace rather than a particular for
some specific grace. Now for what I consider to have been a direct
answer to it. On the steps of the church, on going out, I saw Belviso
waiting for me. I saw that he was alone--and that at once brought before
my mind the picture of Virginia, the brave and passionate dark-browed
girl, my stormy lover and my wife; whom I, alas, was hired by gratitude
and the sacrament to love, though love her as I ought I did not. I stood
speechless and thunderstruck. Here now, sinner, is the answer to thy
prayer! Art not thou, poor Francis, one of Love's hirelings? Dost not
thou need the Padrona degli Sventurati? I asked myself these questions;
Belviso would answer them for me.
He told me how he had sped. He had been to Lucca and seen Teresa,
Gioiachino's wife. Gioiachino, poor fellow, was in prison, but not for
long, it was thought. Virginia was gone, but Aquamorta remained in the
city. My poor girl had left a note for me with Teresa, which Teresa
handed on to Belviso and he to me--to this effect. I read it with tears:
"MASTER, LORD, AND EXCELLENT HUSBAND," it began--("Padrone, Signor, ed
egregio marito mio")--"Thy child is unhappy, but having learned from
thee how necessary it is to regard her own honour, is resolved to fly
danger rather than brave it. I have gone to Arezzo with all thy money
safe in my bosom, to put the breadth of Tuscany between me and my
persecutor. Make thy affairs as thou wilt, thou art free of Virginia,
who will never blame thee. If thou need her or what she hath of thine,
thou wilt find her at Arezzo, an honest woman,
"Who kisses thy hands,
"VIRGINIA."
Without a word of explanation I returned to the church and held up my
letter before the veiled image of the Madonna of Provenzano. "Here,
lady, is my duty," I said, "here is my hire. The lowliest of thy
clients, I will never shirk the yoke put upon me. Yet do Thou,
Patroness, make it sweet!" I kissed the letter and put it in my bosom;
then I went back to Belviso, embraced him, thanked him for his
extraordinary pains on my behalf, and said that as soon as possible
after the forthcoming performances of the company I should go to Arezzo.
He sighed and looked unhappy. "I knew that you would leave us," he said;
"it was only to be expected."
"Yes, yes, Belviso," said I, "I must indeed rejoin Virginia. I see very
well that she is my only means of redemption."
"And what is to become of me, Don Francis?" says he suddenly, catching
hold of my hand and staying me in the street. "What is to become of me
without you, who are in turn MY only means of redemption?"
I said, "My poor youth, you are putting upon me more than I can bear--or
rather you are putting a fresh weight upon Virginia. If by her I can be
redeemed, and by me only you can be redeemed, then that untried girl is
charged with the redemption of both of us--a singular tax for one whose
redemption was originally my own care."
He agreed with me that the position was unusual, but affirmed with
energy that he had truly stated it so far as he was concerned. "I owe
you, sir," he said, "the dearest thing a lad can possess, which is his
self-respect restored, his courage reborn. In the light of your
approbation I can face even my miserable trade and hope to grow up as I
should. If you cast me off I am undone----"after which, as I made no
immediate reply, with a pretty gesture, as of a girl wheedling for a
favour, he touched my cheek with his hand and begged me to take him with
me to Arezzo. I told him I would consider of it; but made no promise.