They wouldn’t be bad sort of people if it were not for the intolerable
airs they give themselves on the strength of their ignorance. All well
known, though!—all honest folks,—and all of them very much admired,
because the rest of the parish are greater asses than they. Do you see
the priest who is celebrating? That is the Provost of Siepole. A
profound theologian—a thriving dealer in oil—confessor to the nunnery—a
great eater.... He doesn’t like me, but he puts up with me ever since I
cured him of an indigestion which he brought on by eating salted cheese
and beans.”
“He’s not young,” I observed.
“Over sixty. The one at his right is his chaplain, who is at daggers
drawn with me, and gives it out all over the country that I am a
lunatic, because I once refused to make him out a false certificate of
illness. I think there is not much love lost between the two, for family
reasons.... And yet they are never apart; the chaplain’s chief
occupation is to water down his superior’s oaths. Every time the Provost
takes a trick at cards he says ‘_Giuraddio_,’ and the chaplain qualifies
it with ‘_Bacco_.’ So they go on, for the sake of saving appearances and
their souls; but sometimes the Provost feels it as an insult to his
dignity, and takes it ill, and then he snubs the chaplain, and in his
wrath the oaths come dropping out like the beads off a broken rosary,
while the chaplain goes on counteracting them with his ‘_Bacco! bacco!_’
quite unmoved, and ready to face martyrdom rather than yield. He is the
best shot about here, and could beat the whole village at _briscola_.
The poor people adore him, because he says mass in ten minutes, is easy
at confession, and has no scruples about thrashing any man that tries to
play tricks on him.
“The little thin man on this side is an unattached priest—a good
fellow—miserably poor, and in wretched health. He contrives to worry
along somehow and support an elder sister and two grand-children of
hers, whom he teaches himself. He is master, father, and uncle to them,
all in one; and ekes out his means by the help of four or five other
pupils, whom he picks up wherever he can at a franc a month. No one
knows how he does it, but he pays his way, and keeps an honoured name as
a good citizen and blameless priest; and, above all, he is such a _rara
avis_ as not to call down the curse of heaven on his country.[17]... In
the village, as you may easily understand, people either don’t trouble
their heads about him, or else they despise him.
“That other is Sor Cosimo’s brother, whom you know.... I’ll tell you
something about him too; but hush!... every one is kneeling down....”
The silence was followed by the usual shuffling of feet, tinkling of
medals, and indispensable volley of previously suppressed coughs. The
air was becoming more and more unendurably close. The doctor recommenced
his remarks in an undertone.
“And Sor Cosimo’s brother ... he is nicknamed ‘Thickskull’, and yet...”
Here he leaned over and whispered in my ear....
“Never!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Every day?”
“On my word of honour!”
Here Sor Cosimo smiled at me from the other side of the church, and
waved his hand at the organ, as if to say, “What an instrument we have,
and what an organist! You hear—eh?”
“That man beside Sor Cosimo, with the great black silk scarf round his
neck,” my friend went on, “is Stelloni the miller, a member of the
School Board. Sor Cosimo nominated him, because—considering the
antipathy which Stelloni has shown towards all schools from his
childhood up—he was able to assure the Council that he would never be
one to advocate _unnecessary_ expense! In fact, Stelloni, true to his
principles, has never set foot inside a schoolhouse. He says it is from
a desire not to compromise himself, knowing, as he does, that things are
not managed in the way he would approve of; low and unmannerly people
say it is because he is afraid of having to question the children. He’s
a good-natured sort of fellow, though, and hates no one in the world
except the schoolmaster—that pale young man standing over there by the
pillar,—because he once corrected a grammatical mistake in a composition
by the miller’s son. Stelloni felt a kindly compassion for the master as
long as the point remained doubtful; but when it was established beyond
question that the master was right, his compassion turned to implacable
hatred, and now he would be glad of any excuse for turning him out into
the road to starve.
“That little thin old man, at the end of the row on the right, is one of
the richest landowners in the place; a retired lawyer, and Sor Cosimo’s
predecessor as Syndic. His ruling passion is that of running his head
against stone walls, and systematically contradicting, at every meeting
of the Council, everything that Sor Cosimo proposes. He has immortalised
himself by means of two inscriptions which he had put up—with his own
name in capital letters—during his term of office: one on the public
well, when he had the pump put up,—the other you see opposite you—when
he had the ciborium in the Chapel of the Seven Sorrows re-gilt at his
own expense. He got himself elected Syndic in order to get the new
government road run past the gates of his villa. Afterwards, when he
found this impossible, and also failed to get the title of ‘Cavaliere,’
he retired in a rage. Now he relieves his feelings by taking the
opposition side in the Council;—he turns off one tenant every year, and
imprecates the wrath of Providence on the Government at every possible
opportunity—even when the frost ruined his early tomatoes.”
“And you are in the hands of these people?” I remarked.
“I am in the hands of these people.”
... At the moment of going to table, Sor Cosimo said to me, with a wink,
“We must keep up our spirits to-day—bravo! bravo!” Signora Flavia
repeated, for the sixth time, her fear that I should find it penitential
fare at best, seeing that they had made no alteration in their usual
Sunday’s dinner.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, ostensibly because I was hurt by these
apologies, but in reality because I felt I could not stand much more.
Signorina Olimpia preceded us, curtseying backwards, after having
presented me with a roguish glance and a little bunch of jessamine; and
we entered the dining-room, prepared for a great occasion, as was
evident from the odorous presence of table-linen fresh from the quinces
and lavender of the store-closet.
“Here we are,” Sor Cosimo began again. “We have no ceremony here—a
little soup, a bit of boiled meat, a sweet thing or two, and that’s
all!” He crossed himself and said grace.
The small boy whose acquaintance I had made in the morning, had, on
entering the room, remained open-mouthed for a time; but when he had
taken in all the preparations, and more especially a side-table covered
with pastry, sweets and bottles, he could control himself no longer, and
turning to me, yelled, bringing down both his fists on the table—
“Oh! I say, this is jolly! Look what a lot of nice things there are
to-day, because you’re here!”
Sor Cosimo aimed a kick at him under the table, which fortunately missed
its mark; and immediately a frozen silence fell upon the guests.
The women sighed,—the men glared upon that boy with looks which ought to
have reduced him to ashes on the spot,—and I turned to Signor Cosimo and
asked him, with an air of innocent bewilderment, what his son had said.
My stratagem was perfectly successful, and every one’s face had
brightened up when Gostino appeared in his shirt sleeves, bringing in
the soup. Signora Flavia called him to her, and whispered something in
his ear. At the next course Gostino returned in his shooting-jacket, and
with his hat on. Signora Flavia called him again; and when he next
appeared, with the boiled meat, he had left his hat behind, and cast a
questioning glance at his mistress, as much as to say, “Is it right
now?” She nodded an affirmative, but Sor Cosimo signified to him, by
another glance, that he ought to have known these things without being
told. Gostino signified, in reply, by a shrug of his shoulders, that
they had been bothering him unnecessarily, and requested me to take
another piece of chicken.
This politeness on Gostino’s part was the signal for attack. The wine
had begun to revive the spirits of the company, and had affected Sor
Cosimo more than the rest. A tenant came in to say that at Don Paolo’s
net in the garden they had taken seven bullfinches, by which means he
too was cheered up; and now I found myself overwhelmed by the avalanche
of attentions these good people bestowed on me. They heaped my plate
with eatables, and pressed on me one dish after another, new ones
appearing every time I imagined dinner was at an end. I must take some
spinach, because it was a rarity at this time of year; I must taste that
other dish, because Signorina Olimpia had made the sauce herself. And
all the time Gostino was behind my chair, reproaching me for eating
nothing, and Signora Flavia was lamenting that the dinner was not to my
taste....
At last it was at an end....
And the conversation during dinner? There was none! There was a
continual, dull succession of “Take some——”—“Thank you”—“You’re not
eating”—“You’re not drinking”—and of roars of laughter whenever they had
hit upon a new device for cramming me to death.
“The poems, Olimpia, the poems!” yelled Signor Cosimo at last. “The
sonnet for Calamai!”
I turned at once to Signorina Olimpia, to read in her eyes the gravity
of the calamity which threatened me, and I saw there an expression which
made me sorry for her. Signora Flavia had the same look, and even in the
face of that irrepressible child I thought I read something like fear.
They all gazed at Sor Cosimo in a piteously questioning manner, and then
simultaneously turned towards the place at the end of the table, at his
right.
At that point the master of the house called Gostino, in a tone of
vexation, and the latter appeared, in company with two tenants, who,
seizing Don Paolo under the arms, dragged him like a log out of the
room. I jumped up to offer my assistance, but Sor Cosimo stopped me,
telling me, with a look of mingled pain and humiliation, that I was not
to be frightened—it was quite a customary thing.
“In an hour or two he’ll be all right—heart complaint. The attacks come
on when he has over-eaten himself a little....”
“But why does he not try to moderate himself?”
Sor Cosimo shrugged his shoulders.
“Does it often happen?” I inquired.
“Every day, poor uncle!” replied Signorina Olimpia. “Ah! it is indeed a
great inconvenience!”
“And what does the doctor say?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Sor Cosimo. “Precisely!—you know him, that—that——” He
had no epithet wherewith to qualify the doctor. “The doctor laughs....
I’ll tell you what he says—he laughs; and when I sent for him the second
time, after one of these attacks, ... and when it was I who had got him
his appointment, you understand? _I_ got it for him! Well, he had the
audacity to say to that poor fellow, ‘Chaplain, if I were you, I’d put a
little water in it next time!’ There, do you understand now what the
doctor says? But he has never set foot in my house since, and I hope....
Where are you going to give us coffee, Flavia, here, or in the garden?”
The matter being referred to me, I voted at once for the garden, eager
to get a mouthful of fresh air, and all the more as it was a lovely
day.... There was a ring at the gate bell, and Gostino having opened, I
saw five persons advancing up the avenue—three priests and two laymen,
all red in the face as turkey-cocks, and talking at the very top of
their voices. Sor Cosimo took me by the arm, and drawing me forward,
introduced me to the Provost of Siepole and his chaplain, then to the
parish priest of the village, and lastly to the assessor Stelloni and
the communal secretary.
* * * * *
The talk went on, chiefly on personal and local topics, beginning with
the small-pox, which, according to Stelloni, was being “promulgated” in
the neighbouring villages, and ending with Sor Cosimo’s fountain, which
he regretted he could not turn on for our edification, as Don Paolo kept
the key of the mechanism in his own chest of drawers.
Signora Flavia looked at us absently, with sleepy eyes, which she opened
wide every time she heard an extra loud clatter of crockery from the
kitchen, where Gostino was washing up. Signorina Olimpia, perhaps
disgusted with a conversation which was unworthy of her, was wandering
round the garden, casting loving looks at her flowers, till at last,
stopping before a monthly rose with two bees on it, she exclaimed: “Dear
insects,
“Sucking, for one brief moment,
Now this, now the other flower,
Alas! she said——”
“Always a poetess, Signorina Olimpia!” cried the Provost, “always a
poetess! Are those your own verses, madam, are they yours?”
“Come now, Olimpia, out with it, before it is too late,” urged Sor
Cosimo. “The sonnet to Calamai—we must have that at once, for it’s a
beauty!”
“It is a wonder!” observed the Provost. “Do you know, I have it by
heart; I could say it off, as though it were before me in print. It is
the only one of yours I have heard.”
“Rejoice, O youthful boy...”
Signorina Olimpia was preparing to repeat the much-desired sonnet when
Don Paolo appeared in the doorway of the house, looking as though he had
gone to sleep in his clothes and were just out of bed, and stopped on
the threshold, looking fixedly on the ground. They all went up to him,
to congratulate him and ask how he felt....
“The heart, gentlemen! the heart!” He put both hands to the left side of
his chest, half closing his eyes and twisting his mouth, as if to
indicate a spasm which was taking away his breath. Then he asked—
“Have they done anything more at the nets, Cosimo?”
“Five more, Don Paolo!” shouted Gostino from the kitchen.
“Five! Then we’ve made it fifteen to-day!” cried Don Paolo, reviving as
if by magic. “Gostino, my hat and stick!”
Sor Cosimo cast a glance at us to signify that we ought to go to the
nets as well, and that this attention would be extremely grateful to his
brother. The clergy, however, were brave enough to refuse, alleging that
it would soon be time for vespers. The remaining four of us started—Sor
Cosimo, the Secretary, Stelloni, and myself—to the great delight of Don
Paolo, who led the way with somewhat uncertain steps, telling me that he
had reserved a fine cock bullfinch for the Prior of San Gaggio, and
hoped I would do him the favour of taking it to him.
It was now three, and the train left at six. I made various attempts to
get away and keep my engagement with my old friend, but no excuse would
serve. To say that I had an appointment with the doctor after what I had
heard would have been like dealing my hosts a slap in the face, and
every stratagem which I devised was vain. I said I wanted to go into the
village for cigars, as I had none left; Stelloni offered me half of his.
I said I wished to write a post-card; the Secretary informed me I should
find the post-office closed, and Sor Cosimo added that he would give me
one, and I should write it when we returned from the nets, so that there
was nothing for it but to give in.
We had to hurry back, as no one would have dreamed of beginning vespers
without Sor Cosimo and Stelloni in the choir. The ladies had a new set
of refreshments ready for us when we reached the house; Gostino came to
ask when the horse would be wanted, and we set off for the church at
increased speed.
* * * * *
Returning from church, I saw the doctor in the distance. He signed to me
that he hoped we should meet at Florence, and I went on, feeling like a
traitor going to execution, who sees his friends in the crowd and cannot
speak to or take leave of them....
Gostino had already harnessed the horse, and seeing this I uttered a
sigh of satisfaction. Truly, I was in a pitiable state. I could scarcely
stand, tired out with the dawdling but continued motion of the whole
day; my digestion was upset, for obvious reasons; my head was on fire,
and heavy as lead.... Oh, for my own house! But the sigh was abruptly
cut short when, just as I was settling myself in the gig, Signora Flavia
came calmly up and began to say, while the rest of the household stood
motionless to listen—
“See now, as you are so obliging, would you do us a kindness? I have
written out all the things, so that you will not forget anything.” And
she read out, by the twilight—
“1. _To take Sora Amalia’s spectacles to that spectacle-maker at the
Canto Alla Paglia_, and have the broken glass mended. Gostino has them
in his pocket, and will give them to you at the station.
“2. Five mètres, or else seven yards, just as you think best, of stuff
like that of your coat; to be sent on Thursday by the carrier——”
“Have you written down the bird-seed, Flavia?”
“I have put down everything. Now be quiet ... by the carrier who puts up
just outside the Porta San Frediano, where there is a board with
‘Stabling and coach-house.’”
“And about the wine?” asked Sor Cosimo.
“Here it is. To tell Scatizzi, the wine-seller in Borgognissanti—of
course you know him—that if he wants another cartload of the same wine,
now is the time.”
“But you’ve forgotten the bird-seed and the bullfinch, after all!” said
Don Paolo impatiently.
“Here—now comes your turn.
“4. Three pounds of bird-seed from the man in the little alley which
runs from the Via Calzaioli into the Ghetto. Have you put the measure
into the box, Gostino?”—
“Yes, ma’am; but please make haste, or we shall be late.”
“5. A bullfinch to be taken to the Prior of San Gaggio.”
“Have you taken it, Gostino?”
“Yes, Master Paolo. He’s tied under the gig.”
“And you’ll remember me to him?” said Don Paolo, “and tell him that I
caught fifteen to-day, and he is to send and tell me how his nets are
doing.”
“And here,” said Signora Flavia, pointing to a huge bundle tied up at
the back of the gig, “I have put together a little country green-stuff
for you, as you said you liked it.”
“But I ... really ... Thank you, Signora Flavia, many thanks.”
“And this,” said Signorina Olimpia, approaching, “will you keep this in
remembrance of me?” She handed me a sheet of paper folded in four, shook
my hand three times over, and wished me a pleasant journey.... The
farewells were said, and we were off....
When we had left the village behind us I cast my eye over Signorina
Olimpia’s souvenir, and relieved my feelings by one of those hearty
laughs which make one feel like a new creature. It was an autograph copy
of the sonnet on the ordination of Calamai’s son.
_Renato Fucini._
_THE THEOREM OF PYTHAGORAS._
“The forty-seventh proposition!” said Professor Roveni, in a tone of
mild sarcasm, as he unfolded a paper which I had extracted, very
gingerly, from an urn standing on his desk. Then he showed it to the
Government Inspector who stood beside him, and whispered something into
his ear. Finally, he handed me the document, so that I might read the
question with my own eyes.
“Go up to the blackboard,” added the Professor, rubbing his hands.
The candidate who had preceded me in the arduous trial, and had got out
of it as best he could, had left the school-room on tiptoe, and, in
opening the door, let in a long streak of sunshine, which flickered on
wall and floor, and in which I had the satisfaction of seeing my shadow.
The door closed again, and the room was once more plunged into twilight.
It was a stifling day in August, and the great sun-blinds of blue canvas
were a feeble defence against the glass, so that the Venetian shutters
had been closed as well. The little light which remained was
concentrated on the master’s desk and the blackboard, and was, at any
rate, sufficient to illuminate my defeat.
[Illustration]
“Go to the blackboard and draw the figure,” repeated Professor Roveni,
perceiving my hesitation.
Tracing the figure was the only thing I knew how to do; so I took a
piece of chalk and conscientiously went to work. I was in no hurry; the
more time I took up in this graphic part, the less remained for oral
explanation.
But the Professor was not the man to lend himself to my innocent
artifice.
“Make haste,” he said. “You are not going to draw one of Raphael’s
Madonnas.”
I had to come to an end.
“Put the letters now. Quick!—you are not giving specimens of
handwriting. Why did you erase that G?”
“Because it is too much like the C I have made already. I was going to
put an H instead of it.”
“What a subtle idea!” observed Roveni, with his usual irony. “Have you
finished?”
“Yes, sir,” said I; adding under my breath, “More’s the pity!”
“Come,—why are you standing there moonstruck? Enunciate the theorem!”
Then began my sorrows. The terms of the question had escaped my memory.
“In a triangle ...” I stammered.
“Go on.”
I took courage and said all I knew.
“In a triangle ... the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares
of the other two sides.”
“In any triangle?”
“No, no!” suggested a compassionate soul behind me.
“No, sir!” said I.
“Explain yourself. In what sort of a triangle?”
“A right-angled triangle,” whispered the prompting voice.
“A right-angled triangle,” I repeated, like a parrot.
“Silence there, behind!” shouted the Professor; and then continued,
turning to me, “Then, according to you, the big square is equal to each
of the smaller ones?”
Good gracious! the thing was absurd. But I had a happy inspiration.
“No, sir, to both of them added together.”
“To the sum then,—say to the sum. And you should say _equivalent_, not
equal. Now demonstrate.”
I was in a cold perspiration—icy cold—despite the tropical temperature.
I looked stupidly at the right-angled triangle, the square of the
hypothenuse, and its two subsidiary squares; I passed the chalk from one
hand to the other and back again, and said nothing, for the very good
reason that I had nothing to say.
No one prompted me any more. It was so still you might have heard a pin
drop. The Professor fixed his grey eyes on me, bright with a malignant
joy; the Government Inspector was making notes on a piece of paper.
Suddenly the latter respectable personage cleared his throat, and
Professor Roveni said in his most insinuating manner, “Well?”
I did not reply.
Instead of at once sending me about my business, the Professor wished to
imitate the cat which plays with the mouse before tearing it to pieces.
“How?” he added. “Perhaps you are seeking a new solution. I do not say
that such may not be found, but we shall be quite satisfied with one of
the old ones. Go on. Have you forgotten that you ought to produce the
two sides, DE, MF, till they meet? Produce them—go on!”
I obeyed mechanically. The figure seemed to attain a gigantic size, and
weighed on my chest like a block of stone.
“Put a letter at the point where they meet—an N. So. And now?”
I remained silent.
“Don’t you think it necessary to draw a line down from N through A to
the base of the square, BHIC?”
I thought nothing of the kind; however, I obeyed.
“Now you will have to produce the two sides, BH and IC.”
Ouf! I could endure no more.
“Now,” the Professor went on, “a child of two could do the
demonstration. Have you nothing to observe with reference to the two
triangles, BAC and NAE?”
As silence only prolonged my torture, I replied laconically, “Nothing.”
“In other words, you know nothing at all?”
“I think you ought to have seen that some time ago,” I replied, with a
calm worthy of Socrates.
“Very good, very good! Is that the tone you take? And don’t you even
know that the theorem of Pythagoras is also called the Asses’ Bridge,
because it is just the asses who cannot get past it? You can go. I hope
you understand that you have not passed in this examination. That will
teach you to read _Don Quixote_ and draw cats during my lessons!”
The Government Inspector took a pinch of snuff; I laid down the chalk
and the duster, and walked majestically out of the hall, amid the
stifled laughter of my school-fellows.
Three or four comrades who had already passed through the ordeal with no
very brilliant result were waiting for me outside.
“Ploughed, then?”
“Ploughed!” I replied, throwing myself into an attitude of heroic
defiance; adding presently, “I always said that mathematics were only
made for dunces.”
“Of course!” exclaimed one of my rivals.
“What question did you have?” asked another.
“The forty-seventh proposition. What can it matter to me whether the
square of the hypothenuse is or is not equal to the sum of the squares
of the two sides?”