And she had finished all her preparations so quickly that the appointed hour seemed to fly before her, like the butterfly before the child who pursues it so eagerly, while, fluttering from spray to spray of the hedge, it seems to mock at him. Finally the clock struck, and Maria listening intently, with her finger on her lips, counted the strokes, but becoming confused she lost the number, and waited more carefully for the repetition of the sound; but this second time the barking of a dog hindered her from hearing all the strokes, and she remained as uncertain of the hour as before; she went to the window to ask any one who might be passing, but there was no one to be seen; then she tried knocking on the wall to ask her neighbor, who, probably just awakened out of sleep, and provoked at being disturbed, answered crossly: "I don't know." Maria, feeling as if she were enduring the tortures of San Lorenzo on the burning coals, and excited by curiosity, determined to set out, and, if too early, to wait in the open air, walking up and down, for from the intense heat, and her excessive impatience, staying in the house seemed a martyrdom that she could not possibly endure.

But Isabella's impatience was no less violent than her own, for when she reached the secret door it was opened to her first knock, and she saw the Lady Isabella seated on the lowest step of the stone staircase, pale as a waxen image, with a light at her feet, which partially illuminated her person. Seeing Maria she rose, and clasping

her right hand pressed it to her heart in silence; then taking the lamp she began to ascend the stairs, lighting the way for her.

Reaching her room, Isabella put down the lamp near the cradle of an infant. Marvellously beautiful was the workmanship of the cradle, all inlaid with gold; no less so the velvet counterpane embroidered with beautiful golden leaves, and the silken and gold draperies trimmed with lace of priceless value. Whoever has seen, in the gallery of the Pitti Palace, the portrait of the child Leopoldo dei Medici, who was afterwards a cardinal, may easily form an idea of how this child was adorned; but the most marvellous sight of all was the child itself, which was incredibly beautiful. Maria's glance fell immediately upon the little creature, and seeing how lovely it was, she began to fondle it after the manner of women.

"Why, who are you, my pretty one? Gesù! What a little darling! Where did you get such splendid eyes? Could you tell your name? With wings on your shoulders you would seem a little angel of love.[43] There, there, laugh a little, sweet one, and show your dear little teeth." And putting her forefinger upon the dimple in its chin she played with him, and the little fellow began to laugh merrily, and lifted his tiny hands to Maria's face as if to return her caresses.

Isabella, silent, but partly relieved from the overpowering grief that had oppressed her, stood looking at the touching scene; but at last, as if roused by the urgency of the case, she spoke:—"Do you see? That beautiful head will soon be crushed by a hand of iron, or dashed against the wall, or else trampled under foot; those eyes will be torn from their sockets; those soft, white limbs become a shapeless mass of bleeding flesh——"

"Alas! who would be such a monster as to do so? Who would dare to commit such a crime in the Orsini Palace?"

"Orsini."

"I do not understand. His Grace the Duke has always seemed to me an honorable Knight and a Christian——"

"This child is mine, but not my husband's.—Now do you understand?"

"Good Heavens! But why are we Christians, unless we are able to forgive? Trust in God; trust to the efficacy of repentance, throw yourself at your husband's feet——"

"He would kill us both."

"Your brother's——"

"He would kill us both."

"Who says so? You are too suspicious; it does not seem right to believe Christians capable of such enormities."

"Ah! Maria! Men are wicked and cruel. They wish to love us only so long as it pleases them, but if we cease to love them, they call it a crime, and as a crime punish it most severely. Giordano, who, if I were dying for love of him, would not stir from Rome to say to me: 'Go in peace, O sorrowing one;' would fly like an arrow from the bow to kill me and this child, because I have shown that I did not care for him——"

"The Duke may be as you say, but your brothers—"

"My brothers have taken 'the shadow of a shade,' and have called it honor. They, who would wish to rule universally and absolutely, have become the slaves of this shadow; they have made a code of it, which they quote continually; but the pages are blank; every one reads there what passion dictates; one single thing appears there, thanks to the characters of blood in which it is written, and that is death——"

"Well, if there is no longer any pity to be found in the world, fly, hide yourself in some secluded retreat, where you may ask the Lord to pardon your fault, and He will certainly grant——"

"I cannot go away, and I will not; I feel that I am guilty, and will not try to escape the punishment that is destined for me; I no longer know what to do with a life full of remorse and shame; henceforward I shall have to cast down my eyes, unable to meet the gaze of others; and the daughter of a crowned prince must hate life when she is obliged to bow her face, burning with shame.—But what crime has this infant committed? It is innocent; its fate must be separated from mine. This child must be saved——"

"And it shall be."

"O Maria, with those words you have given me the only comfort which my sorrowing soul can now feel. Take him—he is yours—and as yours save him."

So saying, she took the child and put him in Maria's arms. The baby, who had taken a fancy to Maria, raised his little hands towards her face, and seemed to entreat her as well as he knew how; Maria, kissing him with the warmest affection, replied:

"Yes, my pretty angel, do not fear, I will save you. Yes, you shall not die, you must live and be happy; if men are cruel, women are compassionate, and succeed better than men, because God aids piety and hates the wicked——"

"Maria, I expected no less from the great love you have always felt for me, and still feel. God and your own conscience will reward you for this good action, better than I ever can either by word or deed. I confess it, in the days of my guilt, I avoided you; you seemed a troublesome restraint upon me. Do not be angry; would man ever sin, if he did not first drive his guardian angel from him? My present wretchedness is sufficient punishment for my sin, and to satisfy you entirely, as I ought, Maria, I entreat your pardon——"

"O my sweet Lady, what words are these? You will make me weep, and we have need of all our firmness and resolution. Up now, tell me what is to be done. Night and silence veil everything in mystery; no one will know it, and you will live."

"Listen: feeling sure of your goodness, I have prepared everything that is necessary. In this chest you will find jewels and money sufficient to establish yourself. If the boy lives, employ it to educate him properly; if it please God to call him to Himself, keep it for your own use. Here is a letter which I confide solemnly to your secresy. When you reach Paris, give it with your own hands to Catherine, Queen of France——"

"Paris! France! What do you mean? I never dreamed of that!"

"What did you intend to do?"

"Why, to take the child home with me; to move to another street, and live in some little house on the other side of the Arno, where I could let it be understood that the child was my own——".

"That would be perfectly useless, for they will seek this little innocent with the ardor of the bloodhound pursuing the wild beast; and while you would fail to save him, you yourself would run extreme danger. This dear head must be defended by very different means; the space of a thousand miles between him and his persecutors would hardly insure safety——"

"Ah, my Lady! I cannot leave Florence!"

"What! You cannot? Do you then repent of your kindness? Will you break your promise to me?"

"Ah, my Lady! You know that I am a wife. My husband is far distant; now how can I, consistently with my duty, go away without his consent? How leave a country which he does not wish to leave? If he were to return, and, finding me gone, his love for me should be changed to hatred, should he say: 'Since she is gone, I shall take no more trouble about her;' were I to become a wanderer over the world without him, should he doubt the great love I feel for him, and the faith that I have always kept to him, and despise me—Ah, wretched me!—I should die,—I should certainly die of grief——"

"You love your husband very much, Maria?"

"How could I help loving him? When, forsaken by every one, my parents dead, without a single relation, banished from your heart, I implored God to call me to Himself, because I had lost every reason for wishing to live, and the Lord not granting my prayer, I felt myself plunged in despair, this beloved youth had pity upon me and said: 'Come, poor forsaken one; rest upon my arm, and we will make the journey of life together; if you wish for love, I offer you a heart capable of loving:'—and I clung to him, as St. Peter did to the robe of Christ, when he felt himself drowning, and I was saved: life became pleasant to me, and has always remained so, because I feel that I give pleasure to him—to my husband—my only comfort on earth——"

"How happy you are! But reassure yourself, Maria; I shall know the moment he returns, and then I will contrive either to speak to him myself, or, failing in that, will send a monk of holy demeanor and sweet eloquence, who will be able to make him contented, and willing to appreciate your good and pious action, so that if he love virtue, as he must, loving you, he not only will bear no ill-will against you, but will love you a thousand times more than before——"

"You say well: but if you should not be able either to speak or to send to him; if, in the bitterness of the unexpected calamity, he should be overcome by passion, and destroy himself or fall sick—Alas! I tremble at the mere thought that he might be sick, and not have his Maria by his bedside to care for him——"

"I swear to you by my soul, that he shall know it before he enters the gates of Florence; do not fear, I bind myself by my word as a Princess and a Christian——"

"But even if I could trust you in this, Isabella, how could I endure to banish myself for ever from my country?"

"And what is there now in this country of ours to bind you to it? The spirit of the republic is irrevocably departed, not like a flame extinguished by force, but like a candle which has burned to the socket. Most of her worthiest children wander sadly, either in voluntary or forced exile, so that it may be said of Florence as it was of Pisa after the defeat at Meloria, that to see Pisa it was necessary to go to Genoa. In Lyons and in Paris you will meet the flower of our citizens. The royal buildings and the churches in France equal, if they do not surpass, our own. There, as here, the earth produces pleasant fruits; there, as here, the sun and stars shed their blessed light; there, as here, people love, hate, are born, live and die; and God exalts the humble, casts down the proud, and listens to the prayer of innocent souls like yours——"

"Yes, but there is no shrine before which I love to pray so well as that of the Santissima Annunziata in the city, and in the country that of the Impruneta; the sound of the organ does not exalt me, unless its echoes swell beneath the arches of Santa Maria del Fiore; the sweet breeze of evening does not refresh me, unless it blows upon me from between the Duomo and San Giovanni. O my Lady, when I see the trunk of a tree cut down at the root half buried in the earth, despoiled henceforward of flowers and fruits, and rendered offensive to the sight by the millions of ants which have half-eaten it, I think to myself—'Such it is to be an exile.' And then I love to look at well known faces, I love to say, when a child is born here,—'That is the child of Ginevra or of Laudomine;' if any one dies—'God rest the soul of Giulio, of Lapo, or of Baccio;' but away from one's country, you hear always around you—'Behold the child of the foreigner; behold the companion of the foreigner;' and without really intending it, the people among whom you dwell never cease making you feel that you are nothing there, that you do not belong to their land, that you are privileged in being allowed to breathe their air, to be gladdened by their light and warmed by their sun. Who would speak to me again in the language in which my darling mother chid me when idle, or rewarded me when diligent? And if I wanted nothing else in that foreign land, who could enable me to kneel upon the stone which covers the bones of my parents, and repeat for them the De profundis? In my afflictions, when it seemed as if I were utterly abandoned, I went to their grave and grieved with them at my undeserved fate, praying them to receive me into eternal peace; suddenly I seemed to hear a voice, I am sure that I really did hear one, which comforted me, saying: 'Do not despair, continue to walk in the way of the Lord, for you are already near the end of your trials.'"

Isabella changed color many times while Maria was speaking; suddenly she threw herself at her feet, and clasping her knees, thus implored her:

"Maria, by the bones of your parents, by the welfare of your soul and mine, I conjure you not to deny me what you have promised. Behold a mother utterly desolate; see if 'ever sorrow was like unto my sorrow;' I will not release your knees until you have given me peace; I will not raise my face from the dust until you have pronounced the word that gives me life. Some future day you may return to this land which is so dear to you, and that day cannot be far distant, for those who wish my death will quickly follow me to the tomb. And you, my child—unfortunate before you could understand what misfortune is—lift up your hands and entreat this woman who alone can preserve your life; I can do nothing for you; to stay by my side would bring certain death upon you. Maria! Maria! May the Virgin show you mercy upon your death-bed as you now show it to me! Have pity upon a mother who must else see her son slaughtered before her eyes—for Christ's sake——!"

And seeing that Maria hesitated, undecided what to do, she rose wildly and clutching the child, who began to wail piteously, she advanced with resolute step towards the balcony.

"Since," she muttered convulsively, "since I cannot save you, at least I will not see you die; let us perish together; they must collect the mangled remains of both. Maria, farewell! May this murder, which you might have prevented, not rise up in judgment against you. Come, my baby, let us leave this world where virtue and hatred are equally cruel—all wicked and cruel——"

Like one, who, after a long and terrible struggle, has at last resolved upon what part to take, Maria sprang after Isabella, and clinging to her dress, exclaimed,

"Well—I will go—to France——"

Isabella, throwing her disengaged arm round her neck, sobbed without being able to utter a word. When she had somewhat recovered from her violent excitement, she said,

"We must hasten, for the hour approaches."

She then divested the child of its gay trappings of velvet, and put them with the laces and counterpane into the gilded cradle, then kindling the fire she put them all in it.

"Let this finery be destroyed for ever, it would not bring you honor but disgrace; you must forget your origin. Child of shame, be satisfied if the fault of your parents be not visited upon you. Maria, I prophesy that he will be to you a best beloved son, and you certainly will look upon him as one; for we love our fellow beings in proportion to the trouble that they cost us, and to the benefits which we confer upon them; and you are conferring one upon him, which the heart can understand, but which the lips cannot express. Maria, he will be the pride of your life, the comfort of your old age; here I transfer to you all the rights of a mother, which you will exercise much better than I could have done. You will exert them innocently and religiously, for that will be piety in you, which in me would be sin; but whencesoever they arise the rights of a mother are holy and sacred. You will bring him up in the fear of the Lord, make him humble and gentle; proud thoughts are not suitable to him. Watch carefully that cruel feelings do not steal into his heart; do not disclose to him his birth, nor, alas! who was his mother; he would despise me, and the scorn of their children weighs more heavily upon the bones of parents than the marble stone. At some future time, if you should discover him to be compassionate—as I hope and pray he will be—if then he wishes at any rate to know who his mother was, tell him—'an unfortunate one!' Maria, I implore you to impress it upon him never to remove this little pearl cross which I take from my neck and put on his. Mark well what I have said, for it is my last will, and these my last words, that I now say to you. Adieu, my own, pardon me the life which I have given you; adieu, never to see you again—but perhaps in heaven hereafter. But how can I hope that God will pardon my crime? I will weep day and night—I will expiate my sin with blood, and appeased Justice will not forbid Mercy to join in Heaven those whom sin has separated on earth. But—the Mother of Christ pardon me the prayer—if in the life beyond the tomb we may not be united, may you at least, my son, be admitted into Paradise; in eternal torments, it will still be some comfort to your mother to know that you are happy in the abode of the blessed. Maria—take him—I dare not bless him for fear my benediction should bring evil upon his head——"

"My poor Lady! Bless him, bless him, for the Lord will listen to your blessing as to that of a saint——"

"Do you really believe so, Maria?"

"By all my hopes of Heaven, I do believe it——"

"O Lord, cleanse my hands for a moment, that I may bless this innocent head," exclaimed Isabella, raising her eyes to Heaven and praying silently. Then a glorious radiance spread over her face. Reassured, she extended her hands over the child and added:

"Go, my son, I bless you——"

Then, trembling, she took the light and continued:

"Come; before daybreak, they will call for you and will escort you to Livorno, where a vessel is waiting for you. Come; I feel as if we could not be quick enough."

Maria took the baby, and wrapped him in a brown cloak. Isabella preceded her with the light, as she had done on her arrival. Reaching the bottom of the staircase, she raised her hand several times to open the door, but seemed unable; at last, a new thought came suddenly into her mind, restoring her strength and fortitude.

"One kiss—another—another still! Maria—my son—farewell for ever——"

Maria kissed her, weeping, and went out quickly, slipping hastily along close to the wall.

Isabella, overwhelmed with anguish, sank down upon the step, and leaned her forehead against the marble—her forehead was colder than the stone.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." These are the words of Christ, and although I do not doubt that they have been understood according to the deep wisdom with which they were uttered, yet I will discourse a little, not upon them, for they have no need of comment, but after their instruction. Man should avoid those studies which make him doubt. He should love himself first, but in a just manner, then his family, then his country. There have been, and perhaps there still are, men who love their country more than themselves; but an acute observer will easily understand that sacrificing one's life (compared to which, everything else seems but of little value) is generally induced by a great love of praise and an uncontrollable thirst for fame; and that in truth they love renown better than life. The soul should be neither a Menade nor a Bacchante through the fields of knowledge; science has its fatal orgies, more than dissipation; the waters do not always flow clear, fresh, and sweet from its urn; they are sometimes poisoned. The tree of knowledge is not only, not the tree of life, but the Lord said to man:—"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The man who has seen too much, like Delia contemplating the sun, has become blind with too much light; his heart has turned to ashes, he is not exalted by anything, has faith in nothing; virtue and crime, morality and vice, sound the same to him, they are like sweet fruits in one country, and poisonous ones in another, the fault of the earth or the climate: the soul is to him a breath which ceases with death, home the place where he shelters his head from the storm: God a name.

Man should be satisfied to stop short at the quia:[44] for if he trusts himself to travel thus at random through the regions of knowledge, the evils resulting from this restless wandering would be equal to those which are the consequence of continual travelling throughout the physical world. The latter takes away his family, friends, and home: the former his faith and affections. Job truly compares too much knowledge to a heap of ashes, for it is in truth the most unhappy remains of a fire which will never burn again. I have already said the Creator should have suspended truth as the only luminary from the firmament: for then no one could have doubted its beneficial light and heat, as perhaps some have done of the Sun: and I say perhaps, since there have been men who doubted whether the sun was a mass of fire, believing it to be rather a mass of ice causing a rotary motion in the molecules of the air:—which is a German idea. Ahasuerus, the wandering Jew, represents the symbol of this insatiable desire of knowledge: he travels and travels over desert shores, over burning sands, over snowy fields: he has seen the cupola of St. Peter's, the mosques of Constantinople, and the temples of Brahma and Buddha: he has seen dogs, oxen, crocodiles, and serpents worshipped: even onions raised to the dignity of Gods!

He has seen bloodless sacrifices, sacrifices of blood and human victims; he has seen everything: he has forgotten all he knew, and all that he has learned is not sufficient to appease the feverish craving of his intellect: all that he wishes to know in order to satisfy his burning thirst, is inclosed within the urn of destiny: he hates to return home, for no one expects him there: his relatives are dead, generations have forgotten his name: he loves no one, and no one loves him: he refuses friends, rejects affections, and avoids binding ties which he MUST unbind to-morrow. Perhaps in that great day when God will reveal his eternal face to the vast multitude of created things, his agony will be appeased, and God will give him rest, not for having loved much, but because he suffered much.[45]

Be contented, race of man, at the quia:—

else you will feel the earth tremble beneath your feet, and the heavens fall upon your heads. You grow up educated in the supreme idea of a Being who animates with the breath of his immortal mouth all that has life in the universe; who breaks the oppressor like a fragile reed, and shelters the oppressed under his mighty wing; but in travelling you will find people who neither know God nor worship Him; but make to themselves a God of dogs, serpents, oxen, elephants, and onions, and often of a monster hideous to look upon, but much more hideous in his bloody rites. It is piety in you to watch over your old infirm father, to comfort him in his last moments with loving cares, and close his eyes in peace; and yet there were and still are people, who esteem it filial piety to drag their parents from their suffering beds, and hanging them to the branches of trees, light beneath them great fires, crying in their giddy dance around them:—"when the fruit is ripe, it must fall,"—until the body falls and is consumed in the fire. And you, fathers in our beloved country, what sufferings would you not undergo, in order not to see your beloved children torn from your arms, or murdered?

In China, they offer children as food to dogs, or throw them into the river. In Africa they sell them; and Clapperton tells of a negro woman, who offered her children for sale to him, and because he would not buy them, cursed and beat them because they did not please the white man. We deem it sacred to bury our beloved dead within splendid monuments or tombs; elsewhere it is sacred to feed on their limbs. Remorse and public hate await him who can and does not save a drowning man: in China remorse and reproach are his reward who saves the shipwrecked sailor. We have laws and sentences against robbery, and the more skill and cunning do the thieves show, the more are they punished. The Spartans rewarded thieves, and the more skill they displayed the greater was the reward.

Nor is it to be supposed that the people among whom such horrible customs are practised cannot give a reason, good or bad, for it. They do not believe in God, because they do not understand Him; they are not able to conceive other ideas save those that present themselves to their senses, hence they refuse them. Foolish men! They presume that God should be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid upon a slate: for religion they want algebra, for an altar arithmetic, for a votive offering a well summed up account, for a minister an accountant. Others deem it a pity to cut short a life which has now become an irremediable grief; others deem their own bosoms a more suitable grave than earth or marble; others that it is a bold attempt to oppose the designs of nature; others that citizens early accustomed to subtle cunning are useful to the Republic. Travel and learn; and while you are urged by a strong desire to gather flowers from all the universe and rejoice in their delightful fragrance, behold the evil worm of doubt creeps insidiously into your heart and gnaws it. The sceptical heart is dead, but as the mind lives, we seem like people who have outlived ourselves: keepers almost of our own tombs.

Verily I advise you to be satisfied at the quia. Love much, read little, and let that be poetry, the purest wine of the soul, a precious ambrosia gushing from celestial fountains. And mark, I speak of lofty poetry, the offspring of the mind inflamed by the heart, for that poetry which comes from the intellect only, engenders doubt. Who would have been more fortunate than Byron? Did Nature ever create more powerful wings to soar to an immeasurable height? Who had a better heart, a clearer mind? But he wished to see and know too much, to scrutinize too minutely the genesis of the affections: a new Acteon, he received the penalty of his bold investigations: his own faithful hounds pursued him and tore him in pieces. As if for sport he wished to add the chord of doubt to his lyre; he thought it would increase the number of its varied sounds, but he deceived himself: this chord cut his fingers worse than a dagger's edge. The advice of Ephorus was most wise; he broke with an axe the new chord added to the Argive lyre. The lyres of Olympus and Terpander, when they accompanied the songs of gods and men, had but three chords: twelve were those of the lyre of Timotheus when he sang at the banquet of Alexander and Thais (from whence he who had acquired the name of Great derived his infamy), and at the burning of the ancient Persepolis: and three should be the chords of any lyre, that intends to lead mankind through all that is honorable and great upon the earth, to the eternal home of heaven; and these chords should be, Love, Faith, and Hope.

But what has all this to do with my story? You will see that it has a great deal to do with it, for, continuing, it will be shown how poor people, with the fear of God, and firm in the precepts of Christian charity, can give examples of virtue which might be sought in vain among men gifted with greater talents and more liberal instruction.

Duke Bracciano, in company with Cecchino and Titta, turned with slow steps towards the Casino St. Marco. The two servants now thought they might refresh themselves with food and drink, and give some repose to their wearied limbs: but they were deceived. The Duke, as soon as he entered, fell upon the first seat he saw, and remained there some time with his eyes closed: he lifted his hand to his head, and pressing it as if afraid it might burst, said: "Here everything poisons me! Here I breathe an atmosphere of crime! They have poured a hell into my soul! Arouse, Titta and Cecchino; you must now show your fidelity, courage, and discretion. Go to my palace, present yourselves to my Lady the Duchess: warn her ... but no ... wait. Bring me writing materials."

The landlord of the Casino brought promptly what he desired. The Duke tried to write, but his trembling hand denied its office: he could not hasten, but was obliged to wait. At last more calm, he wrote a short note, which he sealed, and gave to Titta, and then continued his interrupted orders:

"Do not warn her of anything: but give her this letter, and say you precede me by one or two days. Remember I am not in Florence. Observe attentively every act, note every word, and when it is spoken, or if she say anything, although it may seem of little importance, come cautiously and tell me. I shall not leave here.—Go, be faithful, do not fail in your duty to your master: you may shortly know ... know what you never should have known ... and what ... indeed! What I never should have told you."

And he dismissed them with a motion of his hand. The servants bowed obsequiously and left.

After walking about a dozen steps, Titta began thus: "I hope Fortune will, in the end, give us leave to sup; we have suffered more ill-luck in our supper than ever befell the Emperor Charles in his kingdom."

"I have been thinking, and have just decided, to leave the service of the Duke, and go to my own house near by."

"God help you, have you lost your wits? It sometimes happens when we travel in this season of the year beneath a hot sun."

"I have not lost my wits, Titta; no, I have not lost them. You see, when I engaged myself as man-at-arms for my Lord Duke, it was for a reason which I will tell you. My father lived in the time of the Republic, and gave me a bad inheritance, for instead of educating me to the times, he was always talking to me of Signor Giovanni of the black bands, of Giacomino, Ferruccio, and other like men, so that a fever took hold of me to follow in their footsteps, for I felt as if nature had endowed me with something: but I did not see in what way I could follow this inclination: the war with Siena was over, and yet I would have cut my hand off before I would have leagued with the assassins of those noble citizens. I married in order to quiet this wild disposition: it was all nonsense. I did not know how to settle myself to a mechanic's trade; thanks to Lady Isabella, who was foster-sister to my wife, I took service with my Lord Duke, trusting that he being made General by the Pope or Venetians, I might at least bear arms against the enemies of Christ, those ugly Turkish dogs whom God confound. But I have wasted the best years of my life in Rome without drawing even a spider from his hole, and my sword has rusted in its scabbard."

"Ah, yes! Death is so slow that it is really worth while to go and meet it. Is it not so much life found? Have you not got your wages? What can you do in this world better than to eat and sleep?"

"Why so? Were not the men whose fame sounds upon the lips of the people flesh and blood like us? Did they not bask in the same rays of light? Did not winter chill them, and summer warm them? Did they not weep and laugh? Were they not mortals like us?"

"Hear me, Cecchino; there are men who grow up like pines, others like grass: the latter is born every year, and every year is cut down with the scythe; it is left to dry upon the fields, and then is given to cattle. We are of the second species. The hay might say: I wish to be a pine! Just so one of us might presume to become duke, prince, or I know not what. When you shall have left one eye in Africa, one arm in America, one leg in Hungary, to the remaining trunk of your body, within which your immortal soul is sheltered like a garrison in the fortress of a castle, they will give the title of sergeant, and a couple of ducats for pay. Once, in republics, we had a chance to come out something: but nowadays glory is for great lords: it is our duty to be killed; so the best thing is to draw our pay, and preserve our health as well as we can. If life is an evil, death is a worse one. We call this world a valley of tears; but it would seem as if men liked to weep, for no one would ever leave it unless expelled from it."

"And supposing you are right, I never will eat bread gained through baseness and crime; it would break out my teeth, and turn to poison in my stomach. I wish to live in peace with myself."

"God help you! What do you want your master to do with your virtue? You remind me of Diogenes, who cried when brought to the market-place to be sold: 'Who wants to buy a master?' Virtue is a sail with which we make but little progress over the sea of life; in these times virtue is as useful as a warming-pan in August. Watchfulness over our master's safety, obedience to his commands, a German patience to wait in a corner, promptness to give a stab in the dark that despatches without giving time for a Jesu Maria, and a mystery in not having it discovered, will procure us all the fame that is granted us to acquire, and bread for ourselves and families...."

"No, never will I do this; no, by St. John the Baptist my protector; I pray him to give me an evil death first. Go, spy and tell. I would rather bite my tongue out than play the spy. Titta, do you not smell blood here? One of these days we must give an account of this bloodshed. And what pretext, what excuse can we give for it? Can we say: 'ask the account of our master?'"

"Indeed, you make me have some scruple; not for the blood, for this is part of our trade. They have really bought us soul and dagger, and to use it in a different way certainly than the Emperor Domitian; but the name of spy sticks in my throat ... besides, the Duke debases us without necessity. What need is there (for I see plain enough that here is the knot) for spies to know if a wife is unfaithful? Do you not think so, Cecchino? Would he be the first husband to find out that all is not gold that glitters? As it has been said: women are all of the same stamp!..."

"That is not true; I would swear now, you are saying what you do not believe, Was not your mother a woman?"

"Ah, yes! my mother was a woman; but I was not speaking, nor thinking of her just then; I said it of the others...."

"And do you not believe a woman can love?" ...

"I believe it, although it sometimes seems the contrary. Place yourself at the mouth of a cave, and utter a cry within it; the echo will repeat it six or seven times. But is the cry yours, or the cave's? Yours. It seems as if other voices replied to you, but you are deceived, for all these voices are one and the same thing as your own voice. So when you say to a woman:—I love you,—she will reply:—I love you, love you, love you;—but woe to you if you believe she said it by herself; it was the echo of your own voice, and woe to you if you fall in love with your own voice as Narcissus did with his own face...."

"Listen, Titta, I am young and of little experience; but I can see that your heart bleeds, perhaps from some deserved wound: you have not been loved, or have been betrayed; but have you ever loved?"

"I speak philosophically, without reference to myself. What I tell you is natural, and cannot be otherwise. Inconstancy is a fruit of youth like the fragrant red strawberry of spring; constancy is a fruit of mature age like the medlar of autumn;—therefore in woman virtue may be called the medlar of life! All beautiful things seem splendid in variety. Look at the rainbow, look at the dove's neck in the sunlight, look at the peacock's tail. Why do bees make sweet honey and wax? Because they fly from flower to flower. Women are moved by the same impulse as the bees. We are stupid creatures, to think of taking a soul and shutting it up in a cage like a bird, or nailing it down as a money changer does a ducat on his counter; even more cruel than stupid, after we are dead, we thrust a bony arm from the grave and presume to hold a poor woman by the hair. If she will keep herself a good widow,—the will says,—she shall have so much; if not, nothing;—very bad ideas in bad words; because we are dead, shall not others enjoy life?"

"All this would be very well, if life was a book, that we close on coming to the conclusion, and put away to see no more; but as we must think to meet again in the valley of Jehosaphat, if one's wife has had another husband, or even two, which will she have? With which shall she live to all eternity?"

"With the one she likes best; and there is no use to fret about that, since all shall have their turn; all shall be satisfied, if you only think of the length of eternity in women, which I have been assured by people worthy of belief, lasts all one week and sometimes a little over the next Monday."

"Go, go, you will die despairing, since you deny love.—Love, the sweetest union of spirits, two souls joined in one, redoubling strength and help, nourished by mutual sacrifices like the violet on dew."

"Nonsense, my boy, nonsense; love is an instinct of rapine, the agony of power, and the tenacity of possession. The love for a woman is like the love of property. Time was, but a time very, very distant, according to all accounts even before Adam, in which mine and thine meant nothing on the tongues of men; a traveller seeing a ripe fruit hanging from a tree, plucked and ate it. But one night certain envious men met together, and digging a pit around some land more fertile than the rest, said in the morning: no one shall pass beyond this pit, for the land here is our property.—People did not care though, and did the same as before. Then these envious men planted a stone on the limits, and threatened evil to whomsoever should dare to pass it. 'Twas of no more use than before; the excluded men looked upon it as a joke. Finally they put an axe upon the stone, and said: Whosoever passes beyond now, shall die.—But the excluded men laughed still more at this buffoonery and passed over; the others, however, lay in ambush, took them, and murdered them. Then the women wept, children cried, and property entered into the minds of men because they had cut off the heads of others."

"Pardon me, but where did you find all this nonsense? However bad it may be, it is not flour from your bag."

"Indeed it is not: if you could only have been so fortunate as to have heard it as I did from the lips of that great philosopher, that divine...."

"What divine?"

"Pietro Aretino."

"Ah! I do not want to hear any more. All have called him, and still do call him divine; which title, if it does not give testimony of his divinity, certainly bears witness to the extreme cowardice of the men who conferred it on him, or consented to it."

"You slander him; he was firm in his friendship, and had great affection for Sir Giovanni dei Medici of the black band, and followed him through hardship and danger in his most daring exploits...."

"This friendship spoils the fame of that renowned man. I know very well that while Sir Giovanni was fighting, he was dallying with the women of the camp...."

"That is not true, for he received some wounds."

"What of that? When did the receiving of a wound ever signify prowess? Even Achille della Volta stabbed him, and he received the wounds weeping and begging for life? And what reply did he make to Tintoretto when he measured him with a cutlass? He was smooth as oil. And when Piero Strozzi threatened to kill him in his bed, did he not shut himself up in his house, nailing doors and windows for fear of air?"[46]

"What can one do against people who take one unarmed and unawares? And if Piero made Duke Cosimo fear him, what wonder if the divine tried to guard himself from him? But what devotion he showed towards his children Austria and Adria? You should have seen how much he thought of them, and how careful he was to assure them a dowry in the hands of the Duke of Urbino, and how he recommended them to all his friends!"

"He loved them to sell them——"

"Per Dio! Do not say so——!"

"Do not say so? I will say so while I have breath enough. What, do you think the shameful rumor of the death of this bad, villanous dog, never reached me? Did he not die with bursting into infamous laughter on hearing of some disgraceful stories of his sisters in Venice? Go, you are corrupt to the very bone. Go, eat the bread of blood: I swear to die of hunger first: go, keep your faith, and I mine. When your last hour comes you will see at your pillow the devil, who will erase the baptismal mark from your brow: I hope to see my virtuous and beloved wife, my good children, and the peace of angels. Let us part; you go alone to the Orsini palace."

"You see, I should get into a passion with you, and let you know that Titta never suffers an insult; but I also learnt this from the Divine, fortunate are they who proclaim the truth, if they do not get stoned. I will say at the palace, you are ill, or something else; I will frame an excuse to leave you time to give rest to your brain, and return to-morrow to your usual post."

"Thanks; I do not mean to return, and shall not. Titta! come here. Look, that is my house: I was born and brought up in it. Titta! do you not see a light in the window? Tell me; my eyes are full of tears, and do not see clearly. Holy Virgin! Is there not a woman in the balcony? Do I see right or wrong, Titta?"

"You see right; there certainly is a woman there."

"Oh, it is my Mary! Poor woman, she is waiting for me! Who knows how many nights she has passed at that window! Oh, what joy to see my dear kind Mary again!"

Thus exclaiming, he set out at such a rate that a wild goat could not have kept pace with him. Titta tried to recall him in vain, crying, "Cecchino, stop; Cecchino, hear!"

But he ran faster than ever. Weary and hot, Cecchino reached the door of his house, and scarcely had he called in a breathless voice, Mary!—before the woman replied,—Cecchino!—and with a cry of joy disappeared from the balcony and descended the stairs. In a few moments the street door opened, and these two beings rushed into each other's arms, mingling tears, kisses, and sobs, with such unrestrained passion, as to have caused deep emotion to any spectator.

Titta came up soon after, but found the door shut and bolted; he thought he would knock, but refrained, saying:

"I might as well knock at the door of a churchyard, and wait until our first father, Adam, came to open to me. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine. Cecchino has certainly shown himself a fool. There is no use in getting anything out of him. God knows if I've not tried to do the best I could for him, as if he were my own son, and even tried to make a scholar of him. See now how a woman has upset the whole. It is useless! until the women are taken out of it, and men are not grafted like plum trees, the world will go on from bad to worse. But he is young; and young blood must have its way; to-morrow he will come back, a little cast down perhaps, but he will soon come back. Now, I must see to everything alone; but I will eat first, and then go to bed, and sleep as long as I please. And will my Lord Paolo Giordano wait? Certainly he must wait! I have no need of him: these masters expect us to be good and bad; amiable and quarrelsome; faithful and traitors; stupid and wise; angels and devils; then, never to eat, never to dress, and never to ask questions: in short, if a servant possessed half the qualities a master asks in him, there never would be so poor a one that did not deserve to have for servant a Marquis at least. Besides, what use is it to watch? Julia must be in the house. In less than five minutes I shall know more than I can remember or repeat; and even without so much loss of breath, if I choose to play the lover to her, who will dispute it? Certainly not she; our bond is lasting and strong; not limited, nor barren; we, instead of the individual, love the whole race: she, all the men; I, all the women; in this way there is no distance, no absence for us; we are always present, always in love; we are like pearls of the same necklace; we make a garland of every flower and crown our life with it. One flower does not make Spring; love is not comprised in one single affection." With these ideas revolving in his mind, Titta turned from Cecchino's house, delaying no longer his arrival at the palace.

I return more willingly now to Cecchino and Mary. Embracing each other and happy, they mounted, or rather flew, up the staircase, resembling two doves, hastening with outspread wings to their sweet nest. On reaching the room above they renewed their tender greetings: one questioned the other, and the other in reply questioned in turn; and not waiting for replies they poured forth a torrent of words burning with curiosity and passion. But this singular colloquy at last ceased, and laughing heartily, they exchanged kisses again. Mary, with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks, first spoke: "Come, you are covered with dust and perspiration; let me bring water to wash your hands and face."

And she brought a basin of water; singing as happily as if it were a sunny noon, and not midnight; she then opened a chest-of-drawers, bringing out a towel of cleanest linen, fragrant with cassia flowers, assisting him in drying his face and hands upon it. Nor did her attention stop here, for a good wife is the dearest joy of a man's heart; but she sat down, and taking Cecchino's head in her lap, combed his hair nicely, freeing it of the dust, and arranging it smoothly around his neck. Then raising his head with both hands, looked smilingly in his face, exulting as a good and virtuous wife should, in a valiant, handsome husband, saying truly from her heart, as she kissed his brow:

"You look to me like an angel." ...

"But this angel," replied Cecchino, "not being as yet divested of its earthly clothing, is as hungry as one of Adam's children even can be."

"Indeed? I did not know you wanted anything. Why did you not say so before? Do not think you take me unprovided. You may find but little in your house, but enough to satisfy your wants."

"What could I do? We have travelled more than fifty miles without stopping. We arrived to-night, and never until we got here did we stop long enough to wet our lips."

"But did you not come with the Duke?"

"Yes, but it is not to be known. He did not stop at the palace. But more of this by-and-by."

"Yes, my dear, by-and-by."

She then set the table in the twinkling of an eye, not on account of the few dishes and little food she put upon it, but because of the great haste she made. The Florentines then had the reputation of being beyond measure frugal and parsimonious, well becoming all those who live honestly; and they still have it. Certainly they once were so; but it is not to be believed they suffered from it; and even by the laws called financial, often renewed, and strenuously enforced, we learn that civil parsimony did not spring up spontaneously, but in consequence of continual laws: we learn also that the statute allowed for dinner two viands alone, the roast and boiled, but the Florentines eluded it very easily by using various kinds of boiled and roasted meats, for the only boiled and roasted one prescribed by the statute. As to dress, Franco Sacchetti has recorded in his very pleasing novel, the great cunning shown by the ladies, by which the judges could never catch them transgressing, or even succeed in applying the laws to them. And when persons of high rank came to Florence, the citizens who entertained them paid the fine and displayed royal magnificence. The records of that time describe the manner Lorenzo the Magnificent entertained Franceschetto Cibo and his Court, when he came to marry his daughter; and this description serves to show how old is the fashion in all those who attempt to destroy the liberty of their country, in studiously observing appearances, in order to sharpen the axe to cut the substance. But then the chests were full of golden florins, the commerce great, industry wonderful, enterprises prodigious; and in those times designs were conceived and executed, that nowadays astonish us only to look at. Unjust then is the reputation that now exists of Florentine avarice; a recent testimony to it, we find in the satires of D'Elci, where he says: