THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

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
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