THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

The first to go was the practice of taking my chocolate abed. One morning Nonna was late, and I rose without it. The same
thing happened more than twice, so then I went upstairs to find out what had hindered her. There I found my Aurelia fresh from
Mass and market, drinking her morning coffee. Explanations, apologies, what-not, ensued; she invited me to share her repast.
From that time onwards I never broke my fast otherwise than with her. So was it with other rules of intercourse. The doctor
was a machine in the ordering of his life. His chocolate at six, his clothes at eight; he left the house at nine and returned at noon.
He left it again at two in the afternoon and returned at nine in the evening; he supped; he went to bed on the stroke of ten.
Except on Sundays, high festivals, the first, the middle, and the last day of carnival, through all the time of my acquaintance with
him, I never knew him break these habits but once, and that was when his mother died at Mestre and he had to attend the
funeral. On that occasion he must rise at six, and miss his dinner at noon. He was furious, I never saw a man so angry.
I cannot tell how or when it was that I first spent the whole of my afternoons in Aurelia's society, nor how or when it was that,
instead of leaving her house at seven in the evening, I stayed on with her till the stroke of nine, within a few minutes of the
doctor's homecoming. It is a thing as remarkable as true that nothing is easier to form than a habit, and nothing more difficult to
break. Formed and unbroken these habits were, unheeded by ourselves, but not altogether unperceived. There was one
member of the household who perceived them, and never approved. I remember that old Nonna used to shake her finger at us
as we sat reading, and how she used to call out the progress of the quarters from the kitchen, where she was busy with her
master's supper. But my beloved mistress could not, and I would not, take any warning. It became a sort of joke between
Aurelia and me to see whether Nonna would miss one of the quarters. She never did; and as often as not, when nine struck and
I not gone, she would bundle me out of doors by the shoulders and scold her young mistress in shrill Venetian, loud enough for
me to hear at my own chamber door. Aurelia used to tell me all she had said next morning. She had an excellent gift of mimicry;
could do Nonna and (I grieve to say) the doctor to the life.
The end of this may be guessed. Privilege after privilege was carelessly accorded by Aurelia, and greedily possessed by me. At
the end of six months' residence those three still evening hours existed, not for the blessedness of such intercourse alone, but to
be crowned by the salutation of an adorable hand; and when I retired at last, it was not to my bed, but to my window; to the
velvet spaces of the night, to the rustling trees, the eloquent congress of the stars; to sigh my secret abroad to those sympathetic
witnesses, to whisper her name, to link it with my own; to tell, in a word, to the deep-bosomed dark all the daring fancies of a
young man intoxicated with first love. And from privilege to privilege I strode, a fine conqueror. A very few months more, and
not only was I for ever with Aurelia, but there was no doubt nor affectation of concealment on my part of how I stood or
wished to stand before her. I postulated myself, in fine, as her servant in amours—cavalier I will not say, for that has an odious
meaning in Italy, than which to describe my position nothing could be wider of the truth. I did but ask liberty to adore, sought
nothing further, and got nothing else. This, upon my honour, was ever the sum of my offence—up to my last day of bliss.
You would have supposed that she could hardly have misunderstood the state of my affairs, had I said or done nothing. So
quick-witted was she, it is inconceivable. But as time went on, and success with it, I quite got out of the way of concealment,
and spoke of myself openly as her slave. She used to laugh at me, pretend to think me an absurd boy; and now and then
threatened (and that half in jest) to tell her husband. I know very well that she never did. The padron, we used to call him to
each other, having taken the name from old Nonna. It was one of our little foolish jokes to pretend the house an inn, he the
landlord, and ourselves travellers met there by hazard. We had a many familiar, private sayings and nicknames of the sort,
secret cues to look across the table when he was there, and smile at each other—as when he railed (as he was fond of doing) at
Tuscan ways and speech, at the usage of Siena, her own country, or when (after his meal) he made a noise, sucking his teeth.
Sweetly pleasant, dangerous days—were they as lovely to her as to me? How can I tell? There was no doubt but she knew me
thoroughly. The little pleasant encroachments of mine, stolen upon her unawares, were now never checked—I am speaking of
the end of my first year, when I could hold her hand unreproved, and kiss it as often as I pleased. I took and kept, and
exhibited to her without embarrassment, little trifles of hers—a hair-ribbon, a garter, a little trodden Venice slipper; if she asked
for them back, it only provoked me to keep them closer to my heart. She saw no harm in these foolish, sweet things: she felt
herself to be my senior; by comparison with her position, mine was that of a child. To the very end she maintained the fiction
that she was my foster-mother, responsible to my parents for my advancement in education and morals. Assuredly she taught
me her tongue and kept me out of gross iniquity; but equally certain is it that I learned more than Italian.
I learned, however, to be very fluent in that, for, inspired by love of Aurelia, I attacked it with extraordinary passion. All Italy,
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