THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

that I was in the Vale of Chianti, between Certaldo and Poggibonsi, and that if I persevered upon the road I saw before me I
should reach the latter place by nightfall. "But, brother," said he, "you look to have seen better days, and I advise you to push
on to Siena. May be you'll find employment there—for that is a rich city. Here I tell you there is nothing. It is little use my
offering you a crust, for I have not got one." I thanked him, and having broken cover, stoutly took the road and limped along as
best I could.
Perhaps I had gone a league and a half when I came to a village full of people. Half a dozen miserable houses placed streetwise,
one of them a disreputable inn, formed a background to a motley assembly of tattered vagrants, of which peasants of the
countryside of both sexes, children, pigs and turkeys formed a small part. The others were men and women of the most
extravagant attire and behaviour it is possible to imagine. I saw a punchinello on stilts wading among the rest; there were women
flaunting feathers on their tousled heads, and moustachioed bullies who might have come from the ruck of some army on the
march; pages, minions, magicians, astrologers, women's ruffians, castrati—it was as if one of the wildest hours of the Piazzetta
of Venice had been transported by witchcraft to this quiet place. As I approached, wondering at what I saw, a creature, I knew
not then whether man or woman, came and stood in my path, and with a great gesture of the arm greeted me in this remarkable
apostrophe: "Hail, all hail, Bombaces, King of the Halicarnassians!" He, or she, repeated this shrilly three or four times, but
nobody took any notice.
This hermaphrodite had a face of the most vivid and regular beauty I ever saw—a face of perfect oval, freshly and rarely
coloured, a pair of dark and lustrous eyes, a straight, fine nose and a mouth exquisitely shaped, provokingly red. Its hair, which
was dark brown, fell in a tide of wealth far over its shoulders. It wore a woman's bodice cut square in the neck, after the fashion
of unmarried women in Venice, and short in the sleeves; but at the waist that sex stopped and the male began, for it had on a
pair of man's breeches, worsted stockings and Venice slippers, and its shape as revealed by these garments was not that of a
woman. The creature, as a fact, declared itself to be a male; and when he began to declaim against me again, I addressed him
for what he was. "My good young man," I said, "I am too weary, too desperate and too hungry to be entertained by your
antics, and too poor to reward you for them—being, as you see me, an exile and a stranger. If you can find me something to
eat, I shall be grateful; if you cannot, go in peace, and leave me to do the same."
The droll beauty changed his tone in an instant. "Follow me, sir," said he, "and you shall have everything you want. I entreat your
pardon for inflicting my impertinences upon you at such an ill-judged moment." He took me by the hand and addressed himself
to the crowd about the inn doors; by pushing, punching, jostling, cursing, praying and coaxing in turns, he made a way into the
house. But that was full to suffocation of the actors and their belongings, and of the peasantry who had come to gape at them.
Everybody was engaged in getting drunk who was not drunk already. Some were fighting, some lovemaking, some filching. I
saw a curious sight. A man dressed like a harlequin was picking a countryman's pocket, and having his own picked, while he
was in the act, by some sharp-featured imp of a castrato. In fine, the whole house from floor to rafters was full; the
bedchambers, to call them so which had no beds in them, were worse than the kitchen. I could not see that I had gained
anything by following my questionable guide; but he, who had more resources than I knew of, having snatched a half-loaf and
bottle of wine from the lower quarters, trampled and fought his way upstairs with them, showed me a ladder which gave on to
the roof, and went up it like a bird, without using his hands. I followed him, and saw a proud light in his eyes as he invited me to
survey my private room. We were in the valley formed by the two pitches of the roof, nothing between our heads and the
evening sky. The revellings and blasphemies of the house were not to be heard; pigeons clustered on the chimney-pots or
strutted the ridges of the house; a cat, huddled up, watched them from a corner. Stars showed faintly here and there; we were
sheltered from the wind; I heard far off the angelus bell ringing.
"Here, at any rate, you won't be disturbed," said my protector. "Eat, sir, drink, and repose yourself. When you feel inclined you
shall tell me how I can serve you further."
The evening bell, and this kindness of the lad's, had reminded me of what I was. I said, "My friend, I shall first thank God for
having made your nation the boldest, the most ingenious, the gentlest, the most modest, most open-hearted in the world. You
see before you a man of all men most unfortunate; but yet I say to you in the presence of God and of his household, whose
lights are kindling even now, that, but for the like of you, many and many a time I should have died unannealed."
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