THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

He was confused and, boylike, tried to laugh off my praises. "You give me too high a character, sir," said he. "I am a graceless
devil of the Veneto, without prospect or retrospect to be proud of, a poor creature who has to go to market with what wares
he has. If I can look forward it is because I dare not look back. What I am doing for you now, for which you are so kind as to
praise me, is not virtue. I wish to Heaven virtue were so easy got. Eat, however, drink and rest. If I am no better than I should
be, I suppose I am not worse than I could be. And I cannot allow you to praise me for that."
"You are of the race of the Samaritans," said I, "whether you hail from Venice or Tuscany. I am an Englishman, my name is
Francis. How are you called?"
He said, "I believe my name is Daniele; but they call me here, in the company, Belviso."
"And they do well," I returned, "for that you certainly are, and, as far as I am concerned, you prove as good as you are
good-looking."
He shrugged his shoulders. "No one is better than he can help, I fancy, sir," he said. "There is every inducement to be wicked in
this world. But I will say this of myself—and I dare say everybody else can say the same—that when I am good I am as good
as gold, for I realise perfectly well my unusual estate and become a very usurer of virtue. But this is of rare occurrence, seeing
that I am an actor. By ordinary, for the fifteen years that I have been in the world, I am remarkably vicious."
"I cannot hear you say that, Belviso," I told him, "without giving you warning that, so long as I am in your company, and to the
utmost of my powers, I shall restrain you from being anything of the sort."
He started, looked at me for a moment, then kissed my hand. "I believe our Saviour sent you here to be his vicar in my regard,"
he said. "I don't know how long you may be in my company, for it depends mostly upon yourself. But I promise you in my turn
that I shall never take ill whatsoever your honour may please to say to me; and I say that if I have the misfortune to lose sight of
you this very night, I shall be the better for having known you, and shall go to sleep with more prospect of a decent to-morrow
than I have ever done in the whole of my life."
I judged that the best thing for this youth was to think more about my misfortunes than his own. I therefore told him how it was
that I came before him in this plight, barefoot, bareheaded, bleeding and in rags. I told him of my concern for Virginia, of the
deadly perils that beset her, and concluded by assuring him that the one service of any moment which he could do me was to
devise me some means of communicating with Gioiachino, the vendor of cat's-meat in Lucca. Belviso had put his head between
his knees, and so remained for some time after I had done speaking, in earnest meditation.
After a while he lifted up his face, and said, "I shall go to Lucca for you, Don Francis. It is certain that you must not cross the
frontier, and equally certain that there is no other person here who could strive more heartily to help you. But I dare not myself
go alone. I shall get Il Nanno to go with me—a very good old fellow and as shrewd as a winter wind. We shall disguise
ourselves, of course, and be off before dawn to- morrow. He shall go as my wife."
"Your wife, my dear!" I exclaimed. "I should like to know what old fellow could play the woman beside you." "Seeing that I get
my living by so doing, I don't mind owning that there is no one," he agreed. "The trouble is that I should do it too well. When
you see Il Nanno you will admit that my proposals are as prudent as they seem the reverse. I'll go and fetch him, and you shall
judge. Remember always that his name is Aristarcho; it would be a mortal affront to use that nickname of ours, for he is
sensitive to a degree, like all these hunchbacks, and as fierce as a wild cat. Stay here—I will bring him up to you." He
disappeared into the house, and presently returned, followed by his proposed wife.
Signor Aristarcho was a dwarf of the most repulsive and uncompromising type. He cannot have been much more than four feet
in height; he had a head nearly as large as his body, the strong-jawed, big-nosed, slit- mouthed head of some Condottiere of
old, some Fortebraccio or Colleone of history and equestrian statuary. His eyes were small, staring, but extremely intelligent, his
flesh spare and strained under the skin; he was beardless and as warty as a toad's back; he never smiled, spoke little and
seemed to be afraid lest the air should get within him and never get out again, for he only opened the corner of his mouth to emit
a word or two, and screwed it down immediately he had done. His poor deformed body was like that of Punchinello, a part for
which he was famous in the theatres—protuberant before, hunched up between his shoulders behind, and set upon little writhen
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