CHAPTER III. PREUX-CHEVALIER
In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods thanever. Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and nota day passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under hisguidance, I was wrestling.
And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at timeshe was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion ofthe serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self. He watchedher curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which shepresented a calm front and a patience almost saintly. He was as a manwith some mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear itor cast it off.
Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful acreature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you considerwhat a power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered tomy erstwhile terror. She confided in me a little in those days, but everwith a most saintly resignation. She had been sold into wedlock, sheadmitted, with a man who might have been her father, and she confessedto finding her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one whointends none the less to bear her cross with fortitude.
And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing. We had been readingtogether, she and I, as was become our custom. She had fetched me avolume of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by sideon the marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shouldertouching mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rarejustice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair wasconfined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my LordGambara. Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterdaybetween Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to bethe fruit of a base and unworthy mind.
I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the linesor the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have toldyou.
Presently she checked me. "Leave now Panormitano," she said. "Here issomething else upon which you shall give me your judgment." And she setbefore me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand,which was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.
I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from aheart that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the mannerseemed, the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admissionof its moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had donethat day in the library when we had read of "Isabetta and the Pot ofBasil." Her hand was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.
"Ah, thanks, Agostino," she murmured. "Your praise is sweet to me. Theverses are my own."
I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. Thebeauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was myfirst glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I shouldhave answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered aninterruption.
Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us thevoice of Messer Fifanti. "What do you read?"
We started apart, and turned.
Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that weshould not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that ourears had been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidygown of black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face.Slowly he put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bonyclaw.
He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed hiseyes up until they all but disappeared.
Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, andGiuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadilyin its russet sheath.
He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.
"Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?"quoth he. "Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that youmust be wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poorilliterate gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?" Hetook the book. "Panormitano!" he roared. "Now, there's a fitting authorfor a saint in embryo! There's a fine preparation for the cloister!"
He turned to Giuliana. He put forward his hand and touched her bareshoulder with his hideous forefinger. She cringed under the touch as ifit were barbed.
"There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress,"he said, with his deadly smile.
"I do not," she replied indignantly. "Agostino has a taste for letters,and..."
"Tcha! Tcha!" he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply. "I hadno thought for letters. There is my Lord Gambara, and there is MesserCosimo d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro. There is even Pordenone,the painter." His lips writhed over their names. "You have friendsenough, I think. Leave, then, Ser Agostino here. Do not dispute him withGod to whom he has been vowed."
She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall,and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked thento me.
"This is too much!" she cried.
"It is, madam," he snapped. "I agree with you." She considered him witheyes that held a loathing and contempt unutterable. Then she lookedat me, and shrugged her shoulders as who would say: "You see how I amused!" Lastly she turned, and took her way across the lawn towards thehouse.
There was a little silence between us after she had gone. I was on firewith indignation, and yet I could think of no words in which I mightexpress it, realizing how utterly I lacked the right to be angry with ahusband for the manner in which he chose to treat his wife.
At last, pondering me very gravely, he spoke.
"It were best you read no more with Madonna Giuliana," he said slowly."Her tastes are not the tastes that become a man who is about to enterholy orders." He closed the book, which hitherto he had held open;closed it with an angry snap, and held it out to me.
"Restore it to its shelf," he bade me.
I took it, and quite submissively I went to do his bidding. But to gainthe library I had to pass the door of Giuliana's room. It stood open,and Giuliana herself in the doorway. We looked at each other, and seeingher so sorrowful, with tears in her great dark eyes, I stepped forwardto speak, to utter something of the deep sympathy that stirred me.
She stretched forth a hand to me. I took it and held it tight, lookingup into her eyes.
"Dear Agostino!" she murmured in gratitude for my sympathy; and I,distraught, inflamed by tone and look, answered by uttering her name forthe first time.
"Giuliana!"
Having uttered it I dared not look at her. But I stooped to kiss thehand which she had left in mine. And having kissed it I started uprightand made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp andwaved me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned andwent to shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give,I avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we werenever once together.
The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonnasitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times,being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivialas ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparentlyentirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence andGovernor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness ofthat pedant.
Explanation was about to be afforded me.
On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she wasgoing afoot into the town, and solicited my escort. It was an honourthat never before had been offered me. I reddened violently, butaccepted it, and soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant'Antonio, then in ruins--for Gam
bara was demolishing it and employingthe material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops thatgarrisoned Piacenza. And presently we came upon the works of this newbuilding, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, andso pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune,overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace. Thiswas a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a verywarlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.
Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staringup at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near itssummit. In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap ofrags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouchingin that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating ofthe sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies. The murmuringcrowd looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and hehad been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for theodious sin of sacrilege.
"What!" I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that MonnaGiuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomoand we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid mefor the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonableindiscretions but for her warning.
"But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poorwretch for sacrilege!" I cried. "It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it isinfamous!"
"Not so loud," she laughed. "You are being stared at." And then shedelivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. "If a man beinga sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin inothers, then is he twice a sinner."
"It was my Lord Gambara taught you that," said I, and involuntarily Isneered.
She considered me with a very searching look.
"Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?"
"Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeksto cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriorasequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegiousfellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself."
"You do not love him?" said she.
"O--as to that--as a man he is well enough. But as an ecclesiastic...O,but there!" I broke off shortly, and laughed. "The devil take MesserGambara!"
She smiled. "It is greatly to be feared that he will."
But my Lord Gambara was not so lightly to be dismissed that afternoon.As we were passing the Porta Fodesta, a little group of country-folkthat had gathered there fell away before us, all eyes upon the dazzlingbeauty of Giuliana--as, indeed, had been the case ever since we had comeinto the town, so that I had been singularly and sweetly proud of beingher escort. I had been conscious of the envious glances that many atall fellow had sent after me, though, after all, theirs was but as thejealousy of Phoebus for Adonis.
Wherever we had passed and eyes had followed us, men and women hadfallen to whispering and pointing after us. And so did they now, here atthe Fodesta Gate, but with this difference, that, at last, I overheardfor once what was said, for there was one who did not whisper.
"There goes the leman of my Lord Gambara," quoth a gruff, sneeringvoice, "the light of love of the saintly legate who is starving Domenicoto death in a cage for the sin of sacrilege."
Not a doubt but that he would have added more, but that at that momenta woman's shrill voice drowned his utterance. "Silence, Giuffre!" sheadmonished him fearfully. "Silence, on your life!"
I had halted in my stride, suddenly cold from head to foot, as on thatday when I had flung Rinolfo from top to bottom of the terrace stepsat Mondolfo. It happened that I wore a sword for the first time in mylife--a matter from which I gathered great satisfaction--having beenadjudged worthy of the honour by virtue that I was to be Madonna'sescort. To the hilt I now set hand impetuously, and would have turned tostrike that foul slanderer dead, but that Giuliana restrained me, a wildalarm in her eyes.
"Come!" she panted in a whisper. "Come away!"
So imperious was the command that it conveyed to my mind some notion ofthe folly I should commit did I not obey it. I saw at once that didI make an ensample of this scurrilous scandalmonger I should therebyrender her the talk of that vile town. So I went on, but very white andstiff, and breathing somewhat hard; for pent-up passion is an evil thingto house.
Thus came we out of the town and to the shady banks of the gleamingPo. And then, at last, when we were quite alone, and within two hundredyards of Fifanti's house, I broke at last the silence.
I had been thinking very busily, and the peasant's words had illuminedfor me a score of little obscure matters, had explained to me the queerbehaviour and the odd speeches of Fifanti himself since that evening inthe garden when the Cardinal-legate had announced to him his appointmentas ducal secretary. I checked now in my stride, and turned to face her.
"Was it true?" I asked, rendered brutally direct by a queer pain I feltas a result of my thinking.
She looked up into my face so sadly and wistfully that my suspicionsfell from me upon the instant, and I reddened from shame at havingharboured them.
"Agostino!" she cried, such a poor little cry of pain that I set myteeth hard and bowed my head in self-contempt.
Then I looked at her again.
"Yet the foul suspicion of that lout is shared by your husband himself,"said I.
"The foul suspicion--yes," she answered, her eyes downcast, her cheeksfaintly tinted. And then, quite suddenly, she moved forward. "Come," shebade me. "You are being foolish."
"I shall be mad," said I, "ere I have done with this." And I fell intostep again beside her. "If I could not avenge you there, I can avengeyou here." And I pointed to the house. "I can smite this rumour at itsfoulest point."
Her hand fell on my arm. "What would you do?" she cried.
"Bid your husband retract and sue to you for pardon, or else tear outhis lying throat," I answered, for I was in a great rage by now.
She stiffened suddenly. "You go too fast, Messer Agostino," said she."And you are over-eager to enter into that which does not concern you.I do not know that I have given you the right to demand of my husbandreason of the manner in which he deals with me. It is a thing thattouches only my husband and myself."
I was abashed; I was humiliated; I was nigh to tears. I choked it alldown, and I strode on beside her, my rage smouldering within me. But itwas flaring up again by the time we reached the house with no more wordsspoken between us. She went to her room without another glance at me,and I repaired straight in quest of Fifanti.
I found him in the library. He had locked himself in, as was hisfrequent habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock. I stalkedin, unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner. Then I turned to him.
"You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor," said I, with allthe directness of youth and indiscretion.
He stared at me as if I had struck him--as he might have stared, rather,at a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back for thechild's good, or to be amused and smile.
"Ah!" he said at last. "She has been talking to you?" And he clasped hishands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legswide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
"No," said I. "I have been thinking."
"In that case nothing will surprise me," he said in his sour,contemptuous manner. "And so you have concluded...?"
"That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion."
"Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfortme," he sneered. "And what, pray, is this suspicion?
"You suspect that... that--O God! I can't utter the thing."
"Take courage," he mocked me. And he thrust his head farther forward. Helooked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
"You suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer
Gambara and Madonna...that..." I clenched my hands together, and looked into his leering face."You understand me well enough," I cried, almost angrily.
He looked at me seriously now, a cold glitter in his small eyes.
"I wonder do you understand yourself?" he asked. "I think not. I thinknot. Since God has made you a fool, it but remains for man to make you apriest, and thus complete God's work."
"You cannot move me by your taunts," I said. "You have a foul mind,Messer Fifanti."
He approached me slowly, his untidily shod feet slip-slopping on thewooden floor.
"Because," said he, "I suspect that Messer Gambara... that Messer Gambaraand Madonna... that... You understand me," he mocked me, with a mimicry ofmy own confusion. "And what affair may it be of yours whom I suspect orof what I suspect them where my own are concerned?"
"It is my affair, as it is the affair of every man who would beaccounted gentle, to defend the honour of a pure and saintly lady fromthe foul aspersions of slander."
"Knight-errantry, by the Host!" quoth he, and his brows shot up onhis steep brow. Then they came down again to scowl. "No doubt, mypreux-chevalier, you will have definite knowledge of the groundlessnessof these same slanders," he said, moving backwards, away from me,towards the door; and as he moved now his feet made no sound, though Idid not yet notice this nor, indeed, his movement at all.
"Knowledge?" I roared at him. "What knowledge can you need beyond whatis afforded by her face? Look in it, Messer Fifanti, if you would seeinnocence and purity and chastity! Look in it!"
"Very well," said he. "Let us look in it."
And quite suddenly he pulled the door open to disclose Giuliana standingthere, erect but in a listening attitude.
"Look in it!" he mocked me, and waved one of his bony hands towards thatperfect countenance.
There was shame and confusion in her face, and some anger. But sheturned without a word, and went quickly down the passage, followed byhis evil, cackling laugh.
Then he looked at me quite solemnly. "I think," said he, "you had bestget to your studies. You will find more than enough to engage you there.Leave my affairs to me, boy."
There was almost a menace in his voice, and after what had happened itwas impossible to pursue the matter.
Sheepishly, overwhelmed with confusion, I went out--a knight-errant witha shorn crest.