Odo being obliged to avow his ignorance, the fat creature mopped his brow and continued with a gasp—"Ah, your excellency, what is fame? From glory to obscurity is no farther than from one milestone to another! Not eight years ago, cavaliere, I was followed through the streets of Pianura by a greater crowd than the Duke ever drew after him! But what then? The voice goes—it lasts no longer than the bloom of a flower—and with it goes everything: fortune, credit, consideration, friends and parasites! Not eight years ago, sir—would you believe me?—I was supping nightly in private with the Bishop, who had nearly quarrelled with his late Highness for carrying me off by force one evening to his casino; I was heaped with dignities and favours; all the poets in the town composed sonnets in my honour; the Marquess of Trescorre fought a duel about me with the Bishop's nephew, Don Serafino; I attended his lordship to Rome; I spent the villeggiatura at his villa, where I sat at play with the highest nobles in the land; yet when my voice went, cavaliere, it was on my knees I had to beg of my heartless patron the paltry favour of the minor orders!" Tears were running down the abate's cheeks, and he paused to wipe them with a corner of tattered bands.
Though Odo had been bred in an abhorrence of the theatre, the strange creature's aspect so pricked his compassion that he asked him what he was now engaged in; at which Cantapresto piteously cried, "Alas, what am I not engaged in, if the occasion offers? For whatever a man's habit, he will not wear it long if it cover an empty belly; and he that respects his calling must find food enough to continue in it. But as for me, sir, I have put a hand to every trade, from composing scenarios for the ducal company of Pianura, to writing satirical sonnets for noblemen that desire to pass for wits. I've a pretty taste, too, in compiling almanacks, and when nothing else served I have played the public scrivener at the street corner; nay, sir, necessity has even driven me to hold the candle in one or two transactions I would not more actively have mixed in; and it was to efface the remembrance of one of these—for my conscience is still over-nice for my condition—that I set out on this laborious pilgrimage."
Much of this was unintelligible to Odo; but he was moved by any mention of Pianura, and in the abate's first pause he risked the question—"Do you know the hump-backed boy Brutus?"
His companion stared and pursed his soft lips.
"Brutus?" says he. "Brutus? Is he about the Duke's person?"
"He lives in the palace," said Odo doubtfully.
The fat ecclesiastic clapped a hand to his thigh.
"Can it be your excellency has in mind the foundling boy Carlo Gamba? Does the jackanapes call himself Brutus now? He was always full of his classical allusions! Why, sir, I think I know him very well; he is even rumoured to be a brother of Don Lelio Trescorre's, and I believe the Duke has lately given him to the Marquess of Cerveno, for I saw him not long since in the Marquess's livery at Pontesordo."
"Pontesordo?" cried Odo. "It was there I lived."
"Did you indeed, cavaliere? But I think you will have been at the Duke's manor of that name; and it was the hunting-lodge on the edge of the chase that I had in mind. The Marquess uses it, I believe, as a kind of casino; though not without risk of a distemper. Indeed, there is much wonder at his frequenting it, and 'tis said he does so against the Duke's wishes."