Signor Basso-profundo advanced, and though truth might have been on his lips it certainly was not apparent on his face, for a more deceitful countenance I never beheld. However, I have no doubt he spoke truth on this occasion, as there was no money to be made by telling a lie, and he confirmed the words of the wrathful impresario. The sick friend was a myth, but in Rome Pallanza had been friendly with a lady. Per Bacco! a great lady, but the name was unknown to him. It appeared that Signor Basso-profundo dressed in the same room as Pallanza, and it was just before the last act of "Faust" that Guiseppe received the note. He told the basso-profundo that it was from a dying friend, and had departed quickly when the opera was ended, in his stage-dress, with a cloak wrapped round him. The basso-profundo was sure the note was from a lady. The impresario was also sure, and devoted the lady in question to the infernal gods with a richness of expression I have never heard equalled in any language.
Having thus found out what I suspected from the first, that the dying friend was a mere invention to cloak an intrigue, I left the impresario to tear his hair and call Guiseppe names in company with Signor Basso-profundo, and went back to my hotel, where I found Peppino waiting with his fiacre to drive me to the Palazzo Morone.
He was still unwilling to take me to this place of evil reputation, and made one last effort to shake my determination by gruesome stories of people who had gone into the palazzo and never came out again; but I laughed at all these hobgoblin romances, and getting into the fiacre, told him to drive off at once, which he did, after crossing himself twice, so as to secure his own safety should the ghosts of Palazzo Morone take a fancy to carry me off as a heretic.
We speedily left the broad, modern streets, and rattled down gloomy, mediæval passages, the humid atmosphere of which chilled me to the bone, in spite of the heat of the day. The fiacre--with its jingling bells--bumped on the uneven stones, turned abruptly round unexpected corners, corkscrewed itself between narrow walls, crept under low archways, and after innumerable dodgings, twistings, hairbreadth escapes from upsettings, and perilous balancings on the edges of drains, at length emerged into that queer little piazza at the end of which I saw the great façade of the richly-decorated palace I had beheld in the moonlight of two nights before.
I had been an ardent student of Baedeker since my arrival in Italy, and from the fortified appearance of the palazzo, judged that it had been built by Michelo Sammicheli, who, according to the guide-book, was the greatest military architect of the middle ages. The building was four stories high, with long lines of narrow windows closely barred by curiously ornamented iron cages--which bulged outward,---as a protection against thieves or enemies, and the whole front was adorned with almost obliterated paintings after the style of the Genoese palaces. In addition to the brush, the chisel had done its work, and wreaths of flowers, grinning masks, nude figures of boys and girls, elaborate crests and armorial devices with fishes, birds, tritons, shells, and fruit were sculptured round the windows, along the fortified castellated top, and over the great portal. All the square in front of this splendid specimen of Renaissance art was overgrown with grass. The houses on every side were also deserted, and what with the broken windows, the empty piazza, and the closed doors, everything had a melancholy, desolate appearance, as if a curse rested upon the whole neighbourhood.
Peppino evidently was of this opinion, for although it was broad daylight, and the hot sunlight poured down on the grass-grown square, yet he kept muttering prayers in a low voice; and if by chance he looked towards the Palazza, he always crossed himself with great devoutness. I was not, however, going to be baulked of my intention by any superstitious feeling on the part of an Italian cab-driver, so I ordered Peppino to tie up his horse and come with me into the palace. This modest request, however, so horrified Peppino that he absolutely squeaked with horror, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
"I, Signore!" he whimpered, touching the relic on his breast. "Dio! not to be King of Italy would I go into that house! If you are wise, Signore, look and come away lest evil befall you. Cospetto! Signore, remember the Frate. Think of Madonna Matilda!"
"What about Madonna Matilda, Peppino?"
"Eh, Illustrious, do you not know? She was a friend of his Holiness at Canossa, and, though a woman, wanted to celebrate mass, but Il Cristo burnt her to ashes with fire from above!--and she died. Ecco! Cospetto! Signore, it is foolish to meddle with holy things."
"Well, you can't call this palace holy, Peppino?"