“Guido spoke with deep earnestness, and even shed tears. I knew him to be kind-hearted, and I believed him sincere. Perhaps he was so at that moment. To tell you the truth, I have always felt very indulgent towards those who are generous as well as prodigal, and this was the case with Guido, to my own knowledge. I beg you, however, Monsieur Goefle, not to suppose that I confound together liberality and selfish extravagance, although I, too, have been an offender in this respect. At any rate, I allowed myself to be moved and persuaded by my old comrade and new friend; so you will please to imagine us within the territories of the pope, breakfasting frugally together under the shade of a clump of pine-trees, and arranging a joint plan of operations.
“We were equally destitute; but my situation, though in a legal point of view more serious than his, was still by no means desperate. It would have been quite possible for me to have effected my escape without so much risk, fatigue and suffering. I should only have had to take refuge outside the city of Naples, with any one of a number of honorable persons, who had assured me of their friendship, and who would certainly have believed my word when I described to them how I had been in some sort forced to kill my cowardly enemy. He was hated, and I was beloved. I should have been well received, concealed, properly cared for, and enabled to leave the country in safety under influential protection. The police, and even the inquisition, can sometimes be induced to close their eyes when sufficient influence is exerted. However, I could not bring myself to adopt this plan; I felt an insurmountable repugnance to it, on account of my poverty, and the necessity I should have been under of accepting aid at the very outset. While I was with the cardinal, my salary had been too liberal to justify me in leaving him empty handed. He himself would certainly never have suspected how destitute I was. I should have been ashamed to confess, not that I was without money, for the young men in the circle I frequented were constantly in a similar condition, but that I had no prospect of receiving any until I had earned it in some new employment; and still further, the fact that it would be necessary for me to live much more sensibly and prudently than I had done in the past. Upon this latter point I was quite ready to enter into an engagement with myself; but, under the circumstances, my pride would not allow me to make promises to others.
“When I explained my situation to Guido Massarelli, he was greatly astonished at my scruples, and seemed even to feel a sort of contempt for them. But the more he urged me to apply to my friends in Rome for assistance, the more repugnant the idea became to me. Perhaps I was unreasonable about it; but at any rate, while I felt no shame at all at being reduced to the necessity of eating lupins with my companion in misfortune, it is certain that I would have died of hunger rather than go with him to beg a dinner of my old acquaintances. He had so long abused the efficacy of applications for aid, promises, useless repentances and artfully contrived narratives, that I should have been very much afraid of being supposed engaged in a similar course.
“‘We have been foolish,’ I said to him, ‘and we ought to be men enough to take the consequences. For my part, I have decided to proceed into France by the way of Genoa, or else into Germany by Venice. I shall go on foot, and live as I can. As soon as I can reach some large town outside of Italy, for here I am constantly in danger of falling into the hands of the Neapolitan police from the least imprudence, I will look out for some regular employment. I will write to the cardinal, and justify myself; from my friends I will request letters of recommendation, and I am confident that, after more or less of poverty and delay, I shall find some respectable position. If you like to come with me, come, and I will help you to the best of my ability in doing as I do—that is, in earning a respectable living by honest work.’
“Guido seemed so perfectly willing, and so well convinced, that I no longer hesitated to allow myself the enjoyment of an intimacy with him. In fact, I have often observed that a thorough scoundrel is often one of the most agreeable of men, and that the most companionable people are frequently those most destitute of dignity of character. But we have an absurd sort of conceit that makes us believe that we can exert an influence over such unfortunates; and when they deceive us, the fault is as much ours as theirs.
“I make these preliminary reflections so as to avoid interrupting the account of what followed.
“Our first business was to escape from Italy: in other words, to travel some hundreds of leagues without a farthing in our pockets. I promised that I would find the means, asking only for a few days’ rest to enable my wound to heal, for it was very painful and feverish.
“‘In the meanwhile,’ I said, ‘go and provide for yourself. I will take a loaf of bread and establish myself under a rock, near a spring. That ought to be sufficient for a man in a fever. We will appoint some place of meeting, and I will join you as soon as I can travel.’
“He refused to depart, and devoted himself to taking care of me; and so much zeal and ingenuity did he display in relieving my pain and supplying my wants, that I could not help feeling sincerely grateful. In three days I was upon my feet again, and by this time I had made my reflections.
“In brief, this was their result. I had come to the conclusion that we could not do better than to continue our marionette exhibition, which only required to be made more profitable and less vulgar. We needed to escape from the everlasting drama of Punchinello, to choose plots equally simple, but less threadbare; and, taking these for the groundwork, to improvise together amusing little comedies. Guido had enough, and to spare, of wit for this sort of work, and instead of applying himself to it with reluctance and dislike, he saw at once that, with an agreeable companion, it could be made very amusing. It is a general rule, by the way, that we cannot entertain other people when we are bored ourselves. So he readily assisted me to build a portable theatre in two sections, one of which served each of us as a shelter, in which we walked, safe from sun, rain, and police-officers; and which, when joined together by a few hooks, formed a stage large enough for the manœuvring of our two pairs of hands. I transformed his wretched burattini into intelligent and well-costumed figures, and added to them a dozen characters invented by myself. Then, in the open air, in a solitary wilderness, we made the first trial of our new theatre.