AN UNEXPECTED MESSENGER LIFTS ME UP
Destitute as we were of anything but the sinews of our backs and arms, we were forced, if we would live, to work our way to Arezzo; and it often fell out that the piece-work we engaged to do kept us long in one place. Near Sinalunga, in particular, in a green pastoral country, we hired ourselves out to a peasant to hoe his vines, and were busy there for nearly three weeks. I cannot say that I was discontented; indeed, I have always found that the harder my labour is and the straiter my lot, the less room I have for discontent. With this peasant, his family, his pigs, hens and goats, Belviso and I lived, in a hovel which, had it not been roofed over, might have been a cote or a pigsty. The man's name was Masuccio, his wife's Gioconda; between them they had a brood of nine children—a grown daughter of fourteen, three stout lads, four brats, and a child not breeched; and in addition to all these, and to Belviso and myself, to a sow in farrow, four goats, and hens innumerable, the good man's father was posed as veritable master of the whole—an old man afflicted with palsy, who did nothing but shake and suck at his pipe, but who, nevertheless, had, by virtue of his years and situation, the only semblance of a bed, the first of everything, and the best and the most of that. The rest of us, higgledy-piggledy, lay by night on the mud-floor, with a little pease-straw for litter, and scrambled all together for the remnants of the old tyrant's food. Yet nobody questioned his absolute right, and nobody seemed unhappy, nor looked out at any prospect but unremitting, barely remunerative labour from year's end to year's end. This is, I am now convinced, the true philosophy of life—that labour is a man's only riches, and food, shelter, rest, and the satisfaction of appetite his means whereby to grow rich. In other walks of life the practice is reversed, and labour is looked upon as the means, appetite and comfort as the end. Inconceivable folly! since labour alone brings health, and health content. But I must relate how I was cozened out of my own healthy contentment.
One day, when I was afield in the vines not far from the high road which ran from Sinalunga to still distant Arezzo, as I was resting on my hoe in the furrow, I saw a man come by walking a pretty good horse. He was an elderly, bearded man, very portly, and wore the brown garb of the Capuchins, which I certainly had no reason to love. His bald head, gleaming in the sun, was of the steep and flat-topped shape of our English quartern-loaves; and it came upon me with a shock that here was that Fra Palamone, whom I had last seen extended, shot by my hand, in the Piazza Santa Maria at Florence. This alarming discovery was verified by his nearer approach. I recognised his twinkling, tireless eyes, his one long tooth, like a tusk, and even the scar on his right brow. It was Fra Palamone in the flesh—and in great and prosperous flesh.
Although this apparition made me vaguely uneasy, I was relieved to find that I had not his death upon my conscience. On the other hand, I felt no yearning of the bowels towards him, and did not propose to go one inch over the newly turned clods to bid him good-day. Supported by my hoe, chin on hands, I watched him, tolerably sure that he would never mark me down. I was as brown as the earth in which I delved, scarce distinguishable from it. I had on my head an old felt hat of no shape at all; I had a cotton shirt open to the navel, and a pair of blue cotton drawers which failed me at the knees. I was bleached and tanned again, stained and polished by the constant rub of weather and hard work—a perfect contrast to my last appearance before him. Then it had been my heart that was rent, not my garments; then my spirit was fretted and seamed, not my skin. Then I had had a fine cloth coat and lace ruffles; but my soul was soiled and my honour in tatters. The hand which shot him down had been covered in a scented glove; but pride had flaunted it upon me, naked and unashamed. The contrast assured me, while it gave me confidence enough to watch my wily enemy.
He saw me, however—he saw me and reined up his horse. He beckoned me towards him in the way of free command which a mounted man assumes with peasants. As it would have been more singular to stand than to obey, I went slowly over the furrows and saluted him, responding to his bluff "Buon di" with a "Servo suo." The shadow of my hat was now my only hope; but I felt his sharp eyes burn their way through that, and now I am sure that he recognised me at the first moment. He pretended, however, that he had not, saving up, as I suppose, his acclamations to be the climax of the little drama he had schemed. Addressing me as his "honest lad," he asked his way to Fojano, with particulars of fords, bridle-tracks and such like. This was a game of which I, at least, was soon weary; I never could play pretences. I said, "I have told you what you want to know, Fra Palamone. It is three good leagues to Fojano. I hope you are sufficiently recovered of your wound to attempt it." At the same time I pushed up the brim of my hat, and looked him in the face.
He maintained his silly comedy for a little while longer, the old knave, staring at me as if I had been a ghost, muttering names, as if to recall mine. Then with a glad shout of, "It is, it is my Francis of old!" he threw up his arms to Heaven and broke into doggerel—
"'Si, benedetta tu,
O Maria, Madre di Gesu,
Regina Coeli intemerata,
Atque hominum Advocata!
"O what perils by land and sea," he continued, "what racking of entrails! What contumely, what anguish of hunger and thirst, have I not undergone for this—for this—for this! Now I can say, Domine, nunc dimittis, with a full heart. Now, indeed, is the crown of lilies set upon the life-work of wayworn, sad-browed Palamone!"
Sad-browed Palamone! He threw a leg over his horse's ears, and slid to the ground with a thud which made earth shake. He stretched out his arms to beckon me home; and when I would not budge, he scrambled through the briery hedge and took me, whether I would or no, into his strenuous embrace. He wept over me as a long-lost child of his, slobbered me, patted my head, back, breast. He held me at arm's-length to look at me better, hugged me again as if at last he was sure. "This is verily and indeed," he cried, "my friend and companion for many years, ardently loved, ardently served, lost for a season, searched for with blood- shedding, and found with tears of thankfulness. O dearest brother, let us kneel down and thank the Giver of all good, the only True Fount, for this last and most signal instance of His provident bounty!" He did kneel, and had the hardihood to drag me with him; I believe he would have prayed over me like a bishop at a confirmation—but this blasphemous farce was too much for me. I jumped up and away in a rage.
"Fra Palamone," I said, "I don't know whither this pretence of yours is designed to lead you, but I know well whither it will lead myself— namely, with this hoe of mine, to complete the work which I bungled in Florence. And to the achievement of that I shall instantly proceed, unless you get up from your polluted knees and tell me your real and present business with me here."