CHAPTER XXXIV
I FALL IN WITH THE PLAYERS
My present situation was of that shocking description which defies thought and paralyses the will. I was utterly alone, deprived of the means of joining the only person in Italy who loved me, utterly destitute of means, placed in a country from which I had been banished as a criminal. I shall be understood, then, when I say that for a week or more I wandered over the face of the land, not regarding whither I went (so only that I avoided my kind), nor what became of me. How I subsisted I am at a loss to tell; I have no clear recollections—nothing but a confused sense of abiding despair, hunger, haste and desolation. I know not through what regions I passed, the names of what villages I avoided, the names of what farm-houses I pillaged of eggs and milk in order that I might keep a soul in my body. It is true that I became a common thief; it is very true that during this most dreadful period I spoke not to one living person—for whenever I saw man, woman or child I crouched in whatsoever shelter I could find, and lay there trembling like a beast of chase until the enemy (as I deemed him) had passed and I could venture out again to seek for food. Providentially for me, my banishment from Lucca had taken place in the summer; I suffered nothing from exposure, and had no real lack of sustenance. I used to rummage the streets of villages at night to get broken meat; as I have said, I did not scruple to rob henroosts, or to suck the teats of cows and goats in the byres. During this time I neither prayed to God nor thought of Virginia in her horrid peril. All my efforts of mind and sense were directed to hiding and finding food. I was very near losing my wits.
Gradually, however, I recovered my self-possession, and with that, one by one, my proper faculties returned. I was surprised at myself when one day, seeing a man hoeing in a field, I felt the desire to speak to him and ask my whereabouts. I was in a dreadful fright when it came to the point that I had gone too far towards him to recede; but I mastered myself by an effort and brought myself to accost him. Without any surprise at my appearance, which was, indeed, no worse than his own, he told me that I was in the Vale of Chianti, between Certaldo and Poggibonsi, and that if I persevered upon the road I saw before me I should reach the latter place by nightfall. "But, brother," said he, "you look to have seen better days, and I advise you to push on to Siena. May be you'll find employment there—for that is a rich city. Here I tell you there is nothing. It is little use my offering you a crust, for I have not got one." I thanked him, and having broken cover, stoutly took the road and limped along as best I could.
Perhaps I had gone a league and a half when I came to a village full of people. Half a dozen miserable houses placed streetwise, one of them a disreputable inn, formed a background to a motley assembly of tattered vagrants, of which peasants of the countryside of both sexes, children, pigs and turkeys formed a small part. The others were men and women of the most extravagant attire and behaviour it is possible to imagine. I saw a punchinello on stilts wading among the rest; there were women flaunting feathers on their tousled heads, and moustachioed bullies who might have come from the ruck of some army on the march; pages, minions, magicians, astrologers, women's ruffians, castrati—it was as if one of the wildest hours of the Piazzetta of Venice had been transported by witchcraft to this quiet place. As I approached, wondering at what I saw, a creature, I knew not then whether man or woman, came and stood in my path, and with a great gesture of the arm greeted me in this remarkable apostrophe: "Hail, all hail, Bombaces, King of the Halicarnassians!" He, or she, repeated this shrilly three or four times, but nobody took any notice.
This hermaphrodite had a face of the most vivid and regular beauty I ever saw—a face of perfect oval, freshly and rarely coloured, a pair of dark and lustrous eyes, a straight, fine nose and a mouth exquisitely shaped, provokingly red. Its hair, which was dark brown, fell in a tide of wealth far over its shoulders. It wore a woman's bodice cut square in the neck, after the fashion of unmarried women in Venice, and short in the sleeves; but at the waist that sex stopped and the male began, for it had on a pair of man's breeches, worsted stockings and Venice slippers, and its shape as revealed by these garments was not that of a woman. The creature, as a fact, declared itself to be a male; and when he began to declaim against me again, I addressed him for what he was. "My good young man," I said, "I am too weary, too desperate and too hungry to be entertained by your antics, and too poor to reward you for them—being, as you see me, an exile and a stranger. If you can find me something to eat, I shall be grateful; if you cannot, go in peace, and leave me to do the same."
The droll beauty changed his tone in an instant. "Follow me, sir," said he, "and you shall have everything you want. I entreat your pardon for inflicting my impertinences upon you at such an ill-judged moment." He took me by the hand and addressed himself to the crowd about the inn doors; by pushing, punching, jostling, cursing, praying and coaxing in turns, he made a way into the house. But that was full to suffocation of the actors and their belongings, and of the peasantry who had come to gape at them. Everybody was engaged in getting drunk who was not drunk already. Some were fighting, some lovemaking, some filching. I saw a curious sight. A man dressed like a harlequin was picking a countryman's pocket, and having his own picked, while he was in the act, by some sharp-featured imp of a castrato. In fine, the whole house from floor to rafters was full; the bedchambers, to call them so which had no beds in them, were worse than the kitchen. I could not see that I had gained anything by following my questionable guide; but he, who had more resources than I knew of, having snatched a half-loaf and bottle of wine from the lower quarters, trampled and fought his way upstairs with them, showed me a ladder which gave on to the roof, and went up it like a bird, without using his hands. I followed him, and saw a proud light in his eyes as he invited me to survey my private room. We were in the valley formed by the two pitches of the roof, nothing between our heads and the evening sky. The revellings and blasphemies of the house were not to be heard; pigeons clustered on the chimney-pots or strutted the ridges of the house; a cat, huddled up, watched them from a corner. Stars showed faintly here and there; we were sheltered from the wind; I heard far off the angelus bell ringing.
"Here, at any rate, you won't be disturbed," said my protector. "Eat, sir, drink, and repose yourself. When you feel inclined you shall tell me how I can serve you further."
The evening bell, and this kindness of the lad's, had reminded me of what I was. I said, "My friend, I shall first thank God for having made your nation the boldest, the most ingenious, the gentlest, the most modest, most open-hearted in the world. You see before you a man of all men most unfortunate; but yet I say to you in the presence of God and of his household, whose lights are kindling even now, that, but for the like of you, many and many a time I should have died unannealed."
He was confused and, boylike, tried to laugh off my praises. "You give me too high a character, sir," said he. "I am a graceless devil of the Veneto, without prospect or retrospect to be proud of, a poor creature who has to go to market with what wares he has. If I can look forward it is because I dare not look back. What I am doing for you now, for which you are so kind as to praise me, is not virtue. I wish to Heaven virtue were so easy got. Eat, however, drink and rest. If I am no better than I should be, I suppose I am not worse than I could be. And I cannot allow you to praise me for that."