“What!” I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo and we were returning home that I touched upon the matter. She chid me for the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable indiscretions but for her warning.
“But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor wretch for sacrilege!” I cried. “It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is infamous!”
“Not so loud,” she laughed. “You are being stared at.” And then she delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry. “If a man being a sinner himself, shall on that account refrain from punishing sin in others, then is he twice a sinner.”
“It was my Lord Gambara taught you that,” said I, and involuntarily I sneered.
She considered me with a very searching look.
“Now, what precisely do you mean, Agostino?”
“Why, that it is by just such sophistries that the Cardinal-legate seeks to cloak the disorders of his life. 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor?' is his philosophy. If he would encage the most sacrilegious fellow in Piacenza, let him encage himself.”
“You do not love him?” said she.
“O—as to that—as a man he is well enough. But as an ecclesiastic...O, but there!” I broke off shortly, and laughed. “The devil take Messer Gambara!”