"I will tell you," she said. "When he was there—but for the love of charity, give me more room; you do not wish to stifle my little Tanuccio?—Well, when he began to ascend the ladder, ah, see, the child does not wish to go! He stamps his foot, he weeps, he cries—"
"I believe you," interrupted a person named Pizzabrasa, "for I heard all the way from the Loggia dei Mercanti, where I was being crushed, his cries of 'Papa! Mamma!'"
"That was it," continued Radegonda; "and he recoiled with horror before that savage figure," she said, pointing with her forefinger to Mastro Impicca. "His father sobbed, and could not speak; but his confessor whispered in his ear—"
"I saw also," interrupted Pizzabrasa, determined to show that he had been an eye-witness, and he continued:—"the golden hair of the child soon mingled with the black hair and beard of the father. One would have said they were yellow flames on a funeral pall. I also saw the child caress the priest who talked to him, and the priest—"
"Who is the priest?" interrupted the first speaker. The question was passed from lip to lip, until finally a man, dressed somewhat after the ecclesiastical fashion and having a serene and devout face, replied:—
"He is the one who preached at Lent last year at Santa-Maria del Sacco. He could have converted Herod himself. But the world is so wicked! He had no more success than if he had preached in the desert."
"His name?"
"Fra Buonvicino of the monastery Della Ricchezza de Brera. But the riches that he covets are not those which one acquires in sewing cloaks. Do you know him? Ah, what a man! question him, talk to him, he knows everything, and—"
"But what did he say to the child?"—"And what did the child say?"—"And the child's father, what did he do?"—It was thus they interrupted the speaker, without listening to his eulogy.
Here Radegonda, regretting that she had been deposed from her throne, took occasion to resume her speech, for no one was able to give more details. She began again.