OF THE PLEASANT LIFE GUZMAN LED AMONG HIS BRETHREN, AND AN ACCOUNT OF HIS VISIT TO GAETA.
In the evenings we used to assemble, some ten or twelve of us, and amused ourselves with discussing the different kind of new exclamations we had hit upon, to rouse public sympathy in our behalf. Such was the skill of a few, that they had invented forms of benediction from which they derived considerable profit by the sale of them to other less ingenious heads than their own; so great was their novelty and efficacy with all classes.
On every festival we went early in the morning to church, where plenary indulgence was always granted us. We placed ourselves in the most convenient stations; we continued there the whole morning; and towards evening we issued forth into the neighbouring villages, calling at the country seats and farmhouses on our road. From these we usually brought away some slices of bacon, bread and cheese, eggs, and sometimes old clothes and other articles; so successfully did we work upon the charity of the good people. Did a person above the common rank happen to make his appearance, we instantly united in setting up a loud lamentation, even at a distance, giving him time to put his hand into his pocket, and vociferating louder and louder the nearer he came, so as to compel him in a manner to be charitable.
If we met a number of good citizens together, and had leisure to prepare to accost them in due form, each played his own part—one the blind, another the halt, a third the dumb, a fourth the paralytic, a fifth the idiotic, and some with crutches, making altogether a complication of human misery and distortion, which, with the most able at our head, was sure to penetrate into the pockets even of the callous. Could you but have heard the concord of sweet sounds we made at the crisis that decided the balance in our favour! We beseeched the Lord to bless them with lovely children—to return their bounty a hundred fold—and long to preserve their precious health. Not a party of pleasure could be got up, not a single festival pass, but we had some share in it; so that however much others expended we gained by them; and so acute was our scent that we could smell the preparation for them at an enormous distance.
In the same way the mansions of the cardinals, the bishops, and ambassadors, with all kind of open houses, were successfully besieged and occupied by us. Thus we might truly be said to possess all, levying as we did a tax upon all, though really having nothing. I know not how my comrades felt inclined on receiving charity from the hands of a pretty lady; but for my part, miserable sinner, when I accosted a young creature, enchanting both in face and figure, I looked her steadily in the face while I asked with my eyes fixed upon hers. If she gave me anything, I caught her hand, pressed it affectionately, and imprinted upon it a kiss in the fervour of my gratitude, before she had time to withdraw it. Yet so respectfully, or rather, hypocritically, was this done, that the lady, not being previously alarmed, took the whole in good part, as a transport of grateful joy.
What are called the pleasures of life—erroneously supposed to be monopolised by the great and the wealthy of this best of worlds—are, in fact, the chief property of us mendicants, who feel no drawback, but taste their flavour with a double relish, without a tithe of their anxiety and trouble to obtain them. Had the happy fellows no other privilege than that of asking freely, and receiving without the least touch of shame or pain, it is such a one as the rest of mankind cannot boast; if we only except monarchs and their royal families, who, without a blush, can demand what they please from their good people, while the sole difference between them and other beggars is, that they always wring out silver and gold even from the poorest people, while we require nothing but a mere trifle from the most proud and wealthy. There is no condition, therefore, more happy and respectable than that of the mendicant, but all do not know their own happiness—“beati si sua bona norint.”
The most part of us—wholly sunk in the enjoyment of mere animal life; insensible of the true pleasure of living independently, free from strife, from all speculative losses, all intrigues of State, eternal business; in short, from the infernal embarrassment in which the great are involved—to the day of their death have the folly to envy what they ought to avoid. The first man who embraced our kind of life must, from his very nature, have been much better than the great—I mean a great philosopher.
I had been led to think that this noble fraternity was safe from the usual shocks of fortune, but the malicious goddess made them occasionally feel the effects of her ire—throwing little stumbling-blocks in their way, much like the one I broke my shins over, when on a visit at Gaeta, whither I had gone out of curiosity, and in the idea that a man already able in the profession would only need to enter the town to feel a revivifying shower of alms poured upon him from all sides. No sooner was I there than, having assumed a new complexion, I placed myself at the entrance into a church. As luck would have it, the governor of the place was then passing, and, after looking at me very earnestly for a few moments, he gave me alms. A number of the natives immediately followed his example, and it acted as a continued benediction for me during more than a week; but there is a medium in all things, and I did not observe the golden rule. On the next festival, my complexion appearing no longer ingenious enough, I changed it for a huge ulcer on my leg, and for this purpose I put in practice one of the choicest secrets of my craft.
After having put my leg into an elegant case, I took an advantageous station at the entrance to a well-frequented church. There, setting up a sorrowful howl, caused by the new pain I felt from the ulcer, I caught the eye of almost every one that passed. I thought I excited the compassion of all who looked on me, but unluckily my rubicund complexion, which I had neglected to sicken over with white, seemed to give the lie to my lamentations, and might well excite suspicion; but good people are not over suspicious, and I heard the golden shower dropping sweetly and plentifully as they went into the house of prayer. In short, I got more than all the rest of my brethren put together, and they wished me at the devil, with my ulcer, that brought the capital into one bank.
As the stars at last would have it, there came the governor to hear mass at this very church—surely for my sins—and he recognised my voice in a moment, surveying me intently from head to foot. Yes, it was my voice, for elsewhere I was impenetrable; my whole person being disguised in the most effectual manner, with a huge napkin round my head, reaching down to my nose. Alas! he was a man of strong natural penetration, and suspicious as the devil; for, as he fixed me with his eyes, he seemed to be saying within himself, “For these several days past I have heard, I have seen, this odd-looking fish; is it possible he has got so dreadful an ulcer—all at once? Let us examine a little farther.” “Friend,” he observed, “you seem in a sad plight; your case truly deserves compassion; come, follow me, I will at least give you a shirt to your back.”