‘Hold! Amadeo!’ said Guiberto, ‘I officiate together with good Father Fontesecco, who invariably falls asleep amid our holy function.’
Now, Messer Francesco, I must inform you that Father Fontesecco has the heart of a flower. It feels nothing, it wants nothing; it is pure and simple, and full of its own little light. Innocent as a child, as an angel, nothing ever troubled him but how to devise what he should confess. A confession costs him more trouble to invent than any Giornata in my Decameron cost me. He was once overheard to say on this occasion, ‘God forgive me in His infinite mercy, for making it appear that I am a little worse than He has chosen I should be!’ He is temperate; for he never drinks more than exactly half the wine and water set before him. In fact, he drinks the wine and leaves the water, saying: ‘We have the same water up at San Domenico; we send it hither: it would be uncivil to take back our own gift, and still more to leave a suspicion that we thought other people’s wine poor beverage.’ Being afflicted by the gravel, the physician of his convent advised him, as he never was fond of wine, to leave it off entirely; on which he said, ‘I know few things; but this I know well—in water there is often gravel, in wine never. It hath pleased God to afflict me, and even to go a little out of His way in order to do it, for the greater warning to other sinners. I will drink wine, brother Anselmini, and help His work.’
I have led you away from the younger monk.
‘While Father Fontesecco is in the first stage of beatitude, chanting through his nose the Benedicite, I will attempt,’ said Guiberto, ‘to comfort Monna Tita.’
‘Good, blessed Guiberto!’ exclaimed Amadeo in a transport of gratitude, at which Guiberto smiled with his usual grace and suavity. ‘O Guiberto! Guiberto! my heart is breaking. Why should she want you to comfort her?—but—comfort her then!’ and he covered his face within his hands.
‘Remember,’ said Guiberto placidly, ‘her uncle is bedridden; her aunt never leaves him; the servants are old and sullen, and will stir for nobody. Finding her resolved, as they believe, to become a nun, they are little assiduous in their services. Humour her, if none else does, Amadeo; let her fancy that you intend to be a friar; and, for the present, walk not on these grounds.’
‘Are you true, or are you traitorous?’ cried Amadeo, grasping his friend’s hand most fiercely.
‘Follow your own counsel, if you think mine insincere,’ said the young friar, not withdrawing his hand, but placing the other on Amadeo’s. ‘Let me, however, advise you to conceal yourself; and I will direct Silvestrina to bring you such accounts of her mistress as may at least make you easy in regard to her health. Adieu.’
Amadeo was now rather tranquil; more than he had ever been, not only since the displeasure of Monna Tita, but since the first sight of her. Profuse at all times in his gratitude to Silvestrina, whenever she brought him good news, news better than usual, he pressed her to his bosom. Silvestrina Pioppi is about fifteen, slender, fresh, intelligent, lively, good-humoured, sensitive; and any one but Amadeo might call her very pretty.
Petrarca. Ah, Giovanni! here I find your heart obtaining the mastery over your vivid and volatile imagination. Well have you said, the maiden being really pretty, any one but Amadeo might think her so. On the banks of the Sorga there are beautiful maids; the woods and the rocks have a thousand times repeated it. I heard but one echo; I heard but one name: I would have fled from them for ever at another.