"Eh, eh, eh, what a bother about nothing!" says this amiable old fool. "Let us pray all together to the Madonna that you be not sorry for this. She has done nothing, padron--nothing at all. He alone is wicked--by Diana the Mighty I swear it--and it was I who put him in the cupboard, and therefore know what I am saying. She--a lamb of our Saviour's flock! Madness! Are you jealous of a boy without a beard? Do you conceive that your lady could listen to a voice that sang among milk-teeth? Ah, do you listen, rather, padron, to me and the truth, for we are at one together, the truth and I." She stayed for breath.
"Hag," said the doctor, "you are lying. This fine young man has confessed to me the agreeable truth. Madam," he turned to Donna Aurelia, "here is a confessed lover of yours. Pray have you anything to say?"
"He is very foolish, he is very wicked; I have often told him so, often and often," says Aurelia, twisting her hands about. "To-night he has said what he should not--and I believe he knows that very well. I had intended to tell you, if you had come sooner, as I wished--ah, and as I asked you, Porfirio--you would have heard it all from me. That is all. I was frightened--Nonna popped him in the cupboard--how he got out, how you found him there, I know not. But he has done me no harm--nor you neither, Porfirio. That I swear before the saints in Heaven." The doctor glared at her--then took her by the wrist.
"Lies, lies, woman!" he said furiously. "He convicts you himself. He came out of the cupboard of his own act."
She stared in amazement, and forgot the pain he was giving her. "He-- came--out? But----Is he mad?"
"No, madam," said I; and, "No, by Heaven!" cried the doctor, "for I have no doubt at all but that he intended to provoke me to anger and then to run me through the body with that sword of his."
I threw up my arms at such a monstrous suspicion. Aurelia, who had been gazing at me as if she feared for my reason, now looked down.
"Please to let go of my wrist," she said, "you are hurting me, Porfirio. I know no more than you do why he came out of the cupboard; but of course you do him a wrong. He did not mean anything of the sort--he is of a good heart--incapable of murder. And now, please, Porfirio, let go of my wrist."
But he did not; his rage, gathering in volume, bade fair to convulse him.
"I intend to have the truth from one of the three of you before I let you go," said he. "From you I require to know why you put him into the cupboard."
"It was very silly," said Aurelia, "since he had done no harm. Nonna, why did you put him into the cupboard?"
"Diana!" cried the old woman, "where else was I to put the boy?" The doctor's laughter was terrible to me. I took a step forward.
"I will tell you, sir, the reason of both your puzzlements," I said. "I was put into the cupboard because Donna Aurelia was rightly ashamed of me, and I came out because I was honestly ashamed of myself."
"Ha!" said he, "so now we have it."
"You shall have it now," I replied. "I was honestly ashamed of myself, and honestly glorious that I had been rebuked by so noble a lady. Sir, it is true that I love this lady." Aurelia gave a shocked little cry, but I went on. "It is true that I kiss her feet. Sir, I worship the ground she presses with them--it is holy ground."
He scoffed at me. I said, "My feelings overcame me--I sinned--I am utterly unworthy. Punish me for my sin as you will, I shall not defend myself. But do not, and do not you, madam, I entreat, punish me for the one thing I have done this night of which I may be rightly proud."
"Bah," said he, "you are a fool, I see. And now, madam---"
"Yes, Porfirio," said she, poor soul.
"You, and that she-wolf over there--what have you to say?"
"I say," said Nonna, "that the young gentleman is out of his wits."
Aurelia said, "I am wretched. He was very foolish."
"You have deceived me," he thundered at her, "made a fool of me at your ease. You spoke your wheedling words, and he was in there to listen, and to laugh, by my soul! You coaxed, you stroked, you sidled, you whispered, and he was in there laughing, laughing, laughing! Oh, madam, you talk of his young foolishness, but you make your profit of my old foolishness."
"It is false," said Aurelia. "I never did it."
"By my soul," says he, "I'll not be contradicted. I say that you do. O Heaven, is this your duty, your gratitude, your thanks due to me? Why-- why--why--what did I take you from? What did I make of you? Your wretched mother---"
She looked up with flashing eyes. There was danger to be seen on its way. "She is not wretched."
"Then she should be, madam," he said. "She is parent of a wicked, false--"
Aurelia, crying, shook to get free. "No, no! Be silent. You shall not say such things." She stamped her foot. "It is absurd, I won't have it," she said. He gave a strangling cry of rage and despair, released her and rushed towards the cupboard. Dramatically, he flung his arms towards it as if he would shake off his two hands and leave them there. "Explain that, woman," he screamed. "Explain it if you dare---"
She was now equally angry, with patches of fire in her cheeks. "I shall explain nothing more. You will not believe me when I do. My mother will understand me."
"Then she shall--if she can," says the doctor, "and as soon as you please." Aurelia peered at him. "What do you mean, sir?"
"Why, madam, that you shall go where you are best understood."
"What!" she cried, "you mean--? You cannot mean--Oh, preposterous!"
The doctor was looking at the cupboard. "Ay, and it is preposterous, and I do mean it."
She stared at him for a moment, perplexed, then flew into a towering and ungovernable rage. "Ah," she cried, and she shook in every member. "Ah, now you may mean what you please, for I have done. Do you dare to suspect me? Do you dare to treat me as an infamous woman? Oh, oh, do you dare? You shall have no need to repeat it. I will go to my mother's house--I will go now--now--now. Nonna, my cloak and shoes--at once. I have been good--I have always tried to be good--and do you faithful duty. I have known what I ought to do--I have been proud to be Dr. Lanfranchi's wife. I thought I would show to my people that a girl of Siena could be proud, even of a Venetian pig, if he were her husband. Ah, but no more, no more. No, I will work elsewhere, for better wages-- you have seen the last of Aurelia." She was superbly beautiful as she turned, pointing to me. "This youth--this mad, incomprehensible youth-- what harm has he done YOU compared to what he has now done to me? He loves me, he says--I don't understand his love--but why should he not? Am I to fall in love with everybody who says that? Do you think you are the only one? And--and--why!--you have never said that you loved me: no, you have not. You just took to me, and made me work--your servant or your doll--your plaything when you were done with the cafe--me, a Gualandi of Siena--and you, a pig of Padua. Good Heaven, for what do you take me, sir? Did you find me in the street? Is my family one of wretches? Oh, what a man you are; ungrateful, cruel, hard as the grave. Yes, yes, Nonna, fold me close in my cloak; it will keep me from such cold as this." She stood, cloaked and ready: we all stood--the doctor like a rock, I like a man dead at his prayers.
She looked from one of us to the other, to me second. "You told me that you loved me, Don Francis," she said. "I am going to my mother. Will you take me?"
I never loved her so well as at this moment when I said, "Madam, I dare not do it."
She blushed, I know she was mute with astonishment.