His was the first case. "Your name?" said Brother Hyacinth, and was answered "Giovanni-Battista-Maria-Bentivoglio."
"Write," said Brother Hyacinth to his clerk, "Jew, name unknown, active liar." This done, he continued his questions.
"Your means?"
"Alas, none," replied the Jew.
"Search him," said Brother Hyacinth.
The clerk thereupon turned out his pockets, which were empty of everything but holes. Not content with that, however, he felt all over his body, and when he had, as I may say, drawn all the coverts blank, knelt down and pulled off the man's shoes. The Jew was unable to repress an exclamation, which I naturally set down to his disgust at the indignity. But I found that this was not so. The clerk very neatly picked out a small key from between his toes and held it up to his master.
"I thought as much," said Brother Hyacinth. "Go." The young Jew sighed, shrugged, and stood back without a word; and while I was considering what his imposture could have been it was my turn.
Brother Hyacinth examined me with keen displeasure. "Who are you?" he asked me. I told him "Francesco-Antonio Strelli"--and he bade the clerk write these names down. "Nationality?" he asked next. I told him "Inglese." One of the friars, that evil, bearded fellow, I noticed, had drawn near and was listening with all his might. Now it was to be noticed of him that he breathed very short and fast, and that his breath struck like fire upon my skin. The interrogatory was renewed.
"Your place of immediate origin?" I was asked.
I said, "Padua."
"Your present occupation?"
"Repentance," I said, and spoke the truth.
"Your means of support?"
"Grace," said I, and he stamped on the ground.
"You are trifling with me--I advise you to take care. Answer me truthfully of what you repent."
This angered me. I told him shortly that, like everybody else in the world of my way of thinking, I repented of sin.
He turned to his amanuensis. "Write down that the young man refuses to give an account of himself," he said harshly; and then asked me what I wanted of the hospital.
I said with heat, "My brother, I had required of it what I now see I am not to expect, charity, namely, both of judgment and act. I am afflicted, as you ought to have seen at once; I need your wisdom--but need most your sympathy--" To my amazement he cut me short, as he had done with the Jew, by the brief command, "Search him." I recoiled as well as I could in my fainting and helpless condition.
"Do you dare insult a sick man?" I cried; and to the clerk, who was about to put me to this indignity, I said, "Touch me at your peril, sir; for though I die for it, you will pay for your temerity."
The Jew, who had been looking on at my examination (quite unabashed at the mortification of his own), here interposed by telling me that the thing was a common form and must be gone through with. I was about to shake him off for his impertinence when a chance phrase of his, "free lodging," enlightened me. This, then, was not what I understood by a hospital--using the applied sense of the word--but one of those original institutions, so-called, which were, of course, guest-houses for the poor. The moment I understood that, I saw that I and Brother Hyacinth had been at cross-purposes. I pulled out my handful of money and spilled some pieces upon the floor. Instantly the great friar behind me clapped his foot upon them. The Jew hunted down the rest.
Brother Hyacinth now recoiled. "What does this mean?" he asked. "Are you a fool, or a thief, or an impudent rascal?"
"You are mistaken," I replied, "I am none; but it is clear that I have deceived you. Had I understood the real objects of your hospital--which, I am compelled to add, you have most successfully concealed--I should not have been before you. I am ill and in great pain. I supposed that you could give me assistance. And even now, should that be possible, I would accept it, and pay for it." Brother Hyacinth, with keen displeasure, said that mine was a case for the police, and that, while he should decline my money, he was minded to detain my person for their consideration; but the Jew thereupon broke in with more assurance than I should have thought him capable of. "Your pardon, very reverend," he said, "but this is a case for the best physician in Rovigo, and the best bed in the best inn. This gentleman, as I knew very well from the first, is acting for a wager. Only your astuteness has prevented him from winning it. He has failed, but not by much; it is an honourable defeat. He very willingly bestows upon you two ducats for the beneficent purposes of the hospital--those very two, in fact, which the reverend frate behind him has covered with his foot. With the others he will return to his noble parents, being furnished with a certificate from your reverence to the effect that he has failed in his endeavour."
The clerk, who had by this time extracted the two pieces from beneath the foot of the Capuchin (who loudly denied that they were there), was now whispering with Brother Hyacinth. After a short time he drew me apart and told me that but for him I should certainly be sent to prison. The brother-in-charge, he said, believed me to be a highway thief--or professed that he did--against all reason; for said the clerk, "As I told his reverence, if your honour had been a thief it is very unlikely that we should have had the pleasure of your company at the hospital. His reverence has made difficulties--it has been hard to convince him, though your honour's generosity to the hospital has not been without effect. I flatter myself that my arguments have been useful. Any further service I can do your honour, I shall very thankfully undertake."
I expressed myself obliged to him, and added that though it might be very true that I deserved prison, I had other acts of penitence in view which could only be properly performed in Tuscany. I said, "You would be justified--if you knew the whole of my history--in declining what I nevertheless urge upon your benevolence--this crown-piece namely---" He assured me that no crime of mine, however unnatural, could cause him a momentary scruple, took the coin, spat upon it, pocketed it, and said that he was my servant and orator to the end of time. At this moment the great Capuchin--he of the covering foot--took me by the arm and begged the favour of a word in my ear. He was a hideous villain, broad- shouldered, scarred, hugely bearded, and had a prominent tooth in his lower jaw, rather loose, which stuck out like a tusk. I have spoken of his breath, which was as the blast of a furnace.
"I see," he said with an odious leer, "that you are a game-cock. I knew you by your ruffle. It was gallantly tried, and nearly successful. I like your spirit much. Come with me, and you shall not fail again. You and I will take the road together, live at our ease, and live for nothing, and brave it with the best notwithstanding. What do you say? Shall we shake hands upon it?" Monster that he was, as he hovered over me there, grinning, moving his tooth, he inspired me with loathing. I felt the blood tingle in my cheek.
"Better a Jew than a thieving renegade," says I. "That is my answer to you. Go in peace."
He said, "As you will," and turned to his affairs. I left the hospital with the benevolent Jew, whose name was Issachar.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PEDLAR OF CRUCIFIXES
Issacher, as well as being a cheerful, loquacious fellow and of ready wits, was so exceedingly kind as to support my weight