I moved like a man under a spell. My limbs obeyed, but my mind lagged behind.
I followed the friar without choice, without will.
He brought me into a house and presented me to an elderly lady saying that he was accompanying me to Rome, where I intended to become a Franciscan.
The lie disgusted me. Under any other circumstances I would have contradicted him at once, but in my condition it struck me as oddly comical.
The good woman fed us fish cooked in oil, a delicacy in Orsera, and poured us exquisite refosco.
While we ate, a priest dropped in. He watched me a moment, asked a few questions, and then said that I must not sleep aboard the tartan.
"Take a bed in my house," he insisted. "And if the wind keeps you here tomorrow, you shall dine with me again."
I accepted at once. A man who has nothing refuses nothing.
I offered my most sincere thanks to the good old lady.
The priest then walked me through the little town, and in the evening led me to his home.
His housekeeper had prepared supper and sat down with us. She had a frank, pleasant manner that immediately pleased me.
The refosco at his table was better than the noon wine, and with every cup my misery loosened its grip. I found myself talking, even laughing, as if sorrow were only a coat I had left at the door.
The priest grew warm with his hospitality and offered to read me a poem of his own composition.
My eyelids were already falling. I begged him to pardon me and postpone his masterpiece until the next day.
I slept.
In the morning I woke after ten hours of profound rest.
The housekeeper, who seemed to have been listening for the smallest movement, brought me coffee.
I thought her a charming woman, but, alas! I was not in a fit state to prove to her the high estimation in which I held her beauty.
Grateful to my host and determined to be agreeable, I composed my face into attentiveness.
He read his poem. I praised it with warmth.
The praise delighted him. He looked at me differently, found me more talented than he had first supposed, and insisted on reading me his idylls.
I had to swallow them, bearing the infliction cheerfully.
The day passed pleasantly enough. The housekeeper's attentions multiplied, small services delivered with a softness that felt like interest. Her glances lingered. My vanity took fire.
I began to imagine she was smitten with me, and with that pleasant thought came another. By a very natural reciprocity, I felt that she had made my conquest.
The priest declared, with visible satisfaction, that the hours had flown thanks to all the beauties I had discovered in his poetry.
In truth, his verses were beneath mediocrity. Time did not fly for me. It dragged.
It dragged because every friendly look from the housekeeper made me long for night.
I longed for it in spite of the wretched state I was in, in spite of the shame in my body and the damage in my soul.
But such was my nature; I abandoned myself to joy and happiness, when, had I been more reasonable, I ought to have sunk under my grief and sadness.
At last the golden hour arrived.
I found the pretty housekeeper willing enough, up to a point.
When my gratitude began to take the shape of a fuller homage, she resisted.
Her resistance was not harsh, only firm, and I, for my part, withdrew without insisting.
I was content for both of us that the matter had gone no further.
Peace, in my condition, was worth more than conquest. I went to bed calmly, almost pleased with myself for once.
But the adventure was not over.
The next morning she brought my coffee.
Her manner was so sweet, so coaxing, so artfully innocent, that my hands forgot their good resolutions.
I stole a few tender caresses. She did not wholly abandon herself, yet she no longer drew back with the same firmness.
"It is only," she murmured, "that I fear a surprise."
The day passed agreeably with the good priest.
At night the housekeeper no longer feared detection. I took every precaution my miserable state required, and we stole two hours as delicious as they were brief.
I left Orsara the next morning.
Friar Stefano diverted me throughout the day with his talk.
Beneath his air of simplicity I detected ignorance, and beneath the ignorance, knavery.
He made a little display for me, opening his habit to show the alms he collected in Orsera.
Bread. Wine. Cheese. Sausages. Preserves. Chocolate.
Every fold and corner of his holy garment was stuffed with provisions.
"And have you received money too?" I asked.
"God forbid!" he cried, lifting his hands as if I had proposed sacrilege. "In the first place, our glorious order does not permit me to touch money, and, in the second place, were I to be foolish enough to receive any when I am begging, people would think themselves quit of me with one or two sous, whilst they give me ten times as much in eatables. Believe me Saint-Francis, was a very judicious man."
I could not help smiling. What he called wealth would have been poverty to me.
Still, he offered to share with me, and seemed proud that I consented to honour him so far.
We touched at the harbour of Pola, called Veruda, and went ashore.
A quarter of an hour's climb brought us into the town. I spent two hours among its Roman remains, for Pola had once been a metropolis.
Yet grandeur leaves little behind when time has had its way. Of all the great buildings, I found only the ruins of the arena.
We went back down to Veruda and put to sea again.
The next day we sighted Ancona, but the wind turned stubborn and held us off.
We tacked, we waited, we watched the coast slide away and return, until at last we entered the port the day after.
The harbour is praised as one of Trajan's works, and it may deserve the praise, yet it would be a treacherous refuge without the long causeway built at great cost to tame it.
As we approached, I observed a fact worthy of notice. The northern shore of the Adriatic is sprinkled with harbours, while the opposite coast offers only one or two.
It looked as if the sea itself were slowly withdrawing toward the east.
I amused myself with the thought that in a three or four more centuries Venecia might find herself joined to the mainland.
We landed at the old lazaretto and were greeted at once with the pleasant information that we would go through a quarantine of twenty-eight days.
Venecia, we were told, had lately admitted the crew of two ships from Messina only after three months, for the plague had been raging there.
I asked for one room for myself and for Brother Stefano who thanked me very heartily.
I hired from a a bed, a table, and a few chairs, promising to pay at the end of our confinement. The friar refused everything but straw, a martyr by choice.
If he had guessed that without him I might have starved, he would likely not have felt so much vanity at sharing my room.
A sailor came sniffing about, expecting a generous customer, and asked where my trunk was. I told him I had no idea.
He and Captain Alban then set the whole place in motion to find it.
I was still laughing to myself when the captain finally appeared, wringing excuses out of his hands.
He begged my pardon, swore it had been an accident, and promised to forward it to me in less than three weeks.
The friar, who was to remain with me four weeks, had plainly counted on living at my expense. Yet Providence, in its humour, had sent him to keep me.
He possessed provisions enough for a week. After that, we would have to think of the future.
After supper I drew a most affecting picture of my position, showing that I should be in need of everything until my arrival at Rome.
There, I added, I was going to obtain employment as secretary of memorials.
My astonishment may be imagined when I saw the blockhead delighted by the recital of my misfortunes.
At last he slapped his thigh.
"I undertake to take care of you until we reach Rome;" he said cheerfully. "only tell me whether you can write."
I stared at him.
"What a question! Are you joking?"
"Why should I? Look at me; I cannot write anything but my name. True, I can write it with either hand." He held up both hands proudly. "What else do I want to know?"
I looked at his habit, at his tonsure, and raised an eyebrow.
"You astonish me greatly, for I thought you were a priest."
"I am a monk; I say the mass, and, as a matter of course, I must know how to read." Then, with perfect simplicity, he added, "Saint-Francis, whose unworthy son I am, could not read, and that is the reason why he never said a mass."
He leaned closer, then spoke.
"But as you can write, you will to-morrow pen a letter in my name to the persons whose names I will give you, and I warrant you we shall have enough sent here to live like fighting cocks all through our quarantine."
The next day he made me write eight letters.
He explained the number with great gravity.
In the oral tradition of his order, he said, when a monk has knocked at seven doors and been refused, he must apply to an eighth with perfect confidence, for there he is certain to receive alms.
Since he had already made the pilgrimage to Rome, he knew, in Ancona, every soul devoted to Saint Francis and every superior who commanded a rich convent.
He named them one after another.
I wrote to each as he dictated.
And what dictation.
He fed me lies as calmly as if he were reciting prayers. I had to set them down without a blush.
Then, to complete the comedy, he made me sign the letters in his place.
"If I sign," he said, "they will see the hand is not mine. That will injure me. For in this age of corruption people esteem only learned men."
To appear learned, he forced Latin into everything. He demanded quotations, tags, scraps of unction and erudition, even in letters addressed to ladies.
I protested.
He threatened to leave me without anything to eat.
A hungry man grows docile very quickly.
I made up my mind to do exactly as he wished.
He even made me write to the superior of the Jesuits that he would never apply to the Capuchins, because they were atheists, and that Saint Francis had therefore detested them.
I pointed out, as gently as I could, that in the time of Saint Francis there were neither Capuchins nor Recollects.
He looked at me with contempt.
"You proved yourself an ignoramus," he said.
I firmly believed that he would be thought a madman, and that we should not receive anything.
I was mistaken.
Provisions began to pour in as if our little room had become an altar.
Wine arrived from three or four quarters, in quantities sufficient for the whole quarantine.
I drank only water as I was determined to recover my health.
Food came daily in enough abundance to feed six people.
We gave the surplus to our keeper, who had a large family.
Brother Stefano thanked no one. He felt no gratitude for the kind souls who bestowed their charity upon him; all his thanks were reserved for Saint-Francis.
He arranged with the keeper to have my linen washed. I would not have dared ask it myself.
He laughed at my scruples and said he had nothing to fear, since everyone knew the monks of his order wore no linen at all.
I stayed in bed most of the day and avoided visitors.
The persons who did not come wrote letters full of incongruities cleverly worded, which I took good care not to point out to him.
It was with great difficulty that I tried to persuade him that those letters did not require any answer.