I agreed to meet Friar Stephano at the exchange.
Before that, I took the Convenentian from whom I had hired my furniture to the convent of the Minims.
Father Lazari received me kindly, put ten sequins in my hand, and gave me the bishop's address.
His lordship, after serving his quarantine on the Tuscan frontier, had gone on to Rome and would expect to see me there.
I paid the Convenentian , who went away satisfied, and treated myself to a poor meal at an inn.
As I stepped out into the street, ready to join the monk, bad luck seized me by the collar.
Captain Alban.
He approached in a fury and demanded to know why I had made him believe my trunk had been left behind.
I contrived to appease his anger by telling him all my misfortunes, and I signed a paper in which I declared that I had no claim whatever upon him.
I then purchased a pair of shoes and an overcoat and went to find Stephano. I told him of my new plan.
I intended to go on foot to Our Lady of Loreto, to pay my respects there, and wait for him. Afterwards we could continue together to Rome.
He shook his head at once. He did not wish to go by Loreto. He warned me that I would one day regret scorning the graces of Saint Francis.
I did not alter my mind, and I left for Loretto the next day in the enjoyment of perfect health.
I reached the Holy City, tired almost to death.
It was the first time in my life I had walked fifteen miles in one stretch, under a hot sun, living on nothing but water.
The local dry wine burned my mouth and throat, so I abandoned it after the first taste.
I must add that, in spite of my poverty, I did not look like a beggar.
As I entered the city, an elderly priest came toward me, a man of grave, respectable face, who looked as if he belonged to every decent place.
I noticed his eyes rest on me with a kind of attentive curiosity.
When he drew near, I saluted him and asked where I might find a comfortable inn.
He studied my dusty shoes and my road-worn cloak.
"I cannot doubt," he said, "that a person like you, travelling on foot, must come here from devout motives. Come with me."
He turned at once.
I followed.
He led me to a handsome building with a sober, noble front.
After he had whispered a few words to a steward at the entrance, he bade me a kindly farewell.
"You shall be well attended to," he said, and left me there.
My first impression was that I had been mistaken for someone else, but I said nothing.
They showed me into a small suite of three rooms.
The bedchamber had damask on the walls, a canopied bed with curtains, and a writing table already laid with paper, ink, and pens.
A servant appeared with a light dressing gown. Another brought linen and a large tub of water and set it before me, then removed my shoes and stockings and washed my feet.
A very decent-looking woman came in with a maid at her heels. She made me a low curtsey and began to make my bed.
The Angelus bell rang.
All three dropped to their knees without a word.
I followed their example.
When the prayer ended, they rose and went on as if nothing had interrupted them.
They laid a small table, neat and quiet, asked what wine I preferred, brought newspapers and two silver candlesticks, then withdrew.
An hour later I was served an excellent fish supper.
Before I went to bed, a servant came to ask whether I wished for chocolate in the morning before mass or after it.
Once in bed, I received a night lamp with a dial so that I could see the hour without asking for anyone.
The mattress was soft, the sheets fine and cool. Except in France, I have never had such a good bed as I had that night.
It would have cured the worst insomnia. I had no such ailment and slept for ten hours.
After this reception it was clear that I was not in a common inn. Yet I could not guess what the place really was.
How was I to suppose that I was in a hospital?
In the morning, after my cup, a hairdresser arrived, lively, smartly dressed, dying to give vent to his chattering propensities.
Seeing that I did not intend to shave, he offered to clip the soft down from my cheeks with scissors so that I might look younger.
" Why do you suppose that I want to conceal my age?" I asked.
"It is very natural, because, if your lordship did not wish to do so, your lordship would have shaved long ago. Countess Marcolini is here; does your lordship know her? I must go to her at noon to dress her hair."
I did not feel interested in the Countess Marcolini, and, seeing it, the gossip changed the subject.
"Is this your lordship's first visit to this house? It is the finest hospital throughout the papal states."
"I quite agree with you," I said, "and I shall compliment His Holiness on the establishment."
"Oh! His Holiness knows all about it, he resided here before he became pope. If Monsignor Caraffa had not been well acquainted with you, he would not have introduced you here."
There you have the true function of barbers in Europe.
They are fountains that never run dry, but you must not put any questions to them.
The moment you try to draw information, they are sure to treat you to an impudent mixture of truth and falsehood, and instead of you pumping them, they will worm everything out of you.
Feeling it my duty to pay my respects to Monsignor Caraffa, I asked to be shown to his apartments.
He welcomed me pleasantly, led me through his library, and entrusted me to one of his abbés, a man of parts who acted as my cicerone everywhere.
Twenty years afterwards, this same abbé was of great service to me in Rome, and, if still alive, he is a canon of St. John Lateran.
The next day I took communion in the Santa Casa. The third day was entirely employed in examining the exterior of this truly wonderful sanctuary.
Early on the fourth morning I resumed my journey, having spent nothing except three paoli for the barber.
Halfway to Macerata I overtook Brother Stephano.
He was inching along the road as if he feared to arrive. His pace was so slow that the dust had time to settle again after his feet disturbed it.
When he saw me, he brightened and his pleasure looked sincere.
"I left Ancona two hours after you," he said, "But I never walk more than three miles a day. Why should I? A journey that can be done in a week should take two months. I want to reach Rome without fatigue and in good health. I am in no hurry, and if you feel disposed to travel with me and in the same quiet way, Saint-Francis will not find it difficult to keep us both during the journey."
This lazy fellow was about thirty, red-haired, broad in the chest, thick in the arms, the very picture of health.
A true peasant who had turned himself into a monk only for the sake of living in idle comfort.
I told him I was in haste and could not be his companion.
He considered this, then tried a bargain.
"I undertake to walk six miles, instead of three, today," he said, "if you will carry my cloak, which I find very heavy."
I laughed and accepted, partly for the absurdity of it. I put on his cloak and he took my greatcoat.
The exchange made us a spectacle.
Every peasant we passed stared, then laughed outright.
The reason was soon clear. His cloak would have been a load for a mule.
It had twelve pockets in front, all stuffed, and another behind which he called 'il batticulo', which alone held twice as much as all the others together.
Bread, wine, fresh meat and salted, fowls, eggs, cheese, ham, sausages, everything was to be found in those pockets, which contained provisions enough for a fortnight.
As we walked I told him how I had been received at Loreto.
He listened with a kind of satisfied envy, then shook his head.
"You might have done even better," he said. "You should have asked Monsignor Caraffa for letters to all the hospitals on the road to Rome. They would have treated you the same everywhere."
He spat in the dust.
"The hospitals are all under the curse of Saint-Francis, because the mendicant friars are not admitted in them; but we do not mind their gates being shut against us, because they are too far apart from each other. We prefer the homes of the persons attached to our order; these we find everywhere."
"Why do you not ask hospitality in the convents of your order?" I asked.
He gave a short laugh.
"I am not so foolish. In the first place, I should not be admitted, because, being a fugitive, I have not the written obedience which must be shown at every convent, and I should even run the risk of being thrown into prison; your monks are a cursed bad lot. In the second place, I should not be half so comfortable in the convents as I am with our devout benefactors."
"Why and how are you a fugitive?" I asked.
He launched into an account of his imprisonment and flight, the whole story being a tissue of absurdities and lies.
The fugitive Recollect friar was a fool who believed that every man listening to him was a bigger fool than he was.
Yet with all his folly he was not wanting in a certain species of cunning.
He knew where the bread was buttered, and he knew how to make piety feed him.
His religious principles were singular.
Afraid of being taken for a bigot, he ran to the other extreme and became scandalous. To make people laugh, he often used the most disgusting expressions.
Women did not tempt him in the least.
His blood was cold and his body sluggish, but he paraded that defect in his natural temperament as a virtue and called it continence.
Anything to do with love or the flesh seemed to him excellent material for coarse humour.
When he had drunk a little too much, he would begin to ask questions of such an indecent character that everyone around him reddened with embarrassment.
Yet the brute would only laugh.
When we were about a hundred yards from the house of the pious friend he planned to honour with his presence, Stephano stopped, turned to me, and calmly reclaimed his cloak.
Inside the house he transformed. The lazy peasant vanished. He lifted his hand and gave his blessing to everybody.
The family knelt to kiss his hand, one by one.
The mistress of the house requested him to say mass for them.
"With pleasure," he replied, and asked to be shown to the vestry.
I leaned close to his ear.
"Have you forgotten that we have already broken our fast to-day?"
He answered dryly, "Mind your own business."
I held my tongue and followed him into the church.
During the mass I was surprised, for I saw that he did not understand what he was doing.
I could not help being amused at his awkwardness, but I had not yet seen the best part of the comedy.
As soon as he had somehow dragged the mass to a close, he went straight to the confessional.
One after another, the members of the household knelt to him. He listened, nodded, muttered phrases of absolution.
Then the daughter came in.
She was twelve or thirteen, pretty, with that shy grace which makes innocence more touching than beauty.
She knelt. He bent toward her.
What he said to her I could not hear.
What I saw I shall not forget.
He suddenly raised his hand, refused her absolution in a loud voice and began to scold her in front of everyone.
He threatened her with hell, with eternal fire, with the wrath of God.
Overwhelmed with shame, the poor girl burst into tears and fled the church with her face hidden in her hands.
My sympathy for her flared at once, and my patience with him ended.
"You are a madman," I said aloud.
I ran after her to console her, but she had vanished into the house and could not be coaxed to appear again. She would not even sit at the table for dinner.
The monk's cruelty enraged me. At table I could not swallow a mouthful. In front of the whole family I turned to him.
"You are an impostor," I told him, "and the infamous destroyer of that poor child's honour."
They looked at me in alarm, but I was past caring.
"Explain," I said. "On what grounds did you refuse her absolution?"
He closed my lips by answering very coolly.
"I cannot betray the secrets of the confessional."
That single phrase nailed my mouth shut.
We left the house soon after.
The mistress, in her gratitude, pressed a paolo into my hand as the price of the mock mass he had said.
I had to fulfil the sorry duty of his treasurer.