Part 17

"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about the events which you said had befallen you the night before...."

"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on his sword.

"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride, your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed? That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were played you, all which you have related to us with the very same assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no real existence."

Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring their reality thus in question.

He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents, or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.

In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts, and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus, shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran, when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his Crescentia.

He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.

"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt for you."

"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.

"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh," cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive, one can't hear a single word."

They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits. "But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher and purer light."

"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless by evil and damnable powers?"

"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of his eye pours the light of confidence into you."

"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.

"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child of the dust."

"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"

"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the very instant he foretold."

Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house. They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.

* * * * *

Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on his entrance like an old acquaintance.

"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain tumult of the world, do not scare away."

Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you are said to be infallible."

Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you; this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood, because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds. He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again, even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience; we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars: nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to call him their master."

Alfonso cast a look of enthusiasm upon his friend; and Antonio could not refrain from acknowledging to himself that here in the garb of lowly simplicity he found more than had ever delighted him from Apone's mouth, even at the time of his greatest admiration for that ostentatious philosopher. Indeed he was already become fully convinced that the knowledge which people call supernatural may be easily united with piety and a thorough resignation to the Lord.

"Do you know now what my fate has been?" askt the youth with emotion: "can you tell me anything about the events that are hereafter to befall me?"

"If I learn the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," answered Castalio, "compare the horoscope I shall then draw with the lines of your face and the marks on your hands, and afterward give free range to my mind in contemplating the results, I hardly doubt my being able to tell you something about your destinies."

Antonio gave him a pocket-book, in which his father had himself noted down the hour of his birth. Castalio placed some wine before the young men, himself partaking a little of it, turned over a few books, and then sat down to calculate, without however entirely breaking off his conversation with his guests. It only seemed as if the cheerful young man had some common business in hand, which was far from requiring the whole of his attention. Thus amid laughing and lively talk an hour may have past away, when Castalio stood up and beckoned to Antonio to go with him to the window.

"I know not, he began, how far you trust your friend there, or what you may wish to keep secret from him."

Hereupon he examined Antonio's face and hands very minutely, and then in regular connexion told him the story of his parents and their misfortunes, the early violent death of his mother, and his father's sinful passion, together with his murder by the hand of his wicked complice. Afterward he came to Antonio's own affairs, how he had sought for the murderer and pursued him, and had been detained at Padua by love.

"So you," he concluded, "as not without astonishment I have learnt, are the very young man who a short time since detected the wickedness of the abominable Apone in such a wonderful way, and who delivered the shameless villain over to his punishment, although you yourself only became still unhappier than before, from having to lose your beloved a second time in so horrible a manner."

Antonio confirmed all that the friendly man said, and had gained such confidence in him, that he felt just as if he was talking to himself. He then went on to tell him about the adventures of that night, about the second Crescentia, and the odious witch, who, he could not help fancying, had appeared to him a second time on that day.

"Can you inform me now," he askt eagerly, "whether this is all true, who that Crescentia is, and whether I shall ever see her again and carry her back to her parents?"

Castalio became more thoughtful than before. "Unless that strange creature Beresynth," he answered, "the imp that used to be at the magician's side, has been disguising himself as a woman, to escape from his pursuers, I feel assured that I shall find the hag out. Only have patience till tomorrow, and I will then give you your answer. Meanwhile you may be satisfied that the occurrences of that night were no phantoms of your mind, but realities; thus far you may set yourself and your elderly friend at rest."

The young people were lost in thought as they left the wonderful man, and Antonio thankt the Spaniard heartily for having procured him this acquaintance.

* * * * *

Antonio had not been mistaken. It was in fact the old woman that he had caught sight of in the crowd. She was living in a little hut, behind some ruinous houses, not far from the Lateran. Persecuted, destitute, deserted and hated and dreaded by all the world, she was here, in the abode of wretchedness, reduced to the brink of despair. She seldom ventured to shew herself abroad, and on this day too had only gone out from necessity, to bring her Crescentia, who had run away from her, back again.

As everybody shrank out of her path, as it was hard work for her even to obtain here and there an alms, and as her former arts found few lovers, she was no little astonisht that evening to hear a knock at her door, while cries and shouts were tossing without. She took her lamp, and, opening the door, saw a swarm of street-boys and of the lowest rabble at the heels of a little crooked figure fantastically clad in red velvet and gold.

"Does not the worthy Pancrazia live here?" screamed the deformed dwarf.

"Ay, to be sure!" said the old woman, as she forcibly banged the door to, and tried to drive away the people on the outside by abuse. "Who are you, worthy Sir? what do you seek from an old forlorn lady?"

"Set yourself down," said the little stranger, "and kindle some more light, that we may spy and look at one another; and whereas you call yourself poor, take these gold pieces, and we will sip a glass of wine together to our better acquaintance."

The old woman smirkt, lighted some wax-candles which she kept lockt up in a drawer, and said: "I have still a flask of good Florence, worshipful sir, that shall warm our insides." She opened a little cupboard and placed the red comforter upon the table, pouring out the first glass for her unknown guest.

"Why do you call me worshipful?" askt he.

"Don't the pieces of gold declare it?" answered she: "and your doublet, and the lace upon it, and the feather in your hat? Are you not a prince, not a magnate?"

"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other: and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other enough."

"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood. Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"

"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss.... No, purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble out."

With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this long time. But what did they want with you before the door there, cousin?"

"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in ecstacies. I might grow rich, meseems, were I to let myself be stared at for money while I stay here; and if I chance to give them all this pleasure gratis, forthwith a pack of blockheads begin barking and hallooing at my tail. To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals, the dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out of the animal creation, to display their gross ignorance."

"Very true! very true!" sighed the old woman: "it fares no better with me. Are the beasts such sheer fools then? Only let a body have a regular, average, commonplace nose, eyes, and chin, and all goes on quietly."

"Look at the fish," continued Beresynth, "who are dunces in many things. What philosophical tolerance! and yet among them many a fellow is all snout, and confronts the learned physiognomists of the ocean with a countenance, grave, cold, calm in the consciousness of its originality: nay, the whole deep brims and swims with one can't count how many eccentric faces, and gills, and teeth, and eyes astart from their sockets, and every other kind of striking contour: but every monster there floats his own way quietly and peaceably, without having his sleeve twitcht or any other annoyance. Man alone is so absurd as to laugh and sneer at his fellow creatures."

"And on what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line stretches up as far as one can see without a single twist, or curl, or flourish."

"You are in the right, my dame cousin!" cried Beresynth already drunk to his drunken hostess. "What can Nature be about when she turns off the things they christen beauties from her pottery-wheel? Why, they are hardly worth the trouble of setting to work at them. But such cabinet pieces as you and I! there the creative power, or the principle of nature, or the soul of the world, or the mundane animal, or whatever title one chooses to give the thing, can look at its product with a certain degree of complacency and satisfaction. For it has your curved lines: it starts off into noticeable angles; it is jagged like corals; it darts forward like crystals; it agglomerates like basalt; nay, there is no conceivable line that does not hop, skip, and jump about our bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both, as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest cousin, in our excursive irregularities, which defy all the mathematicians in the world to find an expression for their law. But coz, pray where did you get those two gorgeous teeth? the incomparable couple cut a grand and gloomy figure there across the chasm ... of your unfathomable mouth, and form a capital bridge over the gulf that gapes between the dark cliffs of your gums."

"O you rogue! O you flatterer!" laught the old woman: "but your darling chin that comes forward so complaisantly, and is so ready to wait upon you and spread itself out like a table. Don't you think you could put a good-sized platter upon it comfortably, where your mouth might then quietly nibble away, while your hands were seeking work elsewhere. This I call an economical arrangement."

"We won't spoil ourselves by too much praise;" said the dwarf: "we are already, it seems, vain enough of our advantages; and after all we did not give them to ourselves."