Part 31 (2/2)

Order, decency, time, place, opportunity, must be observed.

_Filippo._ I have observed the greater part of them: time, place, and opportunity.

_Eugenius._ That is much. In consideration of it, I hereby absolve thee.

_Filippo._ I feel quite easy, quite new-born.

_Eugenius._ I am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings thou experiencest, when thou givest loose to thy intractable and unruly wishes. Now, this love of the world, what can it mean? A love of music, of dancing, of riding? What in short is it in thee?

_Filippo._ Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and amorous const.i.tution.

_Eugenius._ Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what that leads unto. I very much disapprove of it, whatever it may be. And then? and then? Prithee go on: I am inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse thee.

_Filippo._ I have committed many follies, and some sins.

_Eugenius._ Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my head about the follies; the Church has no business with them. The State is founded on follies, the Church on sins. Come then, unsack them.

_Filippo._ Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt more and more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not having (for a time) so ready means of allaying it.

_Eugenius._ No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again and again before thou strippedst off the cowl.

_Filippo._ Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I thought indeed how often it had held two heads together under it, and that stripping it off was double decapitation. But compensation and contentment came, and we were warm enough without it.

_Eugenius._ I am minded to reprove thee gravely. No wonder it pleased the Virgin, and the saints about her, to permit that the enemy of our faith should lead thee captive into Barbary.

_Filippo._ The pleasure was all on their side.

_Eugenius._ I have heard a great many stories both of males and females who were taken by Tunisians and Algerines: and although there is a sameness in certain parts of them, my especial benevolence toward thee, worthy Filippo, would induce me to lend a vacant ear to thy report. And now, good Filippo, I could sip a small gla.s.s of Muscatel or Orvieto, and turn over a few bleached almonds, or essay a smart dried apricot at intervals, and listen while thou relatest to me the manners and customs of that country, and particularly as touching thy own adversities. First, how wast thou taken?

_Filippo._ I was visiting at Pesaro my wors.h.i.+pful friend the canonico Andrea Paccone, who delighted in the guitar, played it skilfully, and was always fond of hearing it well accompanied by the voice. My own instrument I had brought with me, together with many gay Florentine songs, some of which were of such a turn and tendency, that the canonico thought they would sound better on water, and rather far from sh.o.r.e, than within the walls of the canonicate. He proposed then, one evening when there was little wind stirring, to exercise three young abbates[9] on their several parts, a little way out of hearing from the water's edge.

_Eugenius._ I disapprove of exercising young abbates in that manner.

_Filippo._ Inadvertently, O Holy Father! I have made the affair seem worse than it really was. In fact, there were only two genuine abbates; the third was Donna Lisetta, the good canonico's pretty niece, who looks so archly at your Holiness when you bend your knees before her at bedtime.

_Eugenius._ How? Where?

_Filippo._ She is the angel on the right-hand side of the Holy Family, with a tip of amethyst-coloured wing over a basket of figs and pomegranates. I painted her from memory: she was then only fifteen, and worthy to be the niece of an archbishop. Alas! she never will be: she plays and sings among the infidels, and perhaps would eat a landrail on a Friday as unreluctantly as she would a roach.

_Eugenius._ Poor soul! So this is the angel with the amethyst-coloured wing? I thought she looked wanton: we must pray for her release ...

from the bondage of sin. What followed in your excursion?

_Filippo._ Singing, playing, fresh air, and plas.h.i.+ng water, stimulated our appet.i.tes. We had brought no eatable with us but fruit and thin _marzopane_, of which the sugar and rose-water were inadequate to ward off hunger; and the sight of a fis.h.i.+ng-vessel between us and Ancona, raised our host immoderately. 'Yonder smack,' said he, 'is sailing at this moment just over the best sole-bank in the Adriatic. If she continues her course and we run toward her, we may be supplied, I trust in G.o.d, with the finest fish in Christendom. Methinks I see already the bellies of those magnificent sole bestar the deck, and emulate the glories of the orient sky.' He gave his orders with such a majestic air, that he looked rather like an admiral than a priest.

_Eugenius._ How now, rogue! Why should not the churchman look majestically and courageously? I myself have found occasion for it, and exerted it.

_Filippo._ The world knows the prowess of your Holiness.

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