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The man's name was Masuccio, his wife's Gioconda; between them they had a brood of nine children a grown daughter of fourteen, three stout lads, four brats, and a child not breeched; and in addition to all these, and to Belviso and myself, to a sow in farrow, four goats, and hens innumerable, the good man's father was posed as veritable master of the whole an old man afflicted with palsy, who did nothing but shake and suck at his pipe, but who, nevertheless, had, by virtue of his years and situation, the only semblance of a bed, the first of everything, and the best and the most of that.
Belviso presented me to the principals to a pleasant, plump old gentleman, who looked like the canon of a cathedral foundation, and was, in fact, the famous Arlecchino 'Gritti; to the prima donna, a black-browed lady, who, because she came from Sicily, was called La Panormita, her own name being Brigida, and her husband's Minghelli; to the cheerfulest drunkard I ever met, who played the lovers' parts, and was that same Minghelli; to the sustainers of Pantaleone, Scaramuccia, Matamorte, Don Basilio, Brighella and the rest of them a crew all told of some twenty hands, all males with the exception of La Panormita.
I have fouled it with the vile thing I was once. In return it has made a new creature of me, thanks to God and you." "Bravo," said I, "and now, Avanti!" "Pronti," says Belviso, and we struck east along a fine grassy valley where the trees were in the full glory of early summer.
Oh, horrible! I stopped and cocked my pistol. "Ah, false wife once," I said terribly, "and now false mistress! Traitress, with this traitor whom I believed my friend " Belviso here gave a cry and held up his hand. He was looking, not at me, but behind me to the slope down which I had come. "Master, beware, beware," he called out in his ringing young voice. "Palamone is behind you.
A friendship was sealed between us which no difference of race, degree or age could ever break in upon; we loved each other tenderly, we were as brothers. Belviso was at one and the same time the most affectionate, the shrewdest, and the most candid boy that ever was conceived in sin and nurtured in vice. No shameful dealing had left a mark upon him, he was fine gold throughout.
So, after a time, I think I did and he also. At some later hour of the night, which must have been near the edge of dawn, Belviso woke me by springing off his bed and going to the door. Presently I heard voices downstairs, stern, short, official voices, and the hasty whispers of two or three answering at once. What was this?
If I am no better than I should be, I suppose I am not worse than I could be. And I cannot allow you to praise me for that." "You are of the race of the Samaritans," said I, "whether you hail from Venice or Tuscany. I am an Englishman, my name is Francis. How are you called?" He said, "I believe my name is Daniele; but they call me here, in the company, Belviso."
"I choose nothing but your confidence, and a kiss of your noble hand," said Belviso. "You shall grasp, not kiss, my hand," I told him. "You are a man, or will be one, as I am. Let us love, trust, meet, part, as men." I held out my hand, he took it, pressed it, seemed unable to let it go.
Get up, Belviso, let us take counsel together. What is your opinion?" Belviso, thus adjured, rose to his feet and stood humbly before me. He was agitated if by fear, then curiously; but it did not seem to be fear which put the slurred accents into his voice. "Senta, Don Francesco," he began, "what Virginia has done was all for love.
I cannot say that I was discontented; indeed, I have always found that the harder my labour is and the straiter my lot, the less room I have for discontent. With this peasant, his family, his pigs, hens and goats, Belviso and I lived, in a hovel which, had it not been roofed over, might have been a cote or a pigsty.
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