Little Novels of Italy/The Judgment of Borso/Chapter 4
IV
"WHY COME YE NAT TO COURTE?"
"Le donne e i cavalier, gli affanni e gli agi,
Che ne invogliava amore e cortesia."
The little house—discreet affair of eaves modest as drooped eyelids, of latticed windows, of wistaria before and a bower of willows behind—was found and furnished out of the girls' store and the Captain's credit. Donna Matura, a brown old woman, hideous, toothless, and inclined to swooning, was installed as duenna. She was, indeed, owner of the house and furniture, for which Olimpia paid and the Captain promised to pay; but that did not appear until much later. There was a great charm, not without a certain deal of luxury, in the place. Of course there was a garden—a bright green nest of flowering trees and shrubs; in the middle was a grass-plat; in that, again, a bronze fountain, which had the form of three naked boys back to back, and an inscription to the effect that it had been set up by a certain Galeotto Moro, in the days of Marquess Lionel, "in honour of Saints Peter and Paul and of the Virgin Deipara," upon some special occasion of family thanksgiving. The weeping willows—themselves fountains of green—sprayed over a stone seat. The place bore signs of an honourable past; it was falling now gently to a comely decay; but it answered every purpose. All promised well. So much Captain Mosca was given to understand; yet it was hinted that his promises were not complete. "My life and soul," cried he on his knees in the garden, "the little affair is a matter of three minutes." It proved to be a matter of more than three months and was then accomplished in another way and with other results than had been looked for. Thus it was.
When Angioletto had been assured of the nesting of his mate, he dressed himself point-device and went to Court to deliver his credentials. He found the lady upon whom so much depended, at the Schifanoia. Madama Lionella d'Este, wife of the Count Guarino Guarini, was a fresh-coloured, lusty young woman of three and twenty, not at all in love with her husband, but very much in love with love. The Captain of Lances had said truly when he shrugged her off as no beauty. Large-limbed she was, the shape of a boy, with a long mouth and small eyes, full-lipped, big in foot and hand. Yet she was a very merry soul, frank if not free in her speech and gesture, and though liable to bursts of angry temper, for the most part as innocent of malice as a tiger cub. If you remember her an Este, you will forgive her much, excuse her everything, and rather like her.
Angioletto, who found her sitting on the grass among her ladies, advanced with great ceremony and many bows. Madama did not get up; no one did; so Angioletto had to step gingerly into a ring of roguish women to deliver his letter. Lionella scampered through it, reddening with pleasure; she beckoned him with smiles to sit beside her.
"We are making rose-garlands to adorn our pretty heads," she said, laughing. "Come and sit by me, Angioletto, and sing to us. Who knows but what, if you are good, we shall not crown you with one of them?"
It was a great merit of Angioletto's that he always took things and men (especially women) as he found them. Such as they were he could be for the time. He was by no means waxen; elastic rather. Down he plumped, accordingly, cross-legged by his new mistress, and warbled a canzone to the viola which enchanted the lady.
"More, more, more!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Oh, boy, I could have you a prince for less than that! What a throstle-pipe you have!"
It was, as he afterwards found out, of her habit to be for ever at extremes; but just now, not knowing how to take her, he sang on all the better for her praise; and he had her next wriggling in an ecstasy over a trifle he made up on the spur of the moment—a snatch wherein roses and a girl's face (Bellaroba's, be sure) took turns to be dominant. At the end of this pretty piece the Countess Lionella fairly took his own face between her hands, crumpled his lips into a bud and kissed them full. Angioletto coloured, though no one else did. It was evidently quite harmless, and afterwards he was ashamed of his shame.
As it was, a diversion of a different order broke in upon the next song which, so soon as he had picked up his nerve, he adventured. One of the Maids of Honour looked quickly over her shoulder, and "Hist, Madama! The Duke!" she said, with wide eyes and a blush.
The song ceased, the whole company, Lionella included, scrambled to their feet. Duke Borso, his portly body swaying like a carriage on springs, his hands behind him, and attended by a tall young man, very splendid and very blonde, came across the grass towards them. Angioletto could not decide whether to think him rogue or prude. His puckered face twitched, his eyes twitched, his pursed-up lips worked together; it was again as if he were struggling with a laugh. He wore his tall square cap well off his forehead, and looked what he really was—a strong man tired, but not yet tired out, of kindness. The benevolence seemed inborn, seemed fighting through every seam of the pompous face. "Madonna! his generous motions work him into creases, as if he were volcanic soil," thought Angioletto. Watching him narrowly as he came, he decided that this was a master to be loved if not admired, respected but not feared. "I should get the worst of a bout with him," thought he; "but I had rather it were with him than with Apollo." That title was just, as the reflection shrewd. Teofilo Calcagnini would have made a terrible tutor to Master Phaëton.
Duke Borso bowed shortly to the standing maids, and favoured Angioletto with a keen eye before he set a hand on his daughter's shoulder. She looked a pleased welcome as he began to stroke her hair. "Ah, they love the man," thought Angioletto; "good!"
"Why, chick," said Duke Borso, "you are like a cage of singing-birds scared by the cat."
"Your Grace shall judge whether we are too scared to sing," replied his laughing daughter. "Come," she added, turning to Angioletto, "tune your viol and pipe to it again, my little poet."
The Duke made a wry mouth. "Hey, I have no ear for music, my dear," said he.
Angioletto was ready for him. "If your Magnificence will permit," he said, "I will take care not to offend his honourable ear. I will say my piece, with no more music than will serve to tie word to word. May it be so, Magnificence? Have I liberty, Madam?" He bowed, smiling, from one to the other of the great people.
He was a very courtly and charming little person, this Tuscan youth. Above all he had a ready address. So bright and strong, and yet so deferential did he look, pleading his cause among them, Lionella could have kissed him again for nothing more than his dexterity.
"Ah, you shall do whatever you like, Angioletto!" she cried.
Borso's eyes twinkled, and he primmed his lips. "I do not go so far as Madama, Master Angioletto, but I shall be pleased to hear what you are pleased to give me." He fell into an attitude of profound attention.
Angioletto, having bowed once more, began.
It so happened that Lorenzo de' Medici, that monster of genius, had not long printed his Caccia col falcone. Angioletto had it by heart against his need; using it now he could never have made a better choice—as, indeed, he guessed. It was as good as a play to watch Borso's wary eyes at the commencement of this piece, and to see them drop their fence as the declamation went on. Lorenzo begins with a pretty description of the dawn on Tuscan hilltops—
"Era già rosso tutto l'oriente,
E le cime de' monti parien d'oro," etc.
Borso, neither approving nor disapproving, kept his head disposed for more. At
"Quando fui desto da certi rumori
Di buon sonagli ed allettar di cani"
he began to blink; with the quick direction to the huntsman—
"Deh, vanne innanzi, presto Capellaio,"
he stifled a smile. But the calling of the hounds by their names broke down his guard. Angioletto shrilled them out in a high, boyish voice—
"Chiama Tamburo, Pezuolo e Martello,
La Foglia, la Castagna e la Guerrina,
Fagiano, Fagianin, Rocca e Capello,
E Friza, e Biondo, Bamboccio e Rossina,
Ghiotto, la Torta, Viola e Pestello,
E Serchio e Fuse e'l mio Buontempo vecchio,
Zambraco, Buratel, Scaccio e Pennecchio. . . ."
Every muscle of the keen old hunter was now quivering; his eyes were bright, his smile open and that of a child. To the last word of the poem—and it has length—he followed without breath the checks, the false casts, the bickering of the huntsmen, the petty incidents of a breezy morning in the marshes, nodding at every point, missing nothing, cracking his fingers, cheering under his breath, with delight undisguised and interest unalloyed. The moment it was ended he seemed prime for a burst of heedless comment; but he stopped, shut his lips with a snap, and became the inscrutable ruler of a fief of the Empire once more. But Angioletto knew that he had pleased him, for all that he walked off as he had come, without word or sign.
He had pleased every one. Homing to his nest in the Borgo, he caught his little Bellaroba in his arms with a rapture none the less because it had been earned at a stretch. It was long before he could find time and breath to lead her into the garden and have the story out. Olimpia, coming down to look for them in the dusk, found that a seat for two would easily hold one more. It should be added of Angioletto that he suppressed the incident of the Countess Lionella's salute.
At supper there were evidences that, whatever had been Angioletto's fate, all had not gone so well with the Captain of Lances. Not that appetite failed him; indeed, he ate the more for his taciturnity. Yet not repletion made him sigh, for he sighed consumedly before he began and rather less when he had finished, as though the kindlier juices of our nature had got to work to disperse the melancholic. Angioletto rallied him upon his gloom, but to no purpose. The meal was a silent one; almost the only conversation was that of the minstrel's foot with Bellaroba's under the table.
The truth was, that of conversation the Captain had had enough before supper—a very short colloquy with his Olimpia. In it he was brought to confess that he had seen his patron that morning. "Well?" had been Olimpia's commentary—a shot which raked the Captain fore and aft. Well, he desperately admitted, there was nothing actually arranged: patienza! His most noble master had been greatly harassed with affairs—the Duke's approaching visit to Rome, the precise forms which must be observed, the punctilios, the hundred niceties of etiquette; "Ah, patienza!" urged the sweating Mosca.
Patience, she saw, was the only wear; but, per Bacco, he should learn it too! She was in a high rage. The Captain was given to know that Ferrara was a great city, with more houses in it than one; in fine, he was shown the door. Supper first was an extreme and contemptuous condescension of Olimpia's, urged by the thought that a fed Mosca might be a more desperate Mosca, while a lean one would be desperate only for a meal.
A true relation of what passed in the Palazzo Guarini may serve to show how just she had been. The Count had received news of his henchman's attendance with a nod, had kept him waiting two hours in the cortile, then remembered him and bid him upstairs.
"Well, dog," said the young lord, from his dressing-table, "and why the devil are you so late to report yourself?"
"Ah, Excellence, believe me—" began to stutter the Captain.
"That is exactly what I will not do, my man. Who was that wench at your back yesterday?"
The Captain rubbed his hands. "Excellence, a wench indeed! A golden Venetian—glorious! Dove-eyed, honey-tongued, and very much your lordship's servant, I do assure you."
"You are so completely and at such length a fool, Mosca," said Count Guarini, with a yawn, "and strive so desperately to be rascal in spite of it, that I am almost sorry for you. Tie me these points, my good fellow, get me my sword, and go to the devil with your golden Venetian."
That, believe me, had been all. Therefore Captain Mosca, as he slunk out into the dark after supper in obedience to his inexorable Olimpia, felt that he must be more ingenious than he had supposed. At the same time it is only fair to say that when he had spoken so hopefully of his affair to the lady on the pillion he had believed every word of his own story. A man puts on spectacles to suit his complexion: the Captain's was sanguine.