Romola Page 2

  CHAPTER ONE.

  THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER.

  The Loggia de' Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, within alabyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by thestranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely simpledoorplace, bearing this inscription:

  Qui Nacque Il Divino Poeta.

  To the ear of Dante, the same streets rang with the shout and clash offierce battle between rival families; but in the fifteenth century, theywere only noisy with the unhistorical quarrels and broad jests ofwoolcarders in the cloth-producing quarters of San Martino and Garbo.

  Under this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of April 1492, twomen had their eyes fixed on each other: one was stooping slightly, andlooking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on thepavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of asuddenly-awakened dreamer.

  The standing figure was the first to speak. He was a grey-haired,broad-shouldered man, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is mouldedwith the fist and polished with the pickaxe; but the self-importantgravity which had written itself out in the deep lines about his browand mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences fromthe hasty workmanship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He haddeposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, andbefore him hung a pedlar's basket, garnished partly with smallwoman's-ware, such as thread and pins, and partly with fragments ofglass, which had probably been taken in exchange for those commodities.

  "Young man," he said, pointing to a ring on the finger of the recliningfigure, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it, you'll know betterthan to take your nap in street-corners with a ring like that on yourforefinger. By the holy 'vangels! if it had been anybody but mestanding over you two minutes ago--but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the manto steal. The cat couldn't eat her mouse if she didn't catch it alive,and Bratti couldn't relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. Why,young man, one San Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead bodyin my way--a blind beggar, with his cap well-lined with pieces--but, ifyou'll believe me, my stomach turned against the money I'd neverbargained for, till it came into my head that San Giovanni owed me thepieces for what I spend yearly at the Festa; besides, I buried the bodyand paid for a mass--and so I saw it was a fair bargain. But how comesa young man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to besleeping on a stone bed with the wind for a curtain?"

  The deep guttural sounds of the speaker were scarcely intelligible tothe newly-waked, bewildered listener, but he understood the action ofpointing to his ring: he looked down at it, and, with a half-automaticobedience to the warning, took it off and thrust it within his doublet,rising at the same time and stretching himself.

  "Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man," said Bratti,deliberately. "Anybody might say the saints had sent _you_ a dead body;but if you took the jewels, I hope you buried him--and you can afford amass or two for him into the bargain."

  Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame ofthe listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms and chest.For an instant he turned on Bratti with a sharp frown; but heimmediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levantinecap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, pushed back hislong dark-brown curls, and glancing at his dress, said, smilingly--

  "You speak truth, friend: my garments are as weather-stained as an oldsail, and they are not old either, only, like an old sail, they have hada sprinkling of the sea as well as the rain. The fact is, I'm astranger in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night I preferredflinging myself in a corner of this hospitable porch to hunting anylonger for a chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a nest ofblood-suckers of more sorts than one."

  "A stranger, in good sooth," said Bratti, "for the words come allmelting out of your throat, so that a Christian and a Florentine can'ttell a hook from a hanger. But you're not from Genoa? More likely fromVenice, by the cut of your clothes?"

  "At this present moment," said the stranger, smiling, "it is of lessimportance where I come from than where I can go to for a mouthful ofbreakfast. This city of yours turns a grim look on me just here: canyou show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal anda lodging?"

  "That I can," said Bratti, "and it is your good fortune, young man, thatI have happened to be walking in from Rovezzano this morning, and turnedout of my way to Mercato Vecchio to say an Ave at the Badia. That, Isay, is your good fortune. But it remains to be seen what is my profitin the matter. Nothing for nothing, young man. If I show you the wayto Mercato Vecchio, you'll swear by your patron saint to let me have thebidding for that stained suit of yours, when you set up a better--asdoubtless you will."

  "Agreed, by San Niccolo," said the other, laughing. "But now let us setoff to this said Mercato, for I feel the want of a better lining to thisdoublet of mine which you are coveting."

  "Coveting? Nay," said Bratti, heaving his bag on his back and settingout. But he broke off in his reply, and burst out in loud, harsh tones,not unlike the creaking and grating of a cart-wheel: "_Chiabbaratta_--_baratta_--_b'ratta_--_chi abbaratta cenci evetri_--_b'ratta ferri vecchi_?" ["Who wants to exchange rags, brokenglass, or old iron?"]

  "It's worth but little," he said presently, relapsing into hisconversational tone. "Hose and altogether, your clothes are worth butlittle. Still, if you've a mind to set yourself up with a lute worthmore than any new one, or with a sword that's been worn by a Ridolfi, orwith a paternoster of the best mode, I could let you have a greatbargain, by making an allowance for the clothes; for, simple as I standhere, I've got the best-furnished shop in the Ferravecchi, and it'sclose by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised! it's not a pumpkin I carryon my shoulders. But I don't stay caged in my shop all day: I've got awife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. _Chiabbaratta_--_baratta_--_b'ratta_? ... And now, young man, where do youcome from, and what's your business in Florence?"

  "I thought you liked nothing that came to you without a bargain," saidthe stranger. "You've offered me nothing yet in exchange for thatinformation."

  "Well, well; a Florentine doesn't mind bidding a fair price for news: itstays the stomach a little though he may win no hose by it. If I takeyou to the prettiest damsel in the Mercato to get a cup of milk--thatwill be a fair bargain."

  "Nay; I can find her myself, if she be really in the Mercato; for prettyheads are apt to look forth of doors and windows. No, no. Besides, asharp trader, like you, ought to know that he who bids for nuts andnews, may chance to find them hollow."

  "Ah! young man," said Bratti, with a sideway glance of some admiration,"you were not born of a Sunday--the salt-shops were open when you cameinto the world. You're not a Hebrew, eh?--come from Spain or Naples,eh? Let me tell you the Frati Minori are trying to make Florence as hotas Spain for those dogs of hell that want to get all the profit of usuryto themselves and leave none for Christians; and when you walk theCalimara with a piece of yellow cloth in your cap, it will spoil yourbeauty more than a sword-cut across that smooth olive cheek ofyours.--_Abbaratta, baratta_--_chi abbaratta_?--I tell you, young man,grey cloth is against yellow cloth; and there's as much grey cloth inFlorence as would make a gown and cowl for the Duomo, and there's not somuch yellow cloth as would make hose for Saint Christopher--blessed behis name, and send me a sight of him this day!--_Abbaratta, baratta,b'ratta_--_chi abbaratta_?"

  "All that is very amusing information you are parting with for nothing,"said the stranger, rather scornfully; "but it happens not to concern me.I am no Hebrew."

  "See, now!" said Bratti, triumphantly; "I've made a good bargain withmere words. I've made you tell me something, young man, though you'reas hard to hold as a lamprey. San Giovanni be praised! a blindFlorentine is a match for two one-eyed men. But here we are in theMercato."

  They had now emerged from the narrow streets into a broad piazza, knownto the elder Florentine writers as the Me
rcato Vecchio, or the OldMarket. This piazza, though it had been the scene of a provision-marketfrom time immemorial, and may, perhaps, says fond imagination, be thevery spot to which the Fesulean ancestors of the Florentines descendedfrom their high fastness to traffic with the rustic population of thevalley, had not been shunned as a place of residence by Florentinewealth. In the early decades of the fifteenth century, which was nownear its end, the Medici and other powerful families of the _popolanigrassi_, or commercial nobility, had their houses there, not perhapsfinding their ears much offended by the loud roar of mingled dialects,or their eyes much shocked by the butchers' stalls, which the old poetAntonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or _dignita_, of a market that, inhis esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth beside. But the gloryof mutton and veal (well attested to be the flesh of the right animals;for were not the skins, with the heads attached, duly displayed,according to the decree of the Signoria?) was just now wanting to theMercato, the time of Lent not being yet over. The proud corporation, or"Art," of butchers was in abeyance, and it was the great harvest-time ofthe market-gardeners, the cheesemongers, the vendors of macaroni, corn,eggs, milk, and dried fruits: a change which was apt to make the women'svoices predominant in the chorus. But in all seasons there was theexperimental ringing of pots and pans, the chinking of themoney-changers, the tempting offers of cheapness at the old-clothesstalls, the challenges of the dicers, the vaunting of new linens andwoollens, of excellent wooden-ware, kettles, and frying-pans; there wasthe choking of the narrow inlets with mules and carts, together withmuch uncomplimentary remonstrance in terms remarkably identical with theinsults in use by the gentler sex of the present day, under the sameimbrowning and heating circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen, who came tomarket, looked on at a larger amount of amateur fighting than couldeasily be seen in these later times, and beheld more revolting rags,beggary, and rascaldom, than modern householders could well picture tothemselves. As the day wore on, the hideous drama of the gaming-housemight be seen here by any chance open-air spectator--the quiveringeagerness, the blank despair, the sobs, the blasphemy, and the blows:--

  "E vedesi chi perde con gran soffi, E bestemmiar colla mano alia mascella, E ricever e dar di molti ingoffi."

  But still there was the relief of prettier sights: there werebrood-rabbits, not less innocent and astonished than those of our ownperiod; there were doves and singing-birds to be bought as presents forthe children; there were even kittens for sale, and here and there ahandsome _gattuccio_, or "Tom," with the highest character for mousing;and, better than all, there were young, softly-rounded cheeks and brighteyes, freshened by the start from the far-off castello [walled village]at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with the unfading charm ofhonest goodwill in them, such as are never quite wanting in scenes ofhuman industry. And high on a pillar in the centre of the place--avenerable pillar, fetched from the church of San Giovanni--stoodDonatello's stone statue of Plenty, with a fountain near it, where, saysold Pucci, the good wives of the market freshened their utensils, andtheir throats also; not because they were unable to buy wine, butbecause they wished to save the money for their husbands.

  But on this particular morning a sudden change seemed to have come overthe face of the market. The _deschi_, or stalls, were indeed partlydressed with their various commodities, and already there werepurchasers assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshestvegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and hiscompanion entered the piazza, it appeared that some common preoccupationhad for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellersfrom their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backson their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who wereconcentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor ofold-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, haddistractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join thenearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in onehand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of hisemphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of _marzolino_; and elderlymarket-women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously oblique position,contributed a wailing fugue of invocation.

  In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who were never wantingin any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous sort--as whoshould say, very sour crabs indeed--saw a great opportunity. Some madea rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the farinaceousdelicacies at the cooked provision stalls--delicacies to which certainfour-footed dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to Lenten fare,applied a discriminating nostril, and then disappeared with muchrapidity under the nearest shelter; while the mules, not without somekicking and plunging among impeding baskets, were stretching theirmuzzles towards the aromatic green-meat.

  "Diavolo!" said Bratti, as he and his companion came, quite unnoticed,upon the noisy scene; "the Mercato is gone as mad as if the most HolyFather had excommunicated us again. I must know what this is. Butnever fear: it seems a thousand years to you till you see the prettyTessa, and get your cup of milk; but keep hold of me, and I'll hold tomy bargain. Remember, I'm to have the first bid for your suit,specially for the hose, which, with all their stains, are the best_panno di garbo_--as good as ruined, though, with mud and weatherstains."

  "Ola, Monna Trecca," Bratti proceeded, turning towards an old woman onthe outside of the nearest group, who for the moment had suspended herwail to listen, and shouting close in her ear: "Here are the mulesupsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end,then?"

  "Monna Trecca" (equivalent to "Dame Greengrocer") turned round at thisunexpected trumpeting in her right ear, with a half-fierce,half-bewildered look, first at the speaker, then at her disarrangedcommodities, and then at the speaker again.

  "A bad Easter and a bad year to you, and may you die by the sword!" sheburst out, rushing towards her stall, but directing this first volley ofher wrath against Bratti, who, without heeding the malediction, quietlyslipped into her place, within hearing of the narrative which had beenabsorbing her attention; making a sign at the same time to the youngerstranger to keep near him.

  "I tell you I saw it myself," said a fat man, with a bunch ofnewly-purchased leeks in his hand. "I was in Santa Maria Novella, andsaw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and criedout and said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on thechurch to crush it. I saw it myself."

  "Saw what, Goro?" said a man of slim figure, whose eye twinkled ratherroguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a skull-cap lodged carelessly overhis left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate linen aprontucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. "Saw the bull, oronly the woman?"

  "Why, the woman, to be sure; but it's all one, _mi pare_: it doesn'talter the meaning--_va_!" answered the fat man, with some contempt.

  "Meaning? no, no; that's clear enough," said several voices at once, andthen followed a confusion of tongues, in which "Lights shooting over SanLorenzo for three nights together"--"Thunder in the clearstarlight"--"Lantern of the Duomo struck with the sword of SaintMichael"--"_Palle_" [Arms of the Medici]--"All smashed"--"Lions tearingeach other to pieces"--"Ah! and they might well"--"_Boto [Note 1] cadutoin Santissima Nunziata_!"--"Died like the best of Christians"--"God willhave pardoned him"--were often-repeated phrases, which shot across eachother like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feeling rather thenecessity of utterance than of finding a listener. Perhaps the onlysilent members of the group were Bratti, who, as a new-comer, was busyin mentally piecing together the flying fragments of information; theman of the razor; and a thin-lipped, eager-looking personage inspectacles, wearing a pen-and-ink case at his belt.

  "_Ebbene_, Nello," said Bratti, skirting the group till he was withinhearing of the barber. "It appears the Magnifico is dead--rest hissoul!--and the price of wax will rise?"

  "Even as you say," answered Nello; and then added, with an air of extragravity, but with marvellous rapidity, "and his waxen
image in theNunziata fell at the same moment, they say; or at some other time,whenever it pleases the Frati Serviti, who know best. And several cowsand women have had still-born calves this Quaresima; and for the badeggs that have been broken since the Carnival, nobody has counted them.Ah! a great man--a great politician--a greater poet than Dante. And yetthe cupola didn't fall, only the lantern. _Che miracolo_!"

  A sharp and lengthened "Pst!" was suddenly heard darting across thepelting storm of gutturals. It came from the pale man in spectacles,and had the effect he intended; for the noise ceased, and all eyes inthe group were fixed on him with a look of expectation.

  "'Tis well said you Florentines are blind," he began, in an incisivehigh voice. "It appears to me, you need nothing but a diet of hay tomake cattle of you. What! do you think the death of Lorenzo is thescourge God has prepared for Florence? Go! you are sparrows chatteringpraise over the dead hawk. What! a man who was trying to slip a nooseover every neck in the Republic that he might tighten it at hispleasure! You like that; you like to have the election of yourmagistrates turned into closet-work, and no man to use the rights of acitizen unless he is a Medicean. That is what is meant by qualificationnow: _netto di specchio_ [Note 2] no longer means that a man pays hisdues to the Republic: it means that he'll wink at robbery of thepeople's money--at robbery of their daughters' dowries; that he'll playthe chamberer and the philosopher by turns--listen to bawdy songs at theCarnival and cry `Bellissimi!'--and listen to sacred lauds and cry again`Bellissimi!' But this is what you love: you grumble and raise a riotover your _quattrini bianchi_" (white farthings); "but you take nonotice when the public treasury has got a hole in the bottom for thegold to run into Lorenzo's drains. You like to pay for footmen to walkbefore and behind one of your citizens, that he may be affable andcondescending to you. `See, what a tall Pisan we keep,' say you, `tomarch before him with the drawn sword flashing in our eyes!--and yetLorenzo smiles at us. What goodness!' And you think the death of aman, who would soon have saddled and bridled you as the Sforza hassaddled and bridled Milan--you think his death is the scourge God iswarning you of by portents. I tell you there is another sort of scourgein the air."

  "Nay, nay, Ser Cioni, keep astride your politics, and never mount yourprophecy; politics is the better horse," said Nello. "But if you talkof portents, what portent can be greater than a pious notary? Balaam'sass was nothing to it."

  "Ay, but a notary out of work, with his inkbottle dry," said anotherbystander, very much out at elbows. "Better don a cowl at once, SerCioni: everybody will believe in your fasting."

  The notary turned and left the group with a look of indignant contempt,disclosing, as he did so, the sallow but mild face of a short man whohad been standing behind him, and whose bent shoulders told of somesedentary occupation.

  "By San Giovanni, though," said the fat purchaser of leeks, with the airof a person rather shaken in his theories, "I am not sure there isn'tsome truth in what Ser Cioni says. For I know I have good reason tofind fault with the _quattrini bianchi_ myself. Grumble, did he say?Suffocation! I should think we do grumble; and, let anybody say theword, I'll turn out into the piazza with the readiest, sooner than haveour money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so manynecromancers. And it's true Lorenzo might have hindered such work if hewould--and for the bull with the flaming horns, why, as Ser Cioni says,there may be many meanings to it, for the matter of that; it may havemore to do with the taxes than we think. For when God above sends asign, it's not to be supposed he'd have only one meaning."

  "Spoken like an oracle, Goro!" said the barber. "Why, when we poormortals can pack two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mereblasphemy not to believe that your miraculous bull means everything thatany man in Florence likes it to mean."

  "Thou art pleased to scoff, Nello," said the sallow, round-shoulderedman, no longer eclipsed by the notary, "but it is not the less true thatevery revelation, whether by visions, dreams, portents, or the writtenword, has many meanings, which it is given to the illuminated only tounfold."

  "Assuredly," answered Nello. "Haven't I been to hear the Frate in SanLorenzo? But then, I've been to hear Fra Menico in the Duomo too; andaccording to him, your Fra Girolamo, with his visions andinterpretations, is running after the wind of Mongibello, and those whofollow him are like to have the fate of certain swine that ran headlonginto the sea--or some hotter place. With San Domenico roaring _e vero_in one ear, and San Francisco screaming _e falso_ in the other, what isa poor barber to do--unless he were illuminated? But it's plain ourGoro here is beginning to be illuminated for he already sees that thebull with the flaming horns means first himself, and secondly all theother aggrieved taxpayers of Florence, who are determined to gore themagistracy on the first opportunity."

  "Goro is a fool!" said a bass voice, with a note that dropped like thesound of a great bell in the midst of much tinkling. "Let him carryhome his leeks and shake his flanks over his wool-beating. He'll mendmatters more that way than by showing his tun-shaped body in the piazza,as if everybody might measure his grievances by the size of his paunch.The burdens that harm him most are his heavy carcass and his idleness."

  The speaker had joined the group only in time to hear the conclusion ofNello's speech, but he was one of those figures for whom all the worldinstinctively makes way, as it would for a battering-ram. He was notmuch above the middle height, but the impression of enormous force whichwas conveyed by his capacious chest and brawny arms bared to theshoulder, was deepened by the keen sense and quiet resolution expressedin his glance and in every furrow of his cheek and brow. He had oftenbeen an unconscious model to Domenico Ghirlandajo, when that greatpainter was making the walls of the churches reflect the life ofFlorence, and translating pale aerial traditions into the deep colourand strong lines of the faces he knew. The naturally dark tint of hisskin was additionally bronzed by the same powdery deposit that gave apolished black surface to his leathern apron: a deposit which habit hadprobably made a necessary condition of perfect ease, for it was notwashed off with punctilious regularity.

  Goro turned his fat cheek and glassy eye on the frank speaker with alook of deprecation rather than of resentment.

  "Why, Niccolo," he said, in an injured tone, "I've heard you sing toanother tune than that, often enough, when you've been laying down thelaw at San Gallo on a festa. I've heard you say yourself, that a manwasn't a mill-wheel, to be on the grind, grind, as long as he wasdriven, and then stick in his place without stirring when the water waslow. And you're as fond of your vote as any man in Florence--ay, andI've heard you say, if Lorenzo--"

  "Yes, yes," said Niccolo. "Don't you be bringing up my speeches againafter you've swallowed them, and handing them about as if they were nonethe worse. I vote and I speak when there's any use in it: if there'shot metal on the anvil, I lose no time before I strike; but I don'tspend good hours in tinkling on cold iron, or in standing on thepavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout upward, like a pig under anoak-tree. And as for Lorenzo--dead and gone before his time--he was aman who had an eye for curious iron-work; and if anybody says he wantedto make himself a tyrant, I say, `_Sia_; I'll not deny which way thewind blows when every man can see the weathercock.' But that only meansthat Lorenzo was a crested hawk, and there are plenty of hawks withoutcrests whose claws and beaks are as good for tearing. Though if therewas any chance of a real reform, so that Marzocco [the stone Lion,emblem of the Republic] might shake his mane and roar again, instead ofdipping his head to lick the feet of anybody that will mount and ridehim, I'd strike a good blow for it."

  "And that reform is not far off, Niccolo," said the sallow, mild-facedman, seizing his opportunity like a missionary among the toolight-minded heathens; "for a time of tribulation is coming, and thescourge is at hand. And when the Church is purged of cardinals andprelates who traffic in her inheritance that their hands may be full topay the price of blood and to satisfy their own lusts, the State will bepurged too--and Florence will be purged o
f men who love to see avariceand lechery under the red hat and the mitre because it gives them thescreen of a more hellish vice than their own."

  "Ay, as Goro's broad body would be a screen for my narrow person in caseof missiles," said Nello; "but if that excellent screen happened tofall, I were stifled under it, surely enough. That is no bad image ofthine, Nanni--or, rather, of the Frate's; for I fancy there is no roomin the small cup of thy understanding for any other liquor than what hepours into it."

  "And it were well for thee, Nello," replied Nanni, "if thou couldstempty thyself of thy scoffs and thy jests, and take in that liquor too.The warning is ringing in the ears of all men: and it's no new story;for the Abbot Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred yearsago, and now Fra Girolamo has got the message afresh. He has seen it ina vision, even as the prophets of old: he has seen the sword hangingfrom the sky."

  "Ay, and thou wilt see it thyself, Nanni, if thou wilt stare upward longenough," said Niccolo; "for that pitiable tailor's work of thine makesthy noddle so overhang thy legs, that thy eyeballs can see nought abovethe stitching-board but the roof of thy own skull."

  The honest tailor bore the jest without bitterness, bent on convincinghis hearers of his doctrine rather than of his dignity. But Niccologave him no opportunity for replying; for he turned away to the pursuitof his market business, probably considering further dialogue as atinkling on cold iron.

  "_Ebbene_" said the man with the hose round his neck, who had latelymigrated from another knot of talkers, "they are safest who crossthemselves and jest at nobody. Do you know that the Magnifico sent forthe Frate at the last, and couldn't die without his blessing?"

  "Was it so--in truth?" said several voices. "Yes, yes--God will havepardoned him."

  "He died like the best of Christians."

  "Never took his eyes from the holy crucifix."

  "And the Frate will have given him his blessing?"

  "Well, I know no more," said he of the hosen, "only Guccio there met afootman going back to Careggi, and he told him the Frate had been sentfor yesternight, after the Magnifico had confessed and had the holysacraments."

  "It's likely enough the Frate will tell the people something about it inhis sermon this morning; is it not true, Nanni?" said Goro. "What doyou think?"

  But Nanni had already turned his back on Goro, and the group was rapidlythinning; some being stirred by the impulse to go and hear "new things"from the Frate ("new things" were the nectar of Florentines); others bythe sense that it was time to attend to their private business. In thisgeneral movement, Bratti got close to the barber, and said--

  "Nello, you've a ready tongue of your own, and are used to wormingsecrets out of people when you've once got them well lathered. I pickedup a stranger this morning as I was coming in from Rovezzano, and I canspell him out no better than I can the letters on that scarf I boughtfrom the French cavalier. It isn't my wits are at fault,--I want no manto help me tell peas from paternosters,--but when you come to foreignfashions, a fool may happen to know more than a wise man."

  "Ay, thou hast the wisdom of Midas, who could turn rags and rusty nailsinto gold, even as thou dost," said Nello, "and he had also something ofthe ass about him. But where is thy bird of strange plumage?"

  Bratti was looking round, with an air of disappointment.

  "Diavolo!" he said, with some vexation. "The bird's flown. It's truehe was hungry, and I forgot him. But we shall find him in the Mercato,within scent of bread and savours, I'll answer for him."

  "Let us make the round of the Mercato, then," said Nello.

  "It isn't his feathers that puzzle me," continued Bratti, as they pushedtheir way together. "There isn't much in the way of cut and cloth onthis side the Holy Sepulchre that can puzzle a Florentine."

  "Or frighten him either," said Nello, "after he has seen an Englander ora German."

  "No, no," said Bratti, cordially; "one may never lose sight of theCupola and yet know the world, I hope. Besides, this stranger's clothesare good Italian merchandise, and the hose he wears were dyed inOgnissanti before ever they were dyed with salt water, as he says. Butthe riddle about him is--"

  Here Bratti's explanation was interrupted by some jostling as theyreached one of the entrances of the piazza, and before he could resumeit they had caught sight of the enigmatical object they were in searchof.

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  Note 1. A votive image of Lorenzo, in wax, hung up in the Church of theAnnunziata, supposed to have fallen at the time of his death. _Boto_ ispopular Tuscan for _Voto_.

  Note 2. The phrase used to express the absence of disqualification--i.e., the not being entered as a debtor in the public book--_specchio_.