the unfathomable profundities of artifice exhibited by the lady abbess!
Of course, the petitions that the abbess now poured on me in torrents were all directed towards the one object of getting me to hold my tongue for ever on the subject of Signor Polycarp’s assumed blindness. Of course, her defence of the miracle-exhibition going on in her church was, that she and the whole nunnery (officiating priests included) had been imposed on by the vagabond stranger who had come to them from Rome. Whether this was true or not I really cannot say. I had a faint consciousness all the time the abbess was speaking that she was making a fool of me; and yet, for the life of me, I could not help believing some of the things she said; I could not refrain from helplessly granting her all that she asked. In return for this docility on my part, she gratefully promised that Polycarp should be ignominiously turned out of the church, without receiving a single farthing of the sums collected for him; which happened to be still remaining in the convent cash-box. Thus avenged on my pickpocket model, I felt perfectly satisfied, and politely assured the abbess (who undertook to account satisfactorily to the public for the disappearance of the miracle-man) that whatever her story was, I would not contradict it. This done, the pious old lady gave me her blessing; the priest “followed on the same side,” and I left them writing down my name, to be prayed for among the convent list of personages of high rank, who were all benefited by the abbess’s interest with Heaven! Rather different this from being removed as a heretic in the custody of a soldier!
2nd—A quiet day at home, after yesterday’s excitement. The behaviour of the Marchesina begins to give me serious uneasiness. Gracious powers!—does she mean to fall in love with me? It seems awfully like it. On returning to the palace yesterday she actually embraced me! I was half suffocated by her congratulatory hug. The hug over, she playfully pinned me into a corner, till she made me tell her the whole of my adventure in the church. And, worse than all! not half an hour since, she coolly desired me to pull the foot-warming pipkin from under her robes—I was right about her having one there), to poke the embers, and then to put it back again; speaking just as composedly as if she were only asking me to help her on with her shawl! This looks very bad. What had I better do?—run away?
3rd—Another adventure! A fearful, life-and-death adventure this time. This evening somebody gave the Marchesina a box at the opera. She took me with her. Confound the woman, she will take me with her everywhere! Being a beautiful moonlight night, we walked home. As we were crossing the “Piazza” I became aware that a man was following us, and proposed to the Marchesina that we should mend our pace. “Never!” exclaimed that redoubtable woman. “None of my family have ever known what fear was a worthy daughter of the house, and I don’t know! Courage, Signor Potts, and keep step with me!”
This was all very well, but my house was the house of Potts, and every member had, at one time or other, known fear quite intimately. My position was dreadful. The resolute Marchesina kept tight hold of my arm, and positively slackened her pace rather than otherwise! The man still followed us, always at the same distance, evidently bent on robbery or assassination, or perhaps both. I would gladly have given the Marchesina five pounds to forget her family dignity and run.
On looking over my shoulder for about the five hundredth time, just as we entered the back street where the palace stood, I missed the mysterious stranger, to my infinite relief. The next moment, to my unutterable horror, I beheld him before us, evidently waiting to intercept our progress. We came up with him in the moonshine. Death and destruction! Polycarp the Second again!
“I know you!” growled the ruffian, grinding his teeth at me. “You got me turned out of the church! Body of Bacchus! I’ll be revenged on you for that!”
He thrust his hand into his waistcoat. Before I could utter even the faintest cry for help, the heroic Marchesina had caught him fast by the beard and wrist, and had pinned him helpless against the wall. “Pass on, Signor Potts!” said this lioness of a woman, quite complacently. “Pass on; there’s plenty of room now.” Just as I passed on I heard the sound of a kick behind me, and, turning round, saw Polycarp the Second prostrate in the kennel. “La, la, la-la-la-la-la—la!” sang the Marchesina from “Suoni la Tromba” (which we had just heard at the Opera), as she took my arm once more, and led me safely up the palace stairs—“La, la, la-la—la! We’ll have a salad for supper to-night, Signor Potts!” Majestic, Roman matron-minded woman! She could kick an assassin and talk of a salad both at the same moment!
4th—A very bad night’s rest: dreams of gleaming stilettos and midnight assassination. The fact is, my life is no longer safe in Florence. I can’t take the Marchesina about with me everywhere as a body-guard (she is a great deal too affectionate already); and yet, without my Amazonian protectress what potent interposition is to preserve my life from the blood-thirsty Polycarp, when he next attempts it? I begin to be afraid that I am not quite so brave a man as I have been accustomed to think myself. Why have I not the courage Marchesina and her mother warning, and so leave Florence? Oh, Lord! here comes the tall woman to sit for the Sibyl picture! She will embrace me again, I know she will! She’s got into the habit of doing it; she takes an unfair advantage of her size and strength. Why can’t she practise fair play, and embrace a man of her own weight and inches?
5th—Another mess! I shall be dead soon; killed by getting into perpetual scrapes; if I am not killed by a stiletto! I’ve been stabbing an innocent man now; and have had to pay something like three pounds of compensation-money. This was how the thing happened: Yesterday I got away from the Marchesina (she hugged me, just as I foretold she would) about dusk, and immediately went and bought a sword-stick, as a defence against Polycarp. I don’t mind confessing that I was afraid to return to the palace at night without a weapon of some sort. They never shut the court-yard door till everybody is ready to go to bed; the great staircase is perfectly dark all the way up, and affords some capital positions for assassination on every landing-place. Knowing this, I drew my new sword (a murderous-looking steel skewer, about three feet long) out of the stick, as I advanced towards home, and began or Polycarp in the darkness, the moment I mounted the first stair. Up I went, stabbing every inch of my way before me, in the most scientific and complete manner; spitting invisible assassins like larks for supper. I was just exploring the corners of the second landing-place on this peculiar defensive system of my own, when my sword-point encountered a soft substance, and my ears were instantly greeted by a yell of human agony. In the fright of the moment, I echoed the yell, and fell down flat on my back. The Marchesina rushed out on the stairs at the noise, with a lamp in her hand. I sat up and looked round in desperation. There was the miserable old porter of the palace, bleeding and blubbering in a corner, and there was my deadly skewer of a sword stuck in a piece of tough Italian beef by his side! The meat must have attracted the skewer, like a magnet; and it saved the porter’s life. He was not much hurt; the beef (stolen property with which he was escaping to his lodge, when my avenging sword-point met him) acted like a shield, and was much the worse wounded of the two. The Marchesina found this out directly; and began to upbraid the porter for thieving. The porter upbraided me for stabbing, and I, having nobody else to upbraid, upbraided Destiny for leading me into a fresh scrape. The uproar we made was something quite indescribable; we three outscreamed all Billingsgate-market in the olden time. At last I calmed the storm by giving the porter every farthing I had about me, and asking the Marchesina to accept the sword part of my sword stick as a new spit to adorn the kitchen department of the palace. She called me “an angel;” and hugged me furiously on the spot. If this hugging is not stopped by to-morrow I shall put myself under the protection of the British ambassador—I will, or my name isn’t Potts!
6th—No protection is henceforth available! No British ambassador can now defend my rights! No threats of assassination from Polycarp the Second can terrify me more!—All my other calamities are now merged in one enormous misfortune that will last for the rest of my life: the Marchesina has declared her intention of marrying me!
It was done at supper last night, after I had pinked the porter. We sat round the inevitable, invariable salad, on which we were condemned to graze—the Nebuchadnezzars of modern life—in this accursed gazebo of a palace.
