The advocate had told me, during one of our halts, that he was going to Rome on ecclesiastical business.
He meant to lodge with his mother in law, whom his wife had not seen since her marriage two years before. The sister, for her part, spoke of staying in Rome, certain that a clerk at the Spirito Santo Bank would soon make her an honest offer.
Before we rolled on again, he pressed an address into my hand and made me promise to come.
I promised to devote all my spare time to them.
We were enjoying our dessert, when my beautiful lady-love, admiring my snuff-box, told her husband that she wished she had one like it.
"I will buy you one, dear."
"Then buy mine," I said; "I will let you have it for twenty ounces, and you can give me a note of hand payable to bearer in payment. I owe that amount to an Englishman, and I will give it him to redeem my debt."
He laughed and shook his head.
"Your snuff-box, my dear abbe, is worth twenty ounces, but I cannot buy it unless you agree to receive payment in cash; I should be delighted to see it in my wife's possession, and she would keep it as a remembrance of you."
His wife, thinking that I would not accept his offer, said that she had no objection to give me the note of hand.
"But," exclaimed the advocate, "can you not guess the Englishman exists only in our friend's imagination? He would never make an appearance, and we would have the snuff-box for nothing. Do not trust the abbe, my dear, he is a great cheat."
"I had no idea," answered his wife, looking at me, "that the world contained rogues of this species."
I affected a melancholy air, and said, "I only wished myself rich enough to be often guilty of such cheating."
When a man is in love very little is enough to throw him into despair, and as little to enhance his joy to the utmost.
There was one bed in the main room where we had supped and another in the little side closet, open to our room and lacking a door. The ladies chose the closet.
The advocate yawned, blessed his wife, and went to bed before me.
I wished the sisters good night. My eyes lingered on my dear mistress.
Then I undressed and slipped under the blankets with the solemn resolution not to close an eye.
The bed spoke first.
The moment my weight touched it, the frame let out a groan that might have roused the dead.
Every slat complained. Every movement answered with a protest that seemed to shout through the thin walls.
I lay perfectly still and waited for my companion to surrender to sleep.
At last his breathing deepened, then broke into the regular snore of a man who was entirely under the influence of Morpheus.
Inch by inch I tried to slide out of the bed.
The bed cried out again, louder than before.
The advocate stirred, patted the mattress to find me, his hand landed on my shoulder, and reassured, he turned over and slipped back into heavy sleep.
I ground my teeth and lay still for another half hour, counting his snores.
When I thought him safely lost to the world, I made a second attempt.
The same infernal creak split the silence.
Again his hand searched for me, found me, and again he slept on.
I had to give up in despair.
Love, however, is the most cunning of gods; in the midst of obstacles he seems to be in his own element.
But as his very existence depends upon the enjoyment of those who ardently worship him, the shrewd, all-seeing, little blind god contrives to bring success out of the most desperate case.
I had given up all hope for the night and was drifting toward sleep when the city exploded.
A volley cracked in the street. Then another.
Boots pounded on the stairs.
Women shrieked.
Someone hammered at our door as if to break it down.
The advocate jerked upright.
"What is it? What is this noise about?"
I turned on my side, pretended indifference and murmured that I begged to be allowed to sleep.
The ladies were not so philosophical. Their voices trembled in the dark. They begged for a light.
The advocate leapt from bed and rushed out to fetch a candle.
I rose at once.
I followed him to shut the door, but I slammed it rather too hard. The lock snapped with a sharp metallic click.
The door would not open again without the key.
Perfect.
I went to the closet where the sisters lay. I spoke in a tone of calm assurance, promising that the advocate would return with a light and that we would soon learn the cause of the uproar.
My voice was steady.
My hands were not idle.
I met with little resistance.
The bed creaked, swayed, and, as I leaned too heavily on my fair lady, gave way beneath us.
With a crash we were flung to the floor in a tangle of limbs and linen, the two ladies and I.
At that instant the advocate returned and knocked loudly.
The sister scrambled up. My fair Roman whispered urgent prayers that I should open the door.
I felt my way through the dark and announced that I could not.
The lock had broken. He must fetch the key.
The two ladies stood close behind me.
I extended my hand. It was sharply repulsed.
I judged that I addressed myself to the wrong quarter.
I turned. On the other side I was received with less severity.
The key rattled in the lock.
We separated. I returned to my bed.
The sisters composed themselves as best they could in the wreck of theirs.
The advocate entered with the candle. Seeing the broken frame and the two women sunk amid the ruins, he burst into laughter.
"Come and have a look," he cried to me.
I declined. Modesty held me to my pillow.
He explained between fits of mirth that a German detachment had surprised the Spanish troops. The Spaniards were fleeing. The uproar had been nothing more than a skirmish.
Within minutes the street fell silent again.
He praised my composure, returned to bed, and was soon snoring.
As for me, I was careful not to close my eyes, and as soon as I saw daylight I got up in order to perform certain ablutions and to change my shirt; it was an absolute necessity.
I came back in time for breakfast.
Donna Lucrezia had made the coffee herself, and it tasted even richer than the day before.
Across the table her sister greeted me with a fine, icy frown. It slid off me like rain off oilcloth.
My adored Lucrezia met my eyes with that bright, easy smile of hers, all warmth and secret approval.
One look from her and my whole body seemed to wake and stretch, pleased with itself and the world.
We reached Rome very early. We had already breakfasted at the Tor, and the advocate, in high spirits, showered me with pleasantries.
I matched his humour, loading him with compliments, and predicting that a son would be born to him, I compelled his wife to promise it should be so.
I did not neglect the younger sister. She still wore an offended air. I addressed to her so many pretty compliments and behaved in a friendly manner.
Under that steady attention she thawed, almost in spite of herself.
Before we reached their mother's house she was smiling again, and the catastrophe of the night had been amnestied.
At their door I kissed the advocate and his wife on the hand, saluted the sister with all proper respect, and promised that I would call on them the next day.
I was in Rome at last, with a decent trunk of clothes, a purse that did not ring empty, a few pieces of jewelry, not wanting in experience, and with excellent letters of introduction.
I was free, my own master, and just reaching the age in which a man can have faith in his own fortune, provided he is not deficient in courage, and is blessed with a face likely to attract the sympathy of those he mixes with.
I knew I was not handsome. The glass told me so plainly enough. Yet whenever I entered a room, people looked up and did not always look away at once.
Something in my face invited them to take my part before I had even spoken.
That vague favour of the eyes of others, joined to youth and health and a heart that never said "I am afraid," persuaded me that fortune and I were meant to understand one another.
I knew that Rome is the one city in which a man can begin from the lowest rung, and reach the very top of the social ladder.
That thought put steel into my spine. My self-esteem, which I mistook for solid merit, whispered that I was precisely the sort of man Rome liked to raise.
The man who intends to make his fortune in this ancient capital of the world must be a chameleon susceptible of reflecting all the colours of the atmosphere that surrounds him.
In the morning he must move like a courtier, smooth and supple. At noon he must listen like a confessor, lips sealed, eyes modest. In the evening he must talk like a man of pleasure, and at night sleep like an innocent.
He must smile at men he despises, bow before men he knows to be fools, and keep a part of his mind always behind a curtain. His face must stay calm when others blaze, his voice must remain gentle when others shout.
If his heart feels nothing for God, his forehead must still bend in every chapel, his hand must still form the sign of the cross, his lips must know all the right prayers at all the right moments.
In short, he must accept the daily labour of acting pious in order to live by a very worldly craft.
The man whose soul would loathe such a life should leave Rome and seek his fortune elsewhere.
As for me, when I examined myself with that severity which never quite cured me of my follies, I found only one of these accomplishments in my possession.
I could bend. I could adapt.
I slipped easily from tone to tone, from company to company.
For the rest, I was only what I had always been - an amiable, careless colt, spirited enough for great races, but badly broken and still very likely to throw his rider.