CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
EPILOGUE
The first edition’s title page
INTRODUCTION
THESE are the memoirs of the Beato Giuliano, brother of the Order of St Francis of Assisi, known in his worldly life as Filippo Brandolini; of which family I, Giulo Brandolini, am the last descendant. On the death of Fra Giuliano the manuscript was given to his nephew Leonello, on whom the estates devolved; and has since been handed down from father to son, as the relic of a member of the family whose piety and good works still shed lustre on the name of Brandolini.
It is perhaps necessary to explain how the resolution to give these memoirs to the world has eventually been arrived at. For my part, I should have allowed them to remain among the other papers of the family; but my wife wished otherwise. When she deserted her home in the New World to become the Countess Brandolini, she was very naturally interested at finding among my ancestors a man who had distinguished himself in good works, so as to be granted by the Pope the title of Beatus, which was acquired for him by the influence of his great-nephew not very long after his death; and, indeed, had our house retained the prosperity which it enjoyed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, he would undoubtedly have been canonised, for it was a well certified fact that the necessary miracles had been performed by his remains and that prayers had been regularly offered at his tomb, but our estates had dwindled, so that we could not afford the necessary expenditure; and now, when my wife has restored its ancient magnificence to our house, times, alas! have changed. The good old customs of our fathers have fallen into disuse, and it is impossible to create a saint for ready money. However, my wife desired to publish an account of her pious ancestor. But a difficulty arose in the fact that there were no materials whatever for any relation of the life which Fra Giuliano led when he had entered the Franciscan monastery of Campomassa, and it was obvious that, even if there had been good works, prayer and fasting could not have afforded a very interesting story; and so we have been constrained to leave untold his pieties and recount instead his sins, for which there was every facility in the memoirs he had himself left behind him.
Not content with writing the story of his own life, Fra Giuliano begins with a mythical Consul of the Roman Republic, who is supposed to have founded the family by a somewhat discreditable union with somebody else’s wife. He then carries the story through countless ages till he arrives at his own conception, and the prodigies attending his birth, which he describes with great minuteness. He gives very amply the history of his childhood and boyhood, the period he spent as page at the Court of the Bentivogli of Bologna, and his adventures in the Neapolitan armies under the Duke of Calabria; but the whole story is narrated at such length, with so many digressions and details, and is sometimes so vague, incoherent and disjointed that, with whatever editing, it was considered impossible to make a clear and continuous narrative.
Fra Giuliano himself divided his life into two parts: the one he named the Time of Honey, being the period of expectation; the other the Time of Gall, being that of realisation. The second half commences with his arrival at the town of Forli, in the year 1488, and it is this part which we have decided to publish; for, notwithstanding its brevity, this was the most eventful period of his life, and the account of it seems to hang together in a sufficiently lucid fashion, centring round the conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Girolamo Riario, and finishing with the author’s admission to the Order of St Francis. This, then, I have given exactly as he wrote it, neither adding nor suppressing a word. I do not deny that it would have pleased me a little to falsify the history, for the Anglo-Saxons are a race of idealists, as is shown in all their dealing, international and commercial; and truth they have always found a little ugly. I have a friend who lately wrote a story of the London poor, and his critics were properly disgusted because his characters dropped their aitches and often used bad language, and did not behave as elegantly as might be expected from the example they were continually receiving from their betters; while some of his readers were shocked to find that people existed in this world who did not possess the delicacy and refinement which they felt palpitating in their own bosoms. The author forgot that Truth is a naked lady, and that nudity is always shameful, unless it points a moral. If Truth has taken up her abode at the bottom of a well, it is clearly because she is conscious that she is no fit companion for decent people.
I am painfully aware that the persons of this drama were not actuated by the moral sentiments, which they might have acquired by education at a really good English public school, but one may find excuse for them in the recollection that their deeds took place four hundred years ago, and that they were not wretched paupers, but persons of the very highest rank. If they sinned, they sinned elegantly, and much may be forgiven to people whose pedigree is above suspicion. And the writer, as if unwilling to wound the susceptibilities of his readers, has taken care to hurl contempt at the only character whose family was distinctly not respectable.
Before making my bow, and leaving the reader with Filippo Brandolini, I will describe his appearance, shown in a portrait painted in the same year, 1488, and till the beginning of this century in the possession of my family, when it was sold, with many other works of art, to travellers in Italy. My wife has succeeded in buying back the portraits of several of my ancestors, but this particular one is in the collection of an English nobleman, who has refused to part with it, though kindly allowing a copy to be made, which now hangs in the place formerly occupied by the original.
It represents a middle-sized man, slim and graceful, with a small black beard and moustache; an oval face, olive coloured, and from his fine dark eyes he is looking straight out into the world with an expression of complete happiness. It was painted soon after his marriage. He is dressed in the costume of the period, and holds a roll of parchment in his hand. At the top right hand corner are the date and the arms of the family; or a griffin rampant. Gules. Crest: a demiswan issuing from a coronet. The motto: Felicitas.
I
‘ALLOW me to present to you my friend Filippo Brandolini, a gentleman of Città di Castello.’
Then, turning to me, Matteo added, ‘This is my cousin, Checco d’Orsi.’
Checco d’Orsi smiled and bowed.
‘Messer Brandolini,’ he said, ‘I am most pleased to make your acquaintance; you are more than welcome to my house.’
‘You are very kind,’ I replied; ‘Matteo has told me much of your hospitality.’
Checco bowed courteously, and asked his cousin, ‘You have just arrived, Matteo?’
‘We arrived early this morning. I wished to come here directly, but Filippo, who suffers from a very insufferable vanity, insisted on going to an inn and spending a couple of hours in the adornment of his person.’
‘How did you employ those hours, Matteo?’ asked Checco, looking rather questioningly at his cousin’s dress and smiling.
Matteo looked at his boots and his coat.
‘I am not elegant! But I felt too sentimental to attend to my personal appearance, and I had to restore myself with wine. You know
, we are very proud of our native Forli wine, Filippo.’
‘I did not think you were in the habit of being sentimental, Matteo,’ remarked Checco.
‘It was quite terrifying this morning, when we arrived,’ said I; ‘he struck attitudes and called it his beloved country, and wanted to linger in the cold morning and tell me anecdotes about his childhood.’
‘You professional sentimentalists will never let anyone sentimentalise but yourselves.’
‘I was hungry,’ said I, laughing, ‘and it didn’t become you. Even your horse had his doubts.’
‘Brute!’ said Matteo. ‘Of course, I was too excited to attend to my horse, and he slipped over those confounded stones and nearly shot me off — and Filippo, instead of sympathising, burst out laughing.’
‘Evidently you must abandon sentiment,’ said Checco.
‘I’m afraid you are right. Now, Filippo can be romantic for hours at a stretch, and, what is worse, he is — but nothing happens to him. But on coming back to my native town after four years, I think it was pardonable.’
‘We accept your apology, Matteo,’ I said.
‘But the fact is, Checco, that I am glad to get back. The sight of the old streets, the Palazzo, all fill me with a curious sensation of joy — and I feel — I don’t know how I feel.’
‘Make the utmost of your pleasure while you can; you may not always find a welcome in Forli,’ said Checco, gravely.
‘What the devil do you mean?’ asked Matteo.
‘Oh, we’ll talk of these things later. You had better go and see my father now, and then you can rest yourselves. You must be tired after your journey. To-night we have here a great gathering, where you will meet your old friends. The Count has deigned to accept my invitation.’
‘Deigned?’ said Matteo, lifting his eyebrows and looking at his cousin.
Checco smiled bitterly.
‘Times have changed since you were here, Matteo’ he said; ‘the Forlivesi are subjects and courtiers now.’
Putting aside Matteo’s further questions, he bowed to me and left us.
‘I wonder what it is?’ said Matteo. ‘What did you think of him?’
I had examined Checco d’Orsi curiously — a tall dark man, with full beard and moustache, apparently about forty. There was a distinct likeness between him and Matteo: they both had the same dark hair and eyes; but Matteo’s face was broader, the bones more prominent, and the skin rougher from his soldier’s life. Checco was thinner and graver, he looked a great deal more talented; Matteo, as I often told him, was not clever.
‘He was very amiable,’ I said, in reply to the question.
‘A little haughty, but he means to be courteous. He is rather oppressed with his dignity of head of the family.’
‘But his father is still alive.’
‘Yes, but he’s eighty-five, and he’s as deaf as a post and as blind as a bat; so he remains quietly in his room while Checco pulls the strings, so that we poor devils have to knuckle under and do as he bids us.’
‘I’m sure that must be very good for you,’ I said. ‘I’m curious to know why Checco talks of the Count as he did; when I was here last they were bosom friends. However, let us go and drink, having done our duty.’
We went to the inn at which we had left our horses and ordered wine.
‘Give us your best, my fat friend,’ cried Matteo to mine host. ‘This gentleman is a stranger, and does not know what wine is; he was brought up on the sickly juice of Città di Castello.’
‘You live at Città di Castello?’ asked the innkeeper.
‘I wish I did,’ I answered.
‘He was ejected from his country for his country’s good,’ remarked Matteo.
‘That is not true,’ I replied, laughing. ‘I left of my own free will.’
‘Galloping as hard as you could, with four-and-twenty horsemen at your heels.’
‘Precisely! And so little did they want me to go, that when I thought a change of air would suit me they sent a troop of horse to induce me to return.’
‘Your head would have made a pretty ornament stuck on a pike in the grand piazza.’
‘The thought amuses you,’ I answered, ‘but the comedy of it did not impress me at the time.’
I remembered the occasion when news was brought me that the Vitelli, the tyrant of Castello, had signed a warrant for my arrest; whereupon, knowing the rapid way he had of dealing with his enemies, I had bidden farewell to my hearth and home with somewhat indecent haste.... But the old man had lately died, and his son, proceeding to undo all his father’s deeds, had called back the Fuorusciti, and strung up from the Palace windows such of his father’s friends as had not had time to escape. I had come to Forli with Matteo, on my way home to take possession of my confiscated property, hoping to find that the intermediate proprietor, who was dangling at a rope’s end some hundred feet from the ground, had made sundry necessary improvements.
‘Well, what do you think of our wine?’ said Matteo. ‘Compare it with that of Città di Castello.’
‘I really haven’t tasted it yet,’ I said, pretending to smile agreeably. ‘Strange wines I always drink at a gulp — like medicine.’
‘Brutta bestia!’ said Matteo. ‘You are no judge.’
‘It’s passable,’ I said, laughing, having sipped it with great deliberation.
Matteo shrugged his shoulders.
‘These foreigners!’ he said scornfully. ‘Come here, fat man,’ he called to the innkeeper. ‘Tell me how Count Girolamo and the gracious Caterina are progressing? When I left Forli the common people struggled to lick the ground they trod on.’
The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders.
‘Gentlemen of my profession have to be careful in what they say.’
‘Don’t be a fool, man; I am not a spy.’
‘Well, sir, the common people no longer struggle to lick the ground the Count treads on.’
‘I see!’
‘You understand, sir. Now that his father is dead—’
‘When I was here last Sixtus was called his uncle.’
‘Ah, they say he was too fond of him not to be his father, but, of course, I know nothing. Far be it from me to say anything in disparagement of his Holiness, past or present.’
‘However, go on.’
‘Well, sir, when the Pope died the Count Girolamo found himself short of money — and so the taxes that he had taken off he put on again.’
‘And the result is—’
‘Well, the people are beginning to murmur about his extravagance; and they say that Caterina behaves as if she were a queen; whereas we all know that she is only the bastard of old Sforza of Milan. But, of course, it has nothing to do with me!’
Matteo and I were beginning to feel sleepy, for we had been riding hard all night; and we went upstairs, giving orders to be called in time for the night’s festivity. We were soon fast asleep.
In the evening Matteo came to me, and began examining my clothes.
‘I have been considering, Filippo,’ he said, ‘that it behoves me on my first appearance before the eyes of my numerous lady loves to cut the best figure I can.’
‘I quite agree with you,’ I answered; ‘but I don’t see what you are doing with my clothes.’
‘Nobody knows you, and it is unimportant how you look; and, as you have some very nice things here, I am going to take advantage of your kindness and—’
‘You’re not going to take my clothes!’ I said, springing out of bed. Matteo gathered up in his arms various garments and rushed out of the room, slamming the door and locking it on the outside, so that I was left shut in, helpless.
I shouted abuse after him, but he went away laughing, and I had to manage as best I could with what he had left me. In half an hour he came to the door. ‘Do you want to come out?’ he said.
‘Of course I do,’ I answered, kicking the panel.
‘Will you promise not to be violent?’
I hesitated.
‘I sh
an’t let you out unless you do.’
‘Very well!’ I answered, laughing.
Matteo opened the door and stood bolt upright on the threshold, decked out from head to foot in my newest clothes.
‘You villain!’ I said, amazed at his effrontery.
‘You don’t look bad, considering,’ he answered, looking at me calmly.
II
WHEN we arrived at the Palazzo Orsi, many of the guests had already come. Matteo was immediately surrounded by his friends; and a score of ladies beckoned to him from different parts of the room, so that he was torn away from me, leaving me rather disconsolate alone in the crowd. Presently I was attracted to a group of men talking to a woman whom I could not see; Matteo had joined them, and they were laughing at something he had said. I had turned away to look at other people when I heard Matteo calling me.
‘Filippo,’ he said, coming towards me, ‘come and be introduced to Donna Giulia; she has asked me to present you.’
He took me by the arm, and I saw that the lady and her admirers were looking at me.
‘She’s no better than she should be,’ he whispered in my ear; ‘but she’s the loveliest woman in Forli!’
‘Allow me to add another to your circle of adorers, Donna Giulia,’ said Matteo, as we both bowed— ‘Messer Filippo Brandolini, like myself, a soldier of distinction.’
I saw a graceful little woman, dressed in some Oriental brocade; a small face, with quite tiny features, large brown eyes, which struck me at the first glance as very soft and caressing, a mass of dark, reddish-brown hair, and a fascinating smile.
‘We were asking Matteo where his wounds were,’ she said, smiling on me very graciously. ‘He tells us they are all in the region of his heart.’
‘In that case,’ I answered, ‘he has come to a more deadly battlefield than any we saw during the war.’
‘What war?’ asked a gentleman who was standing by. ‘Nowadays we are in the happy state of having ten different wars in as many parts of the country.’
‘I was serving under the Duke of Calabria, ‘I replied.
‘In that case, your battles were bloodless.’
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 13
