Lavengro

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"On the third day of the voyage the priest came to me, who was rather
unwell with sea-sickness, which he, of course, felt nothing of, that kind
of people being never affected like others. He was a finish-looking man
of about forty-five, but had something strange in his eyes, which I have
since thought denoted that all was not right in a certain place called
the heart. After a few words of condolence, in a broken kind of English,
he asked me various questions about our family; and I, won by his seeming
kindness, told him all I knew about them, of which communicativeness I
afterwards very much repented. As soon as he had got out of me all he
desired, he left me; and I observed that during the rest of the voyage he
was wonderfully attentive to our governor, and yet more to the young
ladies. Both, however, kept him rather at a distance; the young ladies
were reserved, and once or twice I heard our governor cursing him between
his teeth for a sharking priest. The priest, however, was not
disconcerted, and continued his attentions, which in a little time
produced an effect, so that, by the time we landed at Naples, our great
folks had conceived a kind of liking for the man, and when they took
their leave invited him to visit them, which he promised to do. We hired
a grand house or palace at Naples; it belonged to a poor kind of prince,
who was glad enough to let it to our governor, and also his servants and
carriages; and glad enough were the poor servants, for they got from us
what they never got from the prince--plenty of meat and money--and glad
enough, I make no doubt, were the horses for the provender we gave them;
and I daresay the coaches were not sorry to be cleaned and furbished up.
Well, we went out and came in; going to see the sights, and returning.
Amongst other things we saw was the burning mountain, and the tomb of a
certain sorcerer called Virgilio, who made witch rhymes, by which he
could raise the dead. Plenty of people came to see us, both English and
Italians, and amongst the rest the priest. He did not come amongst the
first, but allowed us to settle and become a little quiet before he
showed himself; and after a day or two he paid us another visit, then
another, till at last his visits were daily.

"I did not like that Jack Priest; so I kept my eye upon all his motions.
Lord! how that Jack Priest did curry favour with our governor and the two
young ladies; and he curried, and curried, till he had got himself into
favour with the governor, and more especially with the two young ladies,
of whom their father was doatingly fond. At last the ladies took lessons
in Italian of the priest, a language in which he was said to be a grand
proficient, and of which they had hitherto known but very little; and
from that time his influence over them, and consequently over the old
governor, increased till the tables were turned, and he no longer curried
favour with them, but they with him; yes, as true as my leg aches, the
young ladies curried, and the old governor curried favour with that same
Priest; when he was with them, they seemed almost to hang on his lips,
that is, the young ladies; and as for the old governor, he never
contradicted him, and when the fellow was absent, which, by-the-bye, was
not often, it was 'Father so-and-so said this, and Father so-and-so said
that; Father so-and-so thinks we should do so-and-so, or that we should
not do so-and-so.' I at first thought that he must have given them
something, some philtre or the like; but one of the English
maid-servants, who had a kind of respect for me, and who saw much more
behind the scenes than I did, informed me that he was continually
instilling strange notions into their heads, striving, by every possible
method, to make them despise the religion of their own land, and take up
that of the foreign country in which they were. And sure enough, in a
little time, the girls had altogether left off going to an English
chapel, and were continually visiting places of Italian worship. The old
governor, it is true, still went to his church, but he appeared to be
hesitating between two opinions; and once when he was at dinner, he said
to two or three English friends, that since he had become better
acquainted with it, he had conceived a much more favourable opinion of
the Catholic religion than he had previously entertained. In a word, the
priest ruled the house, and everything was done according to his will and
pleasure; by degrees he persuaded the young ladies to drop their English
acquaintances, whose place he supplied with Italians, chiefly females. My
poor old governor would not have had a person to speak to, for he never
could learn the language, but for two or three Englishmen who used to
come occasionally and take a bottle with him, in a summer-house, whose
company he could not be persuaded to resign, notwithstanding the
entreaties of his daughters, instigated by the priest, whose grand
endeavour seemed to be to render the minds of all three foolish, for his
own ends. And if he was busy above stairs with the governor, there was
another busy below with us poor English servants, a kind of subordinate
priest, a low Italian; as he could speak no language but his own, he was
continually jabbering to us in that, and by hearing him the maids and
myself contrived to pick up a good deal of the language, so that we
understood most that was said, and could speak it very fairly; and the
themes of his jabber were the beauty and virtues of one whom he called
Holy Mary, and the power and grandeur of one whom he called the Holy
Father; and he told us that we should shortly have an opportunity of
seeing the Holy Father, who could do anything he liked with Holy Mary: in
the mean time we had plenty of opportunities of seeing Holy Mary, for in
every church, chapel, and convent to which we were taken, there was an
image of Holy Mary, who, if the images were dressed at all in her
fashion, must have been very fond of short petticoats and tinsel, and
who, if those said figures at all resembled her in face, could scarcely
have been half as handsome as either of my two fellow-servants, not to
speak of the young ladies.

"Now it happened that one of the female servants was much taken with what
she saw and heard, and gave herself up entirely to the will of the
subordinate, who had quite as much dominion over her as his superior had
over the ladies; the other maid, however, the one who had a kind of
respect for me, was not so easily besotted; she used to laugh at what she
saw, and at what the fellow told her, and from her I learnt that amongst
other things intended by these priestly confederates was robbery; she
said that the poor old governor had already been persuaded by his
daughters to put more than a thousand pounds into the superior priest's
hands for purposes of charity and religion, as was said, and that the
subordinate one had already inveigled her fellow-servant out of every
penny which she had saved from her wages, and had endeavoured likewise to
obtain what money she herself had, but in vain. With respect to myself,
the fellow shortly after made an attempt towards obtaining a hundred
crowns, of which, by some means, he knew me to be in possession, telling
me what a meritorious thing it was to give one's superfluities for the
purposes of religion. 'That is true,' said I, 'and if, after my return
to my native country, I find I have anything which I don't want myself, I
will employ it in helping to build a Methodist chapel.'

"By the time that the three months were expired for which we had hired
the palace of the needy Prince, the old governor began to talk of
returning to England, at least of leaving Italy. I believe he had become
frightened at the calls which were continually being made upon him for
money; for after all, you know, if there is a sensitive part of a man's
wearing apparel it is his breeches pocket; but the young ladies could not
think of leaving dear Italy and the dear priest; and then they had seen
nothing of the country, they had only seen Naples; before leaving dear
Italia they must see more of the country and the cities; above all, they
must see a place which they called the Eternal City, or by some similar
nonsensical name; and they persisted so that the poor governor permitted
them, as usual, to have their way; and it was decided what route they
should take, that is, the priest was kind enough to decide for them; and
was also kind enough to promise to go with them part of the route, as far
as a place where there was a wonderful figure of Holy Mary, which the
priest said it was highly necessary for them to see before visiting the
Eternal City; so we left Naples in hired carriages, driven by fellows
they call veturini, cheating drunken dogs, I remember they were. Besides
our own family, there was the priest and his subordinate, and a couple of
hired lackeys. We were several days upon the journey, travelling through
a very wild country, which the ladies pretended to be delighted with, and
which the governor cursed on account of the badness of the roads; and
when we came to any particularly wild spot we used to stop, in order to
enjoy the scenery, as the ladies said; and then we would spread a horse-
cloth on the ground, and eat bread and cheese, and drink wine of the
country. And some of the holes and corner in which we bivouacked, as the
ladies called it, were something like this place where we are now, so
that when I came down here it put me in mind of them. At last we arrived
at the place where was the holy image.

"We went to the house or chapel in which the holy image was kept, a
frightful ugly black figure of Holy Mary, dressed in her usual way; and
after we had stared at the figure, and some of our party had bowed down
to it, we were shown a great many things which were called holy relics,
which consisted of thumb-nails and fore-nails and toe-nails, and hair and
teeth, and a feather or two, a mighty thigh-bone, but whether of a man or
a camel, I can't say; all of which things I was told, if properly touched
and handled, had mighty power to cure all kinds of disorders. And as we
went from the holy house, we saw a man in a state of great excitement, he
was foaming at the mouth, and cursing the holy image and all its
household, because, after he had worshipped it and made offerings to it,
and besought it to assist him in a game of chance which he was about to
play, it had left him in the lurch, allowing him to lose all his money;
and when I thought of all the rubbish I had seen, and the purposes which
it was applied to, in conjunction with the rage of the losing gamester at
the deaf and dumb image, I could not help comparing the whole with what
my poor brother used to tell me of the superstitious practices of the
blacks on the high Barbary shore, and their occasional rage and fury at
the things they worshipped; and I said to myself, if all this here
doesn't smell of fetish may I smell fetid.

"At this place the priest left us, returning to Naples with his
subordinate, on some particular business I suppose. It was, however,
agreed that he should visit us at the Holy City. We did not go direct to
the Holy City, but bent our course to two or three other cities which the
family were desirous of seeing, but as nothing occurred to us in these
places of any particular interest, I shall take the liberty of passing
them by in silence. At length we arrived at the Eternal City; an immense
city it was, looking as if it had stood for a long time, and would stand
for a long time still; compared with it, London would look like a mere
assemblage of bee-skeps; however, give me the bee-skeps with their merry
hum and bustle, and life and honey, rather than that huge town, which
looked like a sepulchre, where there was no life, no busy hum, no bees,
but a scanty sallow population, intermixed with black priests, white
priests, grey priests; and though I don't say there was no honey in the
place, for I believe there was, I am ready to take my Bible oath that it
was not made there, and that the priests kept it all for themselves."

CHAPTER XCIX.

A Cloister--Half English--New Acquaintance--Mixed Liquors--Turning
Papist--Purposes of Charity--Foreign Religion--Melancholy--Elbowing and
Pushing--Outlandish Sight--The Figure--I Don't Care for You--Merry
Andrews--One Good--Religion of My Country--Fellow of Spirit--A
Dispute--The Next Morning--Female Doll--Proper Dignity--Fetish Country.

"The day after our arrival," continued the postillion, "I was sent, under
the guidance of a lackey of the place, with a letter, which the priest,
when he left, had given us for a friend of his in the Eternal City. We
went to a large house, and on ringing, were admitted by a porter into a
cloister, where I saw some ill-looking, shabby young fellows walking
about, who spoke English to one another. To one of these the porter
delivered the letter, and the young fellow going away, presently returned
and told me to follow him; he led me into a large room, where, behind a
table, on which were various papers, and a thing, which they call in that
country a crucifix, sat a man in a kind of priestly dress. The lad
having opened the door for me, shut it behind me, and went away. The man
behind the table was so engaged in reading the letter which I had
brought, that at first he took no notice of me; he had red hair, a kind
of half-English countenance, and was seemingly about five-and-thirty.
After a little time he laid the letter down, appeared to consider a
moment, and then opened his mouth with a strange laugh, not a loud laugh,
for I heard nothing but a kind of hissing deep down the throat; all of a
sudden, however, perceiving me, he gave a slight start, but instantly
recovering himself, he inquired in English concerning the health of the
family, and where we lived; on my delivering him a card, he bade me
inform my master and the ladies that in the course of the day he would do
himself the honour of waiting upon them. He then arose and opened the
door for me to depart; the man was perfectly civil and courteous, but I
did not like that strange laugh of his, after having read the letter. He
was as good as his word, and that same day paid us a visit. It was now
arranged that we should pass the winter in Rome, to my great annoyance,
for I wished to return to my native land, being heartily tired of
everything connected with Italy. I was not, however, without hope that
our young master would shortly arrive, when I trusted that matters, as
far as the family were concerned, would be put on a better footing. In a
few days our new acquaintance, who, it seems, was a mongrel Englishman,
had procured a house for our accommodation; it was large enough, but not
near so pleasant as that we had at Naples, which was light and airy, with
a large garden. This was a dark gloomy structure in a narrow street,
with a frowning church beside it; it was not far from the place where our
new friend lived, and its being so was probably the reason why he
selected it. It was furnished partly with articles which we bought, and
partly with those which we hired. We lived something in the same way as
at Naples; but though I did not much like Naples, I yet liked it better
than this place, which was so gloomy. Our new acquaintance made himself
as agreeable as he could, conducting the ladies to churches and convents,
and frequently passing the afternoon drinking with the governor, who was
fond of a glass of brandy and water and a cigar, as the new acquaintance
also was--no, I remember, he was fond of gin and water, and did not
smoke. I don't think he had so much influence over the young ladies as
the other priest, which was, perhaps, owing to his not being so good
looking; but I am sure he had more influence with the governor, owing,
doubtless, to his bearing him company in drinking mixed liquors, which
the other priest did not do.

"He was a strange fellow, that same new acquaintance of ours, and unlike
all the priests I saw in that country, and I saw plenty of various
nations,--they were always upon their guard, and had their features and
voice modulated; but this man was subject to fits of absence, during
which he would frequently mutter to himself; then, though he was
perfectly civil to everybody, as far as words went, I observed that he
entertained a thorough contempt for most people, especially for those
whom he was making dupes. I have observed him whilst drinking with our
governor, when the old man's head was turned, look at him with an air
which seemed to say, 'What a thundering old fool you are!' and at our
young ladies, when their backs were turned, with a glance which said
distinctly enough, 'You precious pair of ninnyhammers;' and then his
laugh--he had two kinds of laughs--one which you could hear, and another
which you could only see. I have seen him laugh at our governor and the
young ladies, when their heads were turned away, but I heard no sound. My
mother had a sandy cat, which sometimes used to open its mouth wide with
a mew which nobody could hear, and the silent laugh of that red-haired
priest used to put me wonderfully in mind of the silent mew of my
mother's sandy-red cat. And then the other laugh, which you could hear;
what a strange laugh that was, never loud, yes, I have heard it tolerably
loud. He once passed near me, after having taken leave of a silly
English fellow--a limping parson of the name of Platitude, who they said
was thinking of turning Papist, and was much in his company; I was
standing behind the pillar of a piazza, and as he passed he was laughing
heartily. O he was a strange fellow, that same red-haired acquaintance
of ours!

"After we had been at Rome about six weeks, our old friend the priest of
Naples arrived, but without his subordinate, for whose services he now
perhaps thought that he had no occasion. I believe he found matters in
our family wearing almost as favourable an aspect as he could desire:
with what he had previously taught them and shown them at Naples and
elsewhere, and with what the red-haired confederate had taught them and
shown them at Rome, the poor young ladies had become quite handmaids of
superstition, so that they, especially the youngest, were prepared to bow
down to anything, and kiss anything, however vile and ugly, provided a
priest commanded them; and as for the old governor, what with the
influence which his daughters exerted, and what with the ascendancy which
the red-haired man had obtained over him, he dared not say his purse, far
less his soul, was his own. Only think of an Englishman not being master
of his own purse! My acquaintance, the lady's maid, assured me, that to
her certain knowledge, he had disbursed to the red-haired man, for
purposes of charity, as it was said, at least one thousand pounds during
the five weeks we had been at Rome. She also told me that things would
shortly be brought to a conclusion, and so indeed they were, though in a
different manner from what she and I and some other people imagined; that
there was to be a grand festival, and a mass, at which we were to be
present, after which the family were to be presented to the Holy Father,
for so those two priestly sharks had managed it; and then--she said she
was certain that the two ladies, and perhaps the old governor, would
forsake the religion of their native land, taking up with that of these
foreign regions, for so my fellow-servant expressed it, and that perhaps
attempts might be made to induce us poor English servants to take up with
the foreign religion, that is herself and me, for as for our
fellow-servant, the other maid, she wanted no inducing, being disposed
body and soul to go over to it. Whereupon, I swore with an oath that
nothing should induce me to take up with the foreign religion; and the
poor maid, my fellow-servant, bursting into tears, said that for her part
she would sooner die than have anything to do with it; thereupon we shook
hands and agreed to stand by and countenance one another: and moreover,
provided our governors were fools enough to go over to the religion of
these here foreigners, we would not wait to be asked to do the like, but
leave them at once, and make the best of our way home, even if we were
forced to beg on the road.

"At last the day of the grand festival came, and we were all to go to the
big church to hear the mass. Now it happened that for some time past I
had been much afflicted with melancholy, especially when I got up of a
morning, produced by the strange manner in which I saw things going on in
our family; and to dispel it in some degree, I had been in the habit of
taking a dram before breakfast. On the morning in question, feeling
particularly low-spirited when I thought of the foolish step our governor
would probably take before evening, I took two drams before breakfast,
and after breakfast, feeling my melancholy still continuing, I took
another, which produced a slight effect upon my head, though I am
convinced nobody observed it.

"Away we drove to the big church; it was a dark, misty day, I remember,
and very cold, so that if anybody had noticed my being slightly in
liquor, I could have excused myself by saying that I had merely taken a
glass to fortify my constitution against the weather; and of one thing I
am certain, which is, that such an excuse would have stood me in stead
with our governor, who looked, I thought, as if he had taken one too; but
I may be mistaken, and why should I notice him, seeing that he took no
notice of me: so away we drove to the big church, to which all the
population of the place appeared to be moving.

"On arriving there we dismounted, and the two priests who were with us
led the family in, whilst I followed at a little distance, but quickly
lost them amidst the throng of people. I made my way, however, though in
what direction I knew not, except it was one in which everybody seemed
striving, and by dint of elbowing and pushing, I at last got to a place
which looked like the aisle of a cathedral, where the people stood in two
rows, a space between being kept open by certain strangely-dressed men
who moved up and down with rods in their hands; all were looking to the
upper end of this place or aisle; and at the upper end, separated from
the people by palings like those of an altar, sat in magnificent-looking
stalls, on the right and the left, various wonderful-looking individuals
in scarlet dresses. At the farther end was what appeared to be an altar,
on the left hand was a pulpit, and on the right a stall higher than any
of the rest, where was a figure whom I could scarcely see.

"I can't pretend to describe what I saw exactly, for my head, which was
at first rather flurried, had become more so from the efforts which I had
made to get through the crowd; also from certain singing which proceeded
from I know not where, and above all from the bursts of an organ which
were occasionally so loud that I thought the roof, which was painted with
wondrous colours, would come toppling down on those below. So there
stood I--a poor English servant--in that outlandish place, in the midst
of that foreign crowd, looking at that outlandish sight--hearing those
outlandish sounds, and occasionally glancing at our party, which, by this
time, I distinguished at the opposite side to where I stood, but much
nearer the place where the red figures sat. Yes, there stood our poor
governor, and the sweet young ladies, and I thought they never looked so
handsome before, and close by them were the sharking priests, and not far
from them was that idiotical parson Platitude, winking and grinning, and
occasionally lifting up his hands as if in ecstasy at what he saw and
heard, so that he drew upon himself the notice of the congregation.

"And now an individual mounted the pulpit, and began to preach in a
language which I did not understand, but which I believe to be Latin,
addressing himself seemingly to the figure in the stall; and when he had
ceased, there was more singing, more organ playing, and then two men in
robes brought forth two things which they held up; and then the people
bowed their heads, and our poor governor bowed his head, and the sweet
young ladies bowed their heads, and the sharking priests, whilst the
idiotical parson Platitude tried to fling himself down; and then there
were various evolutions withinside the pale, and the scarlet figures got
up and sat down, and this kind of thing continued for some time. At
length the figure which I had seen in the principal stall came forth and
advanced towards the people; an awful figure he was, a huge old man with
a sugar-loaf hat, with a sulphur-coloured dress, and holding a crook in
his hand like that of a shepherd; and as he advanced the people fell on
their knees, our poor old governor amongst them; the sweet young ladies,
the sharking priests, the idiotical parson Platitude, all fell on their
knees, and somebody or other tried to pull me on my knees; but by this
time I had become outrageous, all that my poor brother used to tell me of
the superstitions of the high Barbary shore rushed into my mind, and I
thought they were acting them over here; above all, the idea that the
sweet young ladies, to say nothing of my poor old governor, were, after
the conclusion of all this mummery, going to deliver themselves up body
and soul into the power of that horrid-looking old man, maddened me, and,
rushing forward into the open space, I confronted the horrible-looking
old figure with the sugar-loaf hat, the sulphur-coloured garments, and
shepherd's crook, and shaking my fist at his nose, I bellowed out in
English--