Courage then; pull and pull again." I
promised him that I would pull my stoutest, but curtly declined his
suggestion that I should try my hand upon Virginia's mouth, although she
made no demur. Sooner should Prato swim in blood, I said, than I lay
violent hands upon my friend.
And in blood swam Prato that day, and Fra Palamone bathed in it
eloquently. He called himself Conqueror of Pain, and piled up his
captures like the trophies of a Roman triumph. I can still hear the
soul-congealing yell with which he hailed every new token of his
prowess, and still see the packed Piazza surge, as it was swept by it
like corn in a breeze. "Woe unto you, heathen masticator," he would cry,
holding high the forceps and its victim, "Woe unto you when you meet
Palamone, Tyrant of Pain! Blessed be the pincers and the fork, which
have gained the celestial paradise for Sant' Agnese, and the terrestrial
for this worthy man! I tell you, signori," he would say, looking round
upon the gaping company, "I would rather be in this man's shoes than in
the Grand Duke's, or in those of my blood-brother in God, the Patriarch
of Venice. Ha! he will break up larks' bones this night! and where are
the sheep's trotters to deny him entry? Where are the walnuts or the
peach stones whose kernels are removed from him? Ahi, signori! do you
think, if Signor Dives had had so wholesome a mouth he would have left
to Lazarus the bones? Not he--but the pith of every one of them had gone
to make him sleeker.
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