If he had twisted a halter of it to
hang me with, I suspect that he had done what he truly desired.
Father Carnesecchi listened to it all in the dejected, musing pose which
I have described, words of pity incessantly escaping from his partly
imprisoned mouth: "Dio mio!" "Dio buono!" "Che peccato!" and the like,
with fine shades of difference in expression according to the dark, the
denser dark, the lurid flashes of the Dominican's chiaroscuro. This
hireling shepherd piled up a hideous indictment, made up, as the reader
will perceive, out of his own wicked imagination. I was a runaway from
the Venetian galleys, an actor of execrable life. I had seduced a
Sienese nun in Padua, and brought her with me into Tuscany to sow
contempt of the sacraments, and rebellion against the reigning house. I
had openly advocated the worship of Priapus, had spurned the marriage
vow, had called one of the reigning house a tyrant, and was an apologist
of the Paterini. He concluded by saying that the Holy Office was
deliberating upon my case, and that he could not invite the Jesuits to
hope for my conversion, since I openly boasted of being a comedian, and
of my preference for that deplorable way of life. The Holy Office asked
that I might be kept apart from any whom my conversation might
contaminate, and that my punishment should be exemplary as well as
remedial. To all of which Father Carnesecchi replied, "Altto, altro,
caro fratello," and got rid of his monitor as soon as he could.
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