Home > Authors Index > George Borrow > Lavengro: The Scholar - The Gypsy - The Priest > This page
Lavengro: The Scholar - The Gypsy - The Priest, a novel by George Borrow |
||
Chapter 93 |
||
< Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XCIII. Another Visit--_A la Margutte_--Clever Man--Napoleon's Estimate--Another Statue.
"This is one of the good things of life," he added, after a short pause. "What are the others?" I demanded. "There is Malvoisia sack," said the man in black, "and partridge, and beccafico." "And what do you say to high mass?" said I. "High mass!" said the man in black; "however," he continued, after a pause, "I will be frank with you; I came to be so; I may have heard high mass on a time, and said it too; but as for any predilection for it, I assure you I have no more than for a long High Church sermon." "You speak _a la Margutte_," said I. "Margutte!" said the man in black, musingly, "Margutte!" "You have read Pulci, I suppose?" said I. "Yes, yes," said the man in black, laughing; "I remember." "He might be rendered into English," said I, "something in this style:--
"A clever man," said I. "Who?" said the man in black. "Mezzofante di Bologna." "He! he! he!" said the man in black; "now I know that you are not a Gypsy, at least a soothsayer; no soothsayer would have said that--" "Why," said I, "does he not understand five-and-twenty tongues?" "O yes," said the man in black; "and five-and-twenty added to them; but--he! he! he! it was principally from him who is certainly the greatest of Philologists that I formed my opinion of the sect." "You ought to speak of him with more respect," said I; "I have heard say that he has done good service to your See." "O, yes," said the man in black; "he has done good service to our See, that is, in his way; when the neophytes of the propaganda are to be examined in the several tongues in which they are destined to preach, he is appointed to question them, the questions being first written down for him, or else, he! he! he! Of course you know Napoleon's estimate of Mezzofante; he sent for the linguist from motives of curiosity, and after some discourse with him, told him that he might depart; then turning to some of his generals, he observed, '_Nous avons eu ici un exemple qu'un homme peut avoir beaucoup de paroles avec bien peu d'esprit_.'" "You are ungrateful to him," said I; "well, perhaps, when he is dead and gone you will do him justice." "True," said the man in black; "when he is dead and gone we intend to erect him a statue of wood, on the left-hand side of the door of the Vatican library." "Of wood?" said I. "He was the son of a carpenter, you know," said the man in black; "the figure will be of wood, for no other reason, I assure you; he! he!" "You should place another statue on the right." "Perhaps we shall," said the man in black; "but we know of no one amongst the philologists of Italy, nor, indeed, of the other countries, inhabited by the faithful, worthy to sit parallel in effigy with our illustrissimo; when, indeed, we have conquered those regions of the perfidious by bringing the inhabitants thereof to the true faith, I have no doubt that we shall be able to select one worthy to bear him company, one whose statue shall be placed on the right hand of the library, in testimony of our joy at his conversion; for, as you know, 'There is more joy,' etc." "Wood?" said I. "I hope not," said the man in black; "no, if I be consulted as to the material for the statue, I should strongly recommend bronze." And when the man in black had said this, he emptied his second tumbler of its contents, and prepared himself another. _ |