Page:Romola (London 1863) v1.djvu/247

Rh the secret alone worth the money you pay for the matrimony. The secret how tono, no, I will not tell you what the secret is about, and that makes it a double secret. Hang it round your neck if you like, and never look at it; I don't say that will not be the best, for then you will see many things you don't expect: though if you open it you may break your leg, è vero, but you will know a secret! Something nobody knows but me! And mark—I give you the Breve, I don't sell it, as many another holy man would: the quattrino is for the matrimony, and the Breve you get for nothing. Orsù, giovanetti, come like dutiful sons of the Church and buy the Indulgence of his Holiness Alexander the Sixth."

This buffoonery just fitted the taste of the audience; the fierucola was but a small occasion, so the townsmen might be contented with jokes that were rather less indecent than those they were accustomed to hear at every carnival, put into easy rhyme by the Magnifico and his poetic satellites; while the women, over and above any relish of the fun, really began to have an itch for the Brevi. Several couples had already gone through the ceremony, in which the conjuror's solemn gibberish and grimaces over the open book, the antics of the monkey, and even the preliminary spitting, had called forth peals of laughter; and now a well-looking, merry-eyed youth of seventeen, in a loose tunic and red cap, pushed forward, holding by the hand a plump brunette, whose scanty