Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/89

Rh Meanwhile an enormous mass of historical evidence remains to cast explanatory light upon his singular illusion.

It is harder to extenuate Cellini's action upon two occasions when he killed nobody, but indulged an infernal instinct of revenge. On the first of these occasions, an innkeeper somewhere near Chioggia crossed his humour about the proper way of paying the host's bill. Having paid it overnight, our friend managed to slice the man's new beds up with his knife next morning, and decamped, after doing more than fifty crowns' worth of damage. The second is one I cannot here conveniently deal with. It involves the whole episode of Caterina and Paolo Micceri in Paris, over which biographers of Cellini would willingly draw a veil, and the details of which are such as to justify their reticence before the respectable English public. The only defence which might be urged for Cellini at this point is the one which Dante used in self-exculpation after breaking faith with Fra Alberigo on that hideous glacier in the lowest pit of hell. In other words, it is necessary to invoke the principle that rogues should be unmercifully paid out in their own coin of roguery. But this argument will hardly serve to excuse either Cellini's brutalities or Dante's malice.

The revolting episode of Cellini's dealings with Caterina suggests another aspect of his character