Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 2.djvu/215

Rh and spoke in a subdued voice: "Although your name is Benvenuto, this time you are an ill-comer." I understood his speech, and called out the second time:

"Despatch my business quickly. Tell me what I have come to do here." Then the judge turned to Caterina, and said: "Caterina, relate all that happened between you and Benvenuto." She answered that I had used her after the Italian fashion. The judge turned to me and said: "You hear what Caterina deposes, Benvenuto." I replied: "If I have consorted with her after the Italian fashion, I have only done the same as you folk of other nations do." He demurred: "She means that you improperly abused her." I retorted that, so far from being the Italian fashion, it must be some French habit, seeing she knew all about it, while I was ignorant; and I commanded her to explain precisely how I had consorted with her. Then the impudent baggage entered into plain and circumstantial details regarding all the filth she lyingly accused me of. I made her repeat her deposition three times in succession. When she had finished, I cried out with a loud voice: "Lord judge, lieutenant of the Most Christian King, I call on you for justice. Well I know that by the laws of his Most Christian Majesty both agent and patient in this kind of crime are punished with the stake. The woman confesses her guilt; I admit nothing whatsoever of the sort with regard to her; her go-between of a mother is here, who deserves to be burned for either one or the other offence. Therefore I appeal to you for justice." These words I repeated over and over again at the top of my voice, continually calling out: "To the stake with her and her mother!" I also