# The Ninth Man/Chapter 8

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### CHAPTER VIII

FOR a time it seemed as though the lust for revenge held sway in San Moglio. None thought of aught but killing, from our beautiful and arrogant lady, who sat brooding while she held death in her hand, to the very children who prattled in the street concerning whom they would kill.
Then came the thought of being killed. It came silently, like a frost in early summer. Death was still the thought of San Moglio, but each man now feared his own. The red desire of killing and of revenge turned pale, and by each man's hearthstone sat a cold little shadow of fear. I thanked God I had made no man my enemy. There were those who had tried to leave the city, but had been turned back with stern menace by Mazzaleone's men, and we knew that those who were caught in attempted flight would be incontinently killed. The fear that sat with us gave bravery to some timid ones, and these the men caught, and such pieces of their bodies as were left when the soldiers were through with them were burned in the public place.
​Under the stress of fear many an odd marriage took place. It was said that to save her father's life young Concetta da Moreale was married to Bernabo de Montemarte instead of to Donati, her betrothed, and that the Donati had sworn vengeance on Bernabo, who laughed and said he had not long to live, anyway, and he and his would take life for life.
Many an old debt was paid. Enemies of long standing embraced and swore friendship, each fearing the other, since no one knew in whose hands death lurked. Simon, the old usurer who lived next me, and had a face like a scholar and talons like a hawk, received threatening letters every day, demanding of him that he should remit this and that debt; and his wife, almost as great a miser as himself, would come daily to my mother and weep, telling how that as yet he bad not remitted one stiver.
I had heard that my cousin Gemma was seen of an evening coming out from the back gate of the Mancinis' garden; and stung with shame—of or all knew young Mancini, his beauty and his profligacy—I waited for her homecoming, and says I:
​"What now, cousin?"
And she looks up at me with a wan smile. "Dying, I please myself, cousin."
" 'Dying'?" says I, gaping at her.
"Aye," says she, "for my two gallants love me so well that each would kill me for the other's spite, and now they have so much for which to kill me, and I have had my heart's desire."
So whether in my mother's house or the palace of the Conti, Death brooded. But his darkness was blackest at the palace. Mazzaleone's long shadow was ever at our door and the whole town gaped at the trio of them—my lady, rosy as with love, between Mazzaleone, lean and pale as a drawn sword, and Count Bartolommeo, red and powerful in his lusty joy of life. The town talked openly that my lady would kill Bartolommeo and that then Mazzaleone would find a bride, but none doubted that Bartolommeo's heavy fist would fall first. So the shadow of death distorted the faces of all dear to me.
On my dear lady's it cast a softness and joy more terrible than aught else. She grew young in the presence of Mazzaleone, ​and when she sat alone she seemed as one who hugs a sweet secret.
It was in that day that I shook with an ague of disgust for life, and I wished aloud in my ignorance that death would menace me as well; and then, as if in answer to my wish, there came to me in my room Simonetta, my little friend, of whom I had less thought of sweethearting than had she been my sister. She had been crying, but now her eyes were clear.
As I looked at her she cried: "Oh, Matteo, I have had to come to you. Before you die, I want to tell you that I love you. I have always loved you, Matteo."
Had not dismay given me thought, I could have seen how vain were my boasts of a love of death. When ever did a young and lovely sweetheart come less desired to any man? I had not sense enough left to play the gallant.
"Death?" I cried. "And why death, Simonetta?"
"Oh!" she answered, wringing her hands, "it is the shoemaker's lame son, Oreste. He hates you, Matteo!"
A weight was lifted from me. I hardly ​knew the lad. Well I remembered him sitting all day before the cobbler's door, and sometimes dragging his legs painfully behind him, like a lame dog. So why should he hate me? So I fell to comforting Simonetta, and found the comforting of her sweet. But the thought of the shoemaker's son stayed with me and tormented me in my sleep, and in the early morning I made my way to the shop, and he sat in his little chair, grinning horribly.
He said: "Ha! you have come. They brought thee word, Matteo. Now it is my turn to love life, for it is better to have crooked legs and live ones than straight legs and dead ones. Be proud of your straight legs while you may, Matteo." And he spoke to me with such spite and such venom that it distorted the face of him.
"And what have I done to thee, Oreste?" I cried.
"When I was little and would have played with you, you ran away. And what have you done to me?" says he. "Morning and night you have passed me by, a living reminder of what I was and what you were. Morning and night you have made my lot ​bitterer to me, for all the things that I had not you had. But now I shall soon have that which you have not. Morning and night, when you were wont to pass by here, there will be a happy and rejoiceful time for me instead of one of shame and envy."
So astounded was I, I had no word for him, for I had never thought of him. I remembered, indeed, that when I was a lad I had plagued him, thoughtless, as had the other lads.
"But I never hurt you, Oreste," I faltered. And he mocked me.
"The serene lord has forgotten that he took from me the only sweet thing I ever had. When we were lads, Matteo, I had a little sweetheart. When the others ran away and would not play with me, she sat with me. When they mocked me, she comforted me. Then you came one day and taught her to play with you, and to laugh at me like the others. Since that day I have known the worth of pity and have taken none of it."
Thus he drowned me with the pent-up venom of years, And I had gone to him assured that morning, and having found that ​I had a sweetheart instead of a friend in Simonetta, and feeling no little pride in myself, therefore, I now slunk away, having received a death-sentence from a mad and relentless judge.
I went to my own home, and I had hardly got within the doors when Simon the usurer's wife came crying and shrieking to us. My mother and I ran with her, not making head nor tail of her lamentations. She kept repeating over and over, "He was so afraid of death he has killed himself!" We thought her gone daft, until in the courtyard gate we came upon Simon himself, swinging where he had hanged himself. And he swung to and fro gently in the morning breeze, a wagging pendulum of fear.
I was now no more a young philosopher with the keen eyes of Mazzaleone. No longer did I move upon the outside, marveling over the turpitude of men. Now I knew why Gemma had sought her secret and shameful love, and why my lady sat with her black ballot in her hand, and why Simon the usurer had killed himself, for there were times when panic was in my breast and I ​felt I had best stick my own knife in my breast and not wait for who knows what death at the hands of Mazzaleone. I knew why men and women sat silent and brooding, for I sat that way also. I pondered this and that means that I might find of ridding myself of the cobbler's son. So I, together with the rest of San Moglio, brooded with fear in the thoughts of death and thoughts of murder. And the cobbler's son read my thoughts, for he stayed well withindoors and grinned at me as I passed.
For comfort I sought Brother Agnello, and found him preaching to some gaping women at a street corner, telling them that through the mouths of children it had been revealed to him that it was God's will that he should take the blood of San Moglio on him, but his words were to me like the babbling of a madman, for I sat now in the dolorous heart of San Moglio and I knew that its heart was full of hate. The sight of him became bitter to me, and it seemed to me I encountered him always when I went abroad, and the blond child with him. Now the children tormented him, now men ​stopped and listened to him for a moment and passed on, laughing. A few old women listened to him, but for the most part he walked unnoticed up and down the streets or was mocked as a fool.
My lady saw him from her window, thus talking at a street corner.
"What does the Brother Minor, Matteo?" says she.
For some time past she had been light of heart; almost had she the gay innocence of a child. It seemed that the aching wound of her spirit had found some ease.
"He preaches," I made reply, "that all in San Moglio shall cease from hating and killing and shall love one another." I spoke bitterly. "He begs them to place their ballots of death upon him, as he is already as one dead, and he has for disciple this blond child with him."
At this she sighs. "Poor, gentle brother!" says she. "Poor gentle flicker of mercy and pity!"