"How do you know that?" asked he.
"Ah!" said the cardinal, taking the good German's hand, "I have just administered to him, and consoled him; at this moment the holy man has a fair wind to waft him to paradise."
The Bishop of Coire demonstrated immediately how light fat man are; for when men are big-bellied, a merciful providence, in the consideration of their works, often makes their internal tubes as elastic as balloons. The aforesaid bishop sprang backwards with one bound, burst into a perspiration and coughed like a cow who finds feathers mixed with her hay. Then becoming suddenly pale, he rushed down the stairs without even bidding Madame adieu. When the door had closed upon the bishop, and he was fairly in the street, the Cardinal of Ragusa began laughing fit to split his sides.
"Ah! my fair one, am I not worthy to be Pope, and better than that, thy lover this evening?"
But seeing Imperia thoughtful he approached her to take her in his arms, and pet her after the usual fashion of cardinals, men who embrace better than all others, even the soldiers, because they are lazy, and do not spare their essential properties.
"Ha!" said she, drawing back, "you wish to cause my death, you ecclesiastical idiot. The principal thing for you is to enjoy yourself; my sweet carcass, a thing accessory. Your pleasure will be my death, and then you'll canonise me perhaps? Ah, you have the plague, and you would give it to me. Go somewhere else, you brainless priest. Ah! touch me not," said she, seeing him about to advance, "or I will stab you with this dagger."
And the clever hussy drew from her armoire a little dagger, which she knew how to use with great skill when necessary.
"But my little paradise, my sweet one," said the other, laughing, "don't you see the trick? Wasn't it necessary to be get rid of that old bullock of Coire?"
"Well then, if you love me, show it" replied she. "I desire that you leave me instantly. If you are touched with the disease my death will not worry you. I know you well enough to know at what price you will put a moment of pleasure at your last hour. You would drown the earth.
Ah, ah! you have boasted of it when drunk. I love only myself, my treasures, and my health. Go, and if tomorrow your veins are not frozen by the disease, you can come again. Today, I hate you, good cardinal," said she, smiling.
"Imperia!" cried the cardinal on his knees, "my blessed Imperia, do not play with me thus."
"No," said she, "I never play with blessed and sacred things."
"Ah! ribald woman, I will excommunicate thee tomorrow."
"And now you are out of your cardinal sense."
"Imperia, cursed daughter of Satan! Oh, my little beauty--my love--!"
"Respect yourself more. Don't kneel to me, fie for shame!"
"Wilt thou have a dispensation in articulo mortis? Wilt thou have my fortune--or better still, a bit of the veritable true Cross?--Wilt thou?"
"This evening, all the wealth of heaven above and earth beneath would not buy my heart," said she, laughing. "I should be the blackest of sinners, unworthy to receive the Blessed Sacrament if I had not my little caprices."
"I'll burn the house down. Sorceress, you have bewitched me. You shall perish at the stake. Listen to me, my love,--my gentle Dove--I promise you the best place in heaven. Eh? No. Death to you then--death to the sorceress."
"Oh, oh! I will kill you, Monseigneur."
And the cardinal foamed with rage.
"You are making a fool of yourself," said she. "Go away, you'll tire yourself."
"I shall be pope, and you shall pay for this!"
"Then you are no longer disposed to obey me?"
"What can I do this evening to please you?"
"Get out."
And she sprang lightly like a wagtail into her room, and locked herself in, leaving the cardinal to storm that he was obliged to go.
When the fair Imperia found herself alone, seated before the fire, and without her little priest, she exclaimed, snapping angrily the gold links of her chain, "By the double triple horn on the devil, if the little one has made me have this row with the Cardinal, and exposed me to the danger of being poisoned tomorrow, unless I pay him over to my heart's content, I will not die till I have seen him burned alive before my eyes. Ah!" said she, weeping, this time real tears, "I lead a most unhappy life, and the little pleasure I have costs me the life of a dog, let alone my salvation."
As she finished this jeremiad, wailing like a calf that is being slaughtered, she beheld the blushing face of the young priest, who had hidden himself, peeping at her from behind her large Venetian mirror.
"Ah!" said she, "Thou art the most perfect monk that ever dwelt in this blessed and amorous town of Constance. Ah, ah! Come my gentle cavalier, my dear boy, my little charm, my paradise of delectation, let me drink thine eyes, eat thee, kill thee with my love. Oh! my ever-flourishing, ever-green, sempiternal god; from a little monk I would make a king, emperor, pope, and happier than either. There, thou canst put anything to fire and sword, I am thine, and thou shalt see it well; for thou shalt be all a cardinal, even when to redden thy hood I shed all my heart's blood." And with her trembling hands all joyously she filled with Greek wine the golden cup, brought by the Bishop of Coire, and presented it to her sweetheart, whom she served upon her knee, she whose slipper princes found more to their taste than that of the pope.
But he gazed at her in silence, with his eye so lustrous with love, that she said to him, trembling with joy " Ah! be quiet, little one.
Let us have supper."
