Ah, young Signore, stride in anger, dost thou, back that way that but lately thou didst come? The anger thou quelledst in tears thou badest revive in thy father's house. The sin of anger is in all truth bad enough, but anger toward thy father, who gave thee thy being, who maintained and schooled thee, who is now the means to enlighten thy mind further through travel in outlandish parts, this is of all sins perhaps the most reprehensible, being the most unnatural. Filial piety was ever accounted by the ancients the most goodly of virtues in the young and the crime of parricide was of all crimes punished with the most ingenious severity. Here in truth there are monkeys, parrots and snakes enough to be thy uncomfortable partners in a sealed sack to be thrown in the sea, though parricide, thou wouldst say in thy rustic and barbarous dialect, thou hast as yet only committed in thy heart. But the Almighty, in matter of sin as of virtue, taketh the will for the deed. Remember that. Add to this sin the sin of theft and, occasioned by that, the sin of gluttony, also the sin of lecherous intent toward an honourable and high-placed matron, and all this in but two days, and thou hast a fair bag. But more sin is to come, and that sin a double one, namely of both lechery in act, perhaps venial in the young but by no means to be condoned, and of adultery, which Saint John saith shall be punished by fire for the act and brimstone for the stink of the ordure of the partners in that sin. One partner this night may in no wise be eternally punished, for she knoweth not the enormity of the commission nor, in her invincible ignorance, hath she heard the Word and seen the truth of it. She is but a heathen, thou hast been schooled in the right way and didst once even kiss the toe of the Sovereign Pontiff. But what grace remaineth in thee? Thou wilt like some young bull go to it, slaking thy parricidal anger in its relief but by no means quenching it finally.
Thou walkest but a little way and then hearest a voice as of one calling. It is a woman calling from a safe covert, a hut for day-labourers long neglected, the home of spider, scorpion, lizard and human lust. With the instinct of her kind she knoweth the best and most secret places for lechery. Thou hearest, attentively thou listenest, thy head on one side in manner of a hound, thou followest that voice. Outside the hut are palm-trees, but these call not to thy mind stories of the Holy Land. Holiness thou dost not desire; thou art bent on sin, the act of darkness.
On her breath is no honey but the smell of strong drink, the potent mingling of barley and juniper in deadly ferment. That smell thou recallest not from early days when thou wast but young in sin; then it was the smell of the grape. But no matter: the grape, the barleycorn, the juniper berry, given by God to gladden man's heart but not too much, can be the fuel to unlawful passion, more, they can be its excuse. For thee no extenuation stands. If thou art drunken, it is with anger. It maketh a bull, a goat, a stallion of thee; in awful joy thou goest to it.
But, stay, who are these? One man is from the Antipodes but, contrary to the superstition of the vulgar, he is like other men. His companion is the eternal wanderer; he acknowledgeth neither kin nor birthplace. He approacheth eld, he hath experience. It is he who seeth the cabin where thy lust worketh itself out, he remembereth lewd advice of the charioteer of Cathay. He beckoneth his fellow closer to it, he heareth, approacheth on tiptoe the sound of beastly gratification. With somewhat of envy he heareth, but with somewhat more of loathing.
In flagrante thou hast it, but the shameful detail hid by the dark, that hell-born abettor of sin. What followeth but a Babel, a confusion of unholy cries, kicks and blows, screams of woman in fear. Lust croucheth now above in the roof tree, his wings fearfully foldeth. The watch cannot be called, for the watch is ever distant from crime, keeping away, in terror of what they should prevent or, following their duty, arrest. But this is a heathen land and the law is but a scrawl on old sheepskin, meet only for derision. It sufficeth to seek revenge in place of justice, though the wronged husband, doubt it not, will speak angry words in the chambers of the high. Thee he blameth bitterly, seeing in thy person and thy acts all that he most loathes in thy race the which, in his antipodean way, he allegeth to be most vile and corrupt. The other man he blameth for being the witting cause of the weakening of his wife's hitherto, so he insisteth, inviolate virtue. But in his rage he spareth not her, calling her Jezebel and harlot, asking heaven where now is that small and tender one of the goat's flock that, in this land at least, had all his heart. Thou, trained in the art, hittest shrewdly, dancing on swift feet. Thou hittest too hard and layest him low. Out for the count. Over his corse sobs the woman.
Wilt thou never be out of trouble? Wilt thou never learn to avoid the occasions of sin? What will thy father say? A chariot, with roof of royal yellow, halteth by the carnage. Sacklike the seeming corse must be lugged aboard. The charioteer asketh double fare for transporting of a corse to the laying-out. Other care hath he not. But much care hast thou, young Signore.
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