Chapter 28 - Page 2

me know when the true is better than the false."

"Happy would it be if all had the same faculty and the same disposition to
put it in use."

"I shall not presume to teach one as wise and as experienced as yourself,
eccellenza, but if an humble man might speak freely in this honorable
presence, he would say that it is not common to meet with a fact without
finding it a very near neighbor to a lie. They pass for the wisest and the
most virtuous who best know how to mix the two so artfully together, that,
like the sweets we put upon healing bitters, the palatable may make the
useful go down. Such at least is the opinion of a poor street buffoon,
who has no better claim to merit than having learned his art on the Mole
and in the Toledo of Bellissima Napoli, which, as everybody knows, is a
bit of heaven fallen upon earth!"

The fervor with which Pippo uttered the customary eulogium on the site of
the ancient Parthenope was so natural and characteristic as to excite a
smile in the judge, in spite of the solemn duty in which he was engaged,
and it was believed to be an additional proof of the speaker's innocence.
The châtelain then slowly recapitulated the history of the buffoon and the
pilgrim to his companions, the purport of which was as follows.

Pippo naively admitted the debauch at Vévey, implicating the festivities
of the day and the known frailty of the flesh as the two influencing
causes. Conrad, however, stood upon the purity of his life and the sacred
character of his calling, justifying the company he kept on the
respectable plea of necessity, and on that of the mortifications to which
a pilgrimage should, of right, subject him who undertakes it. They had
quitted Vaud together as early as the evening of the day of the abbaye's
ceremonies, and, from that time to the moment of their arrival at the
convent, had made a diligent use of their legs, in order to cross the Col
before the snows should set in and render the passage dangerous. They had
been seen at Martigny, at Liddes, and St. Pierre, alone and at proper
hours, making the best of their way towards the hospice; and, though of
necessity their progress and actions, for several hours after quitting the
latter place, were not brought within the observation of any but of that
all-seeing eye which commands a view of the recesses of the Alps equally
with those of more frequented spots, their arrival at the abode of the
monks was sufficiently seasonable to give reason to believe that no
portion of the intervening time had been wasted by the way. Thus far their
account of themselves and their movements was distinct, while, on the
other hand, there was not a single fact to implicate either, beyond the
suspicion