XII

she went on, seating herself and beginning to fan herself with the white veil hanging over her arm. “Well, well; if I didn’t bring you some news of the world now and then, I do believe you’d forget there was anything in life but these mouldy ancients, who want sprinkling with holy water if all I hear about them is true. Not but what the world is bad enough nowadays, for the scandals that turn up under one’s nose at every corner⁠— I don’t want to hear and see such things, but one can’t go about with one’s head in a bag; and it was only yesterday⁠—well, well, you needn’t burst out at me, Bardo, I’m not going to tell anything; if I’m not as wise as the three kings, I know how many legs go into one boot. But, nevertheless, Florence is a wicked city⁠—is it not true, Messer Tito? for you go into the world. Not but what one must sin a little⁠—Messer Domeneddio expects that of us, else what are the blessed sacraments for? And what I say is, we’ve got to reverence the saints, and not to set ourselves up as if we could be like them, else life would be unbearable; as it will be if things go on after this new fashion. For what do you think? I’ve been at the wedding today⁠—Dianora Acciajoli’s with the young Albizzi that there has been so much talk of⁠—and everybody wondered at its being today instead of yesterday; but, cieli ! such a wedding as it was might have been put off till the next Quaresima for a penance. For there was the bride looking like a white nun⁠—not so much as a pearl about her⁠—and the bridegroom as solemn as San Giuseppe. It’s true! And half the people invited were Piagnoni ⁠—they call them Piagnoni now, these new saints of Fra Girolamo’s making. And to think of two families like the Albizzi and the Acciajoli taking up such notions, when they could afford to wear the best! Well, well, they invited me⁠—but they could do no other, seeing my husband was Luca Antonio’s uncle by the mother’s side⁠—and a pretty time I had of it while we waited under the canopy in front of the house, before they let us in. I couldn’t stand in my clothes, it seemed, without giving offence; for there was Monna Berta, who has had worse secrets in her time than any I could tell of myself, looking askance at me from under her hood like a pinzochera , and telling me to read the