The little procession wended its way through narrow streets and damp alleyways where small shops overflowing with every kind of merchandise and taverns reeking of cheap wine and roast meat opened wide their inviting doors, as though almost tugging at the arm of the passer-by. The fagades of the surrounding houses hid their shame and wretchedness behind long rows of white cloths, hanging from window to window and dripping icy water onto the heads of pedestrians, while Trastevere's sleepy thoroughfares were trampled by cartwheels, the feet of children at play and the hooves of donkeys resignedly heaving their burdens.
On entering Piazza San Callisto, I heard what I can only describe as some miaowing music gradually draw nearer, while a great multitude of people came towards me. At the head of the crowd were two middle-aged men, dirty and badly dressed, who advanced painfully, leaning on walking sticks. I noticed with a certain disquiet that both had their eyeballs turned inwards, like the old man of whom I'd dreamed at dawn. Between the pair and holding each by the arm was a companion no less filthy and unpresentable, also using a stick and displaying a very obvious limp. Immediately behind, there followed a fiddler, filling the street with the insinuating melancholy of a chaconne. There followed other ragged tramps, almost all blind or crippled. Beggars, always beggars. For years I had lived in Rome in their company, without ever paying much attention to them. Now, since the return of Atto Melani, they had suddenly become not only important, but very important to me! I therefore stood aside, the better to observe the procession. The two blind men at the head of the group held a snuff box and a bowl respectively, both made of silver, and chanted in lamentable counterpoint with the sound of the fiddle.
'Charity for Saint Elizabeth, make an offering to Saint Elizabeth!'
Every now and then a benefactor would break away from the indistinct mass of passers-by, to throw some coin into the bowl. The other blind man would then offer him a pinch of snuff, which the kind person offering charity would take from the snuff box with a sort of tiny glass measure.
The rest of the procession, as I was able to observe when they turned to the right into the Vicolo de' Pazzi, was one long line of people, all muffled up and miserable-looking, every single unfortunate among them apparently eyeless, legless or armless. The cortege was surrounded by a collection of poor children begging for charity, rather like seagulls following a ship in the hope of some refuse from the vessel's stores.
A young cleric approached the head of the procession. He threw a grosso coin into the bowl and took a small pinch of tobacco, which caused him to cough and sneeze. When he had moved away from the cortege, I followed and accosted him.
'Excuse me, Father, what procession is this?'
'It is the Company of Saint Elizabeth. Normally they come out on Sundays, while today is Saturday. But in Jubilee time an exception or two is allowed them too.'
'The Company of Saint Elizabeth?' I asked, recalling that I had in the past heard tell of it. 'That group consisting entirely of the halt and the blind?'
'Yes, poor things. Fortunately, Pope Paul Vgave them a permit to beg. If only there were no catchpolls…'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, nothing. Just that the company has to pay many taxes for religious ceremonies, so that in the end, little remains to them. But you must excuse me now, I have to go to San Pietro in Montorio and I am already late.'
I was unable to detain the young cleric any longer or to obtain from him any other particulars concerning the Company of Saint Elizabeth. After leaving the priest, I spent an infinitesimal proportion of the money received for my literary services to Abbot Melani on the acquisition from a street vendor of a carton of little fish, just fried and deliciously crisp to the teeth.
I turned towards Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere; contemplating the noble and ancient fagade of the church, I ate, leaning on the steps of the fountain in the middle of the square. I was thinking. I remembered that I had heard tell of the Company of St Elizabeth, because on the saint's day they hold a procession with a great military escort and visit the four holy basilicas. I was not, however, aware that they had a papal authorisation to beg; furthermore, I found the cleric's remark concerning the catchpolls distinctly curious. What could Sfasciamonti's colleagues have to do with the company's contribution to religious festivities? I turned and saw the dusty and sinuous serpent of the procession turning into a side-road. Behind it there remained a breath of air smelling of unwashed bodies, rotting clothes and kitchen odours.
'And I, what do I pay taxes for?' exclaimed the owner of a tavern with four tables outside, waylaying me loudly and polemically. A middle-aged man with a feline expression and a swollen pot-belly, his accent was from the Abruzzi and he seemed to be one of those people who complains about everything but does nothing about anything. After the company had gone on its way, he had begun to sweep lazily but irately in front of his door.
'But the Company of St Elizabeth never entered your inn,' said I, amazed by the man's anger with those crippled, wretched outcasts.
'My boy, I don't know how long you've lived in this city, but I can assure you that I am far older than you,' said he, leaning his broom against the wall, 'and I have seen and heard more than you could ever imagine. For example, whoever owns a shop, market stall, warehouse, store, inn, hostelry, wine-shop, bakery or other place where goods are sold, both foodstuffs and other goods, must, in order to exercise any trade pay in advance ten baiocchi a month to have the street cleaned and washed. Hired carriages, the pozzolana quarries, the docks on the Tiber, even ordinary town carriages, all pay taxes. And even those who don't pay them must slave away to comply with the health regulations against pollution of the air: buffalo herdsmen, butchers and coachmen must cleanse their stables, coach houses and enclosures of all dung and refuse. Market gardeners and the owners of vineyards may not keep manure in the streets of Rome, either within the walls or without. Fruiterers, greengrocers, fishmongers and straw merchants must always remove all the refuse they have produced during the day, down to the last straw, leaf or wood shaving, otherwise they get a fine of five scudi. What else? Ah yes, dyers and tanners cannot throw the waste water from their work into the street and have to pour it into drains specially built for that purpose. And now I tell you: the wastrels of Saint Elizabeth's Company, when they come here, stink and befoul the streets worse than the Nubians of ancient Rome, they take up the whole roadway and make my customers go away. And they, what do they pay?'
'I have just been told that they pay a tax to the catchpolls,' I replied, making immediate use of my conversation with the young cleric.
'To the catchpolls? Ha ha!' guffawed the innkeeper, grasping his broom and beginning again to sweep the pavement. 'And you call that a tax? But that's the catchpolls' fee.'
'The catchpolls' fee?'
He stopped and looked all around him, as though to make sure that no one was listening.
'For heaven's sake, young man, where do you live? Everyone knows that the catchpolls take money under the counter from the Company of Saint Elizabeth, in exchange for which they can beg as much as they wish, even in places where it is forbidden by orders and edicts. The money is given on the pretext of paying for religious festivities. But everyone knows that is not what it is all about.'
He resumed sweeping vigorously, as though he wanted to work off an impotent, sulking rage by the activity of cleaning.
'Forgive me,' I resumed, 'but if you are telling me…'
'He talks like he eats, and what he says, even I can see.'
The voice that had come between us was that of a shoe vendor, who was carrying on his shoulders two strings of footwear of every kind and size (boots and clogs, street shoes and slippers) secured to a wooden yoke by long leather thongs. He was a thin, emaciated old man with a pitilessly lined face, wearing only a grey shirt knotted at his belly, breeches that were too short and a half stoved-in straw hat.
'If people help these ragamuffins, there will only be more and more of them. Look at me, boy. I go out and earn my bread. As for those like the Company of Saint Elizabeth, they have protectors and grow fat.'
'Come on now, they're blind and crippled,' I insisted.
'Oh really? Then how do you explain that there are more and more beggars, vagabonds and wastrels? How do you explain that one Roman out of two begs for charity? And yet, the alms keep rolling in, indeed they do!'
'Perhaps it's because there's not enough bread for everyone.'
'Not enough bread!' said the shoe-seller scornfully. 'Poor fool.. '
'The truth,' the innkeeper went on, 'is that the poor are not poor. A beggar who's found a good place, say in front of San Sisto's, can earn far more money than me.'
'But what are you saying?'
'Let fools give alms,' said the pedlar acidly.
