But it defies all power of words. The sweet seduction
of its balance, the white gleaming beauty of the blade, were things that
thrilled me with something akin to the thrill of the first kiss of passion.
It was not quite the same, I know; yet I can think of nothing else in life
that is worthy of being compared with it.
I was at the time a lad in my thirteenth year, but I was well-grown and
strong beyond my age, despite the fact that my mother had restrained me
from all those exercises of horsemanship, of arms, and of wrestling by
which boys of my years attain development. I stood almost as tall then as
Falcone himself--who was accounted of a good height--and if my reach fell
something short of his, I made up for this by the youthful quickness of my
movements; so that soon--unless out of good nature he refrained from
exerting his full vigour--I found myself Falcone's match.
Fra Gervasio, who was then my tutor, and with whom my mornings were spent
in perfecting my Latin and giving me the rudiments of Greek, soon had his
suspicions of where the hour of the siesta was spent by me with old
Falcone. But the good, saintly man held his peace, a matter which at that
time intrigued me. Others there were, however, who thought well to bear
the tale of our doings to my mother, and thus it happened that she came
upon us that day in the armoury, each of us in shirt and breeches at
sword-and-target play.
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