Gilbert was himself a satirist and a fanatical admirer of Missir, whom he rightly considered as his spiritual ancestor.

The very first day the traveller had himself guided to the public square where, according to tradition, Missir used to come on certain fixed dates to recite his new-fledged verses to the reverent and attentive crowd, measuring his rather chanting declamation with the incessant jingle of an uneven sistrum.

In Missir’s various commentators, Gilbert had read many violent and passionately argumentative pages occasioned by the widely held popular belief crediting the great poet with an unusual sistrum. Some declared such a thing impossible on the grounds that, in all the ancient sistra reproduced in drawings or documents, the transverse, vibrating metal rods were either four or six in number; they referred, in addition, to the testimony of excavations, which had never brought an uneven sistrum to light. Others held that, in spite of all this, one must bow to the voice of authority and allow that Missir had craved the distinction of using an instrument unique of its kind.

Sending his guides away to wait for him at a distance, Gilbert remained to ponder alone upon the scene sanctified by the venerable shade of his long-dead master. In the ruins about him he tried to conjure up again the populous magnificence of the ancient city, moved by the thought that he was undoubtedly treading in Missir’s footsteps.

Evening came, and Gilbert went on dreaming, oblivious of time, seated motionless now among the ancient scattered stones that had once formed part of the buildings. Only when night had fallen did it finally occur to him to leave the enchanting spot. As he rose, a light shone before his eyes close by, a slender, moving beam that was peeping out through a vertical crack, with its origin in some deep cave.

Gilbert went toward it, advancing several paces across the ancient flagging of a palace now destroyed. The moving light was shining through the gap between two slightly separated flagstones. Gazing down into the illuminated crack, the poet glimpsed a vast hall where two unknown men, one of them holding a lit lamp, were walking about between strange piles of objects, stuffs and finery.

By listening to the two companions — both local men — Gilbert unraveled from their conversation all the details of a plot. The younger speaker had discovered all sorts of antique objects in the depths of some underground apartments whose existence had, until then, gone unsuspected. These had all been gathered into the present hall, made quite secure by its particularly difficult access. The older man, who was a sailor by profession, planned to come each year and remove a portion of this wealth, which he would convey in a cart, by night, as far as the sea; there he would embark with it on his boat and sail far away to sell it for a fabulous sum. The two accomplices were to share the profits, while keeping their business secret so as to avoid the just claims of their compatriots, who possessed the same rights as they over this common treasure.

As they went through the gallery, the two men selected various objects to carry off in the middle of the night and send away to sea. Once they had made their choice, they left by way of an exit whose nature and location Gilbert was unable to discern. He tried hard to see them emerging somewhere from the ruins, but his efforts were in vain.

Hearing nothing more, the poet, who was in a frenzy of curiosity, conceived the idea of touching and admiring, alone and before anyone else, the unknown marvels accumulated so near at hand. The moon had just risen and was bathing the two parted flagstones in its beams. Gilbert discovered that one of them seemed to lack all trace of cement; finding a certain purchase in the crack with his hands, he managed to lift the heavy stone and lay it aside.

Gilbert easily slipped his body through the new-made opening and, with his fingers clinging to its edge, extended his arms to diminish his fall, then gently let himself drop.

The moonlight was flooding through the cavity in the flagstone, while the poet, filled with inquisitive enthusiasm, gazed with delight on jewels, fine stuffs, musical instruments and statuettes all heaped up in the fascinating museum.

Suddenly he stopped, trembling with emotion and surprise. Before him, among various knickknacks in the pale light, there stood a sistrum with five rods! He seized it hastily to make a close examination, and when he saw Missir’s name engraved on the handle in authentic characters, he felt certain that he held in his hand the famous uneven sistrum which had stirred up so much controversy. Dazzled by his find, Gilbert was able to make his way back to the hole he had created, by piling up several pieces of furniture.

Treading again the soil of the square, he came once more to the spot where he had dreamt so late into the night, and there, in an ecstasy of joy, he recited from memory Missir’s finest verses in their original tongue, gently shaking the sistrum once wielded by the great poet.

Under the intense light of the moon, Gilbert in his exaltation believed he felt Missir’s breath reviving in his breast. He was standing precisely where his idol had melodiously recited his new stanzas to the crowd in bygone days, to the measure of the very instrument that now disturbed the night air with its tinkling.

After intoxicating himself for a long time with poetry and memories, Gilbert went to rejoin his guides, who learnt from his lips of the existence of the treasures assembled in the subterranean hall, and the gist of the conversation overheard. A trap was laid for the two accom­plices, who were caught that very night at their clandestine activity of trying to corner the hoard.

Missir’s sistrum was presented to Gilbert as a token of gratitude for the great service he had rendered, and he reverently preserved this incomparable relic ever afterward.

4. The following Lombard legend, which bears a striking resemblance to the fable of “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.”

Once, at Bergamo, there lived a dwarf named Pizzighini.

Each year, on the first day of spring, his pores would dilate under the climatic influence of the season and his whole body would sweat blood.

According to popular belief, when this bloody sweat occurred pro­fusely, it was the sign of a good season and the pledge beforehand of an abundant harvest. On the other hand, when it was weak and limited in amount, it forecast a long drought followed by scarcity and ruin. Now this belief had always been justified by the facts.

At the time of his strange malady, accompanied by a bout of fever serious enough to confine him to his bed, Pizzighini was always watched by a group of farmers; depending on the amount of blood exuded, joy or consternation would spread across all the plains of the land. When the forecast was satisfactory, the country people knew that a splendid harvest would give them a long spell of happiness and repose, and they thanked the dwarf by sending him many presents. In their superstition they made him into a kind of deity. Mistaking a purely meteorological effect for a cause, they thought that Pizzighini decreed the good or bad harvest just as he pleased; and when the forecast was auspicious, they urged him, with the calculated liberality of their presents, to satisfy them again the following year. A very slight sweat, on the other hand, prompted no gifts.

Pizzighini was a lazy, debauched fellow, who greatly appreciated these profits which cost him so little effort. Whenever his sheets and bed were completely drenched with blood, the handsome presents he received from various parts of the land enabled him to live in peaceful idleness and plenty, but as he was too slack and improvident to save, he fell into extreme poverty each time the sweat was only moderate.

One year, at the usual springtide, before taking to his bed to suffer his usual periodic, feverish sweat, he hid a knife under the sheets, with the object of giving the phenomenon a helping hand in case of need.

On that day, as it happened, the freak perspired very little; only a few rare droplets of red beaded upon his face. Terrified by the prospect of the long months of beggary that lay ahead, he pretended to move restlessly about in his fever and succeeded in making a series of deep cuts on his body and limbs, without arousing the suspicions of the observers gathered round him.

Thereupon, to everybody’s great delight, the sheets became drenched with blood. But the wounded dwarf could no longer control the bleeding; and when the marveling onlookers withdrew to proclaim to the people that never had the red sweat flowed before in anything approaching such profusion, they left him half-dead from loss of blood.

Particularly fine and numerous were the gifts that came for Pizzighini who, weak, anemic and only dragging himself around with difficulty, frightened everyone by the dreadful pallor of his complexion.

Now throughout that season a terrible and unremitting drought prevailed, and cruel famine raged everywhere.