From his more than customary gesticulations, his circumlocutions, his use of delicate innuendo rather than open threats, I was led to perceive that he felt he had a ticklish business, and I played my own hand more boldly. He began by recalling that he had been favored with the early friendship of my noble kinsmen of Florence and Bologna; that I had been after a manner under his tutelage since quitting my studies at Padua, that he had introduced me to fashion and preferment at Rome, “and would have carried me yet higher, but for that dastardly bungling by Orosi.” Finally he referred delicately to “his near relationship to that lady whom I had so worthily honored with my affections.” All this, however, was mere preliminary to an admirably marshalled attack--in far more subtle language than Marianna had used--upon my determination to return to Germany. But unfortunately for his Eminence, the arguments advanced had already been amply deliberated upon and refuted by my own sorely hesitant self. I had anticipated everything Forli had to say, and I replied to it, not indeed to his satisfaction, but vastly to my own. The result was that our dialogue did not run smoothly, and the worthy churchman presently raised his voice to no dignified pitch, while we exchanged parry and thrust. “Do you believe in this swinish friar’s theology?” he shouted for the tenth time. “You know I have no theology. I perhaps say ‘_credo_’ blindly to what the Church teaches, never asking whether what I speak with my lips is written on my heart. But now comes this man of Wittenberg who speaks not to my interest, my intellect, but to my soul.” “Your soul? The strangest word that ever left your tongue. How can this friar, soon to feel the full displeasure of the Church, speak to your soul? It’s sure damnation.” “Let us have no ‘damnation’ from such as you,” I returned. “I repeat, for reasons I cannot fathom, this Martin Luther has stirred me to the depths of my being. If damnation there is, it is such as he threatens.” “You talk like one possessed. Explain.” “I despair of explaining.” I strove vainly to speak with composure. “I understand myself, but not how to make all clear to you. Surely your Eminence knows the story of the women dancers, who danced before the cross in mockery of our Lord and His passion--how they must now dance through all eternity on sharp points amid hell fire. I tell you, I dread lest if I turn my back on this summons now--and go on dancing, feasting, laughing, here in Palaestro--I will meet their fate. I will not, I cannot invite it--” The Cardinal shrugged his shoulders eloquently, and threw up his hands. “My poor Gualtiero; who would have thought it? You are about to begin on ‘duty, honor, and conscience’ again. You are indeed very ill.” “Not so. I am just growing better.” “To think that a little thing like Tetzel’s incautious zeal with indulgences could make you so deranged.”