The company, of which I was now enrolled a member, moved on towards Siena, that city for which—­as Aurelia’s cradle—­I had a feeling of profound reverence; towards which now, in spite of all that had occurred, I could not approach without a quickening of the pulse, an aching heart, and a longing mind.  We travelled with a large caravan of donkeys and mules to carry the baggage and women—­La Panormita, her gross old mother, and two hags, who called themselves the mothers, and were really the owners, of the boys.  The rest of us, the men and the boys themselves, trudged afoot.  We begged, jigged, or bullied for food as we went, having scarcely any money among us; for just now, after a disastrous week in Florence, the company was by way of starving until it could earn some pence-halfpence in Siena.  The first night we slept in a rick-yard—­a bitter wet night it was; the next, we reached Certaldo, and cajoled the landlord of the Ghirlanda out of house-room.  This he only consented to upon the condition of our giving free entertainment then and there to his customers.  We had been all day on the road; but what choice is open to the needy traveller?  Footsore, muddy to the eyes, hungry, thirsty as we were—­our clothes of the stage sodden with rain, our finery like wet weeds, our face-powder like mud and our paints like soup—­we must perforce open our packs, don our chill motley, daub our weary faces, and caper through some piece of tomfoolery which, if it had not been so insipid, would have been grotesquely indecent.  All I remember about it now is that it was called La Nuova Lucrezia ossia La Gatteria del Spropositi, a monstrous travesty of the story of Lucrece.  One of the castrati—­Pamfilo by name—­played the part of Lisetta, “una putta di undici anni,” and exhibited the most remarkable turn of satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since.  Horrible in a manner as it was, it would have redeemed any performance.  This demon of ingenuity and wit was little more than fourteen years old, and sang like an angel of Paradise.  Another of them was the Lucrezia, the Roman matron—­put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous peering glances of Colombina.  Belviso would have sustained it had he been present.  Adone, his understudy, took his place.  My own share in the mummery was humble and confusing.  In toga and cothurnus I had to read a pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of “Basta! basta!” from the audience.  I don’t believe that I was more thankful than they were when I had done.  The less I say about the rest of the evening and night the better.  The people of Certaldo more than maintain the popular reputation of their great townsman, Boccaccio.  They are as light-hearted, as impertinent, as amorous as he; and they diverted themselves with our company in a manner which did credit to his example.  Such things, I hope I may say, were very little to my taste; but it was necessary for me not to seem singular, and I fancy that I did not.