III

During the whole five years which had elapsed since his departure, no one had known anything about him.  All rumours concerning him had died out, exactly as though he had vanished from the face of the earth.  When Fabio met his friend on one of the streets in Ferrara he came near crying out aloud, first from fright, then from joy, and immediately invited him to his villa.  There, in the garden, was a spacious, detached pavilion; he suggested that his friend should settle down in that pavilion.  Muzio gladly accepted, and that same day removed thither with his servant, a dumb Malay—­dumb but not deaf, and even, judging from the vivacity of his glance, a very intelligent man....  His tongue had been cut out.  Muzio had brought with him scores of chests filled with divers precious things which he had collected during his prolonged wanderings.

Valeria was delighted at Muzio’s return; and he greeted her in a cheerfully-friendly but composed manner.  From everything it was obvious that he had kept the promise made to Fabio.  In the course of the day he succeeded in installing himself in his pavilion; with the aid of his Malay he set out the rarities he had brought—­rugs, silken tissues, garments of velvet and brocade, weapons, cups, dishes, and beakers adorned with enamel, articles of gold and silver set with pearls and turquoises, carved caskets of amber and ivory, faceted flasks, spices, perfumes, pelts of wild beasts, the feathers of unknown birds, and a multitude of other objects, the very use of which seemed mysterious and incomprehensible.  Among the number of all these precious things there was one rich pearl necklace which Muzio had received from the Shah of Persia for a certain great and mysterious service; he asked Valeria’s permission to place this necklace on her neck with his own hand; it seemed to her heavy, and as though endowed with a strange sort of warmth ... it fairly adhered to the skin.  Toward evening, after dinner, as they sat on the terrace of the villa, in the shade of oleanders and laurels, Muzio began to narrate his adventures.  He told of the distant lands which he had seen, of mountains higher than the clouds, of rivers like unto seas; he told of vast buildings and temples, of trees thousands of years old, of rainbow-hued flowers and birds; he enumerated the cities and peoples he had visited.... (their very names exhaled something magical).  All the Orient was familiar to Muzio:  he had traversed Persia and Arabia, where the horses are more noble and beautiful than all other living creatures; he had penetrated the depths of India, where is a race of people resembling magnificent plants; he had attained to the confines of China and Tibet, where a living god, the Dalai Lama by name, dwells upon earth in the form of a speechless man with narrow eyes.  Marvellous were his tales!  Fabio and Valeria listened to him as though enchanted.