"I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan – a fellow you would have kicked, Carter."
- Jane Eyre, chapter XX
It is dusk. The streets of Rome are crowded with carriages, riders, peddlers, beggars, pedestrians. The privileged are en-route to parties, the opera, the theater, or returning to a warm, well-let home for a good dinner. The less fortunate are scrambling to add a few last coins to their purses before daylight forsakes the sky completely. Through this thronging mass of humanity moves a young man. He is on foot, but his fine clothes mark him as a member of the privileged classes. He threads his way between rich and poor alike, with the ease of one accustomed to a life of comfort. His gait is steady, but neither rushed nor aimless; he possesses a destination but is in no hurry to reach it.
He is a dark young man, with a face too rugged to be called handsome, but too striking to be dismissed as ugly. A curt scusatemi, spoken as he brushes against the shoulder of a proud Roman matron, reveals him for a foreigner, not an Italian. A minute later his country of origin is disclosed: he pauses beside a pillar and draws from his waistcoat a very English pocket watch. The young Briton glances at it, and is replacing it in his waistcoat, gazing absently over the crowd, when his attention is solicited by a peddler.
"Buona sera, Signore." The old man has caught his wandering gaze. He bows low, meanwhile looking the Englishman over with a sharp glance that belies his apparent humility. He is attempting to discern the man's nationality, as well as his wealth.
The old peddler has set up his stall under the shelter of the columns, and the Englishman needs only a moment's glimpse at it to determine the man's trade: he is a quack. The Englishman regards the rows of vials, amulets, stones, peculiar little boxes and parcels, gleaming bright in the light of the hanging lanterns, then looks back at the old man with his shabby hat and coat, his gaudy purple waistcoat, his twisted old hands, covered in tarnished rings, and sneers with distaste. His teeth are white and sharp and very straight. He turns away, steps out from under the shelter of the columns, waits for an opening to appear in the crowd.
"Signore!" The quack has materialized at his elbow. The young Englishman looks at him disdainfully.
"Che vuole?"
"Ho una bella cosa per lui, Signore – una pozione d'amore!"
"Amore?" The young man laughs – a pleasant enough laugh but for the poorly concealed sarcasm in it. He has no faith in the feeling. He has almost ceased to believe in its existence. He thinks of his mistress, who no doubt waits for him at this very moment. She is a violent, temperamental young woman, entirely without principles or depth of feeling. She is a good lay – he will give her that – but her character is one alien to his. They are entirely incompatible. What he feels for her is nothing like love. Her beauty, her accomplishments, have long-since ceased to thrill or even divert him. He has lately begun searching for reasons to leave – to leave both her and Italy behind him. Germany, he thinks – that noble seat of music, poetry, art – will interest him more.
"It will light a fire in your blood, this potion," the quack is saying to him in Italian. "All beautiful women will be drawn to you."
"A fire, really?" He snorts disdainfully. "I doubt it. Be off, old man."
But as he turns away, the old man still pleading with him in disgustingly deferential, whining accents, he thinks of the scene that will await him when he returns to his lodgings. Giacinta will be made-up and dressed in her latest best – some garish, tasteless garment purchased in another increasingly fruitless attempt to seduce him. She will be upset when he does not respond as hoped. Her anger will grow when he sits through the evening meal without speaking to her. By the time the theaters empty she will be raging, the house will be in uproar, and he will lock himself into his private chamber, fling himself onto the bed with his hands over his ears and try not to think of what these screams, these tantrums remind him of. He will try with increasing fruitlessness to block out the memories of the living hell he left behind, but whose remnants still cling to him like some vile, burrowing insect, refusing to be shaken off. Swallowing hard against a sudden bitter taste in his mouth, the Englishman pauses to reconsider the charlatan's offer.
The idea of an evening spent in yet another series of liquor-aided encounters fills him with self-loathing, and he has seen too much of the effects of opium to dare making use of its enabling qualities.
"This potion," he says at last, turning back to the peddler with some reluctance, "will it give me fortitude?" All he wants is to get through this night, preferably without caring what she does to him. Then, in the morning, in the clarity of daylight, he will begin to plan his escape.
"Fortitude?" echoes the old man. "Oh yes, Signore!" And the way he says it, with a leer and an all-too-knowing twinkle in his greedy eye, is more than enough to convince him. A minute later he pockets the vial of ruby-red liquid under the old man's hawkish gaze and takes out his wallet.
As he drops the silver in the man's hand, he feels his own hand snatched up and the fingers spread wide. He turns his piercing gaze on the peddler.
"Going to tell me my fortune, are you? Be warned, I shall spare no more of my coin."
The quack shakes his head. "No, Signore." He bends a few moments longer over the strong young hand, then raises his gaze to the man's face. The dark, deep-set eyes look back unflinchingly.
"Well?"
"A fire will consume you, Signore."
"Yes, yes, so you've told me."
"In a cold place it will devour you. In a prison house with walls of stone."
The young man stares at him. His eyes widen, a strange flicker of some indecipherable emotion passes over them, then they narrow. A sardonic – an almost cruel – smile twists his features.
"Parli come un pazzo," he spits out, and snatches his hand away. Turning on his heel, he is once more arrested by the peddler.
"Beware, Signore!" The old man calls after him. "Beware of fire!"