heir
master, and said: "Oh, mercy on us, there's nobody left, neither the
dead woman nor the live one! The room's quite empty." Said the master:
"You don't say so!" Then he dressed himself as fast as he could, and
went and looked, and found nobody. And he saw that the clothes his wife
wore to go out in were gone too. Then he called the servants, and said
to them: "Here, take these torches, and let us go and look in the
underground passage." So all the people went down there with lighted
torches; and after searching about a bit, they found the poor maid, who
gave no sign of life. The servants took her by one arm; but it was all
bent up stiff, and wouldn't move. And they tried the other arm, and that
was the same, and all her body was knotted together quite stiff. Then
they took up this ball of a woman, and carried her up-stairs, and put
her on her bed. The master sent for the doctors, to see if they could
bring back life to her. And by degrees she began to open her eyes and
move her fingers. But she had had a stroke and couldn't speak. But by
the movements of her fingers they could make out nearly everything she
wanted to say. Then the master had the torches lighted again, and went
down again into the underground passage, to see if he could find any
trace of the dead woman. They looked and looked, but they could find
nothing but a deep hole. And the master understood directly that that
was where his wife and her _compare_ had been swallowed up. And upon
that he went up-stairs again; but he wouldn't stay any longer in that
palace, nor even in Venice, and he went away to Verona. And in the
palace he left the maid, with her dollar a day and people to take care
of her and feed her, for to the end of her days she was bedridden and
couldn't speak. And the master would have every one free to go and see
that sight, that it might be a warning to all people who had the evil
intention of not respecting the baptismal relationship.[28]

* * * * *

The second of Bernoni's legends turns on the peculiar sanctity of the
relation of a groomsman (_compare de l'anelo_) to the bride. The full
title is: "About a _compare de l'anelo_ who pressed the bride's hand
with evil intent." It is as follows:

LIX. THE GROOMSMAN

You must know that we Venetians have a saying that the groomsman is the
godfather of the first child. Well, in the parish of the Angel Raphael
it happened that there was a young man and woman