Scorn there was in my mood and a hot contempt of him that he could stand there and accept their acclamation with an air of humility that I am persuaded was assumed: a certain envious anger was there, too, to think that such a weak-kneed, lily-livered craven should receive the plaudits of the deeds that I, his buffoon, had performed for him.

Those acclamations were not for him, although those who acclaimed him thought so.

They were for the man who had routed Ramiro del' Orca and his followers, and that man assuredly was I.Yet there I crouched above, behind the velvet curtains where none might see me, whilst he stood smiling and toying with his brown beard and listening to the fine words of praise that, I could imagine, were falling from the lips of Madonna Paola, who had drawn near and was speaking to him.
There is in my nature a certain love of effectiveness, a certain taste for theatrical parade and the contriving of odd situations.

This bent of mine was whispering to me then to throw wide the window, and, stemming their noisy plaudits, announce to them the truth of what had passed.

Yet what if I had done so?
They would have accounted it but a new jest of Boccadoro, the Fool, and one so ill-conceived that they might urge the Lord Giovanni to have him whipped for it.
Aye, it would have been a folly, a futile act that would have earned me unbelief, contempt and anger.