RETURN TO VENICE - Chapter XVII
I Turn Out A Worthless Fellow--My Good Fortune--I Become A Rich
Nobleman
With an education which ought to have ensured me an honourable
standing in the world, with some intelligence, wit, good literary and
scientific knowledge, and endowed with those accidental physical
qualities which are such a good passport into society, I found
myself, at the age of twenty, the mean follower of a sublime art, in
which, if great talent is rightly admired, mediocrity is as rightly
despised. I was compelled by poverty to become a member of a musical
band, in which I could expect neither esteem nor consideration, and I
was well aware that I should be the laughing-stock of the persons who
had known me as a doctor in divinity, as an ecclesiastic, and as an
officer in the army, and had welcomed me in the highest society.
I knew all that, for I was not blind to my position; but contempt,
the only thing to which I could not have remained indifferent, never
shewed itself anywhere under a form tangible enough for me to have no
doubt of my being despised, and I set it at defiance, because I was
satisfied that contempt is due only to cowardly, mean actions, and I
was conscious that I had never been guilty of any. As to public
esteem, which I had ever been anxious to secure, my ambition was
slumbering, and satisfied with being my own master I enjoyed my
independence without puzzling my head about the future. I felt that
in my first profession, as I was not blessed with the vocation
necessary to it, I should have succeeded only by dint of hypocrisy,
and I should have been despicable in my own estimation, even if I had
seen the purple mantle on my shoulders, for the greatest dignities
cannot silence a man's own conscience. If, on the other hand, I had
continued to seek fortune in a military career, which is surrounded
by a halo of glory, but is otherwise the worst of professions for the
constant self-abnegation, for the complete surrender of one's will
which passive obedience demands, I should have required a patience to
which I could not lay any claim, as every kind of injustice was
revolting to me, and as I could not bear to feel myself dependent.
Besides, I was of opinion that a man's profession, whatever it might
be, ought to supply him with enough money to satisfy all his wants;
and the very poor pay of an officer would never have been sufficient
to cover my expenses, because my education had given me greater wants
than those of officers in general. By scraping my violin I earned
enough to keep myself without requiring anybody's assistance, and I
have always thought that the man who can support himself is happy. I
grant that my profession was not a brilliant one, but I did not mind
it, and, calling prejudices all the feelings which rose in my breast
against myself, I was not long in sharing all the habits of my
degraded comrades. When the play was over, I went with them to the
drinking-booth, which we often left intoxicated to spend the night in
houses of ill-fame. When we happened to find those places already
tenanted by other men, we forced them by violence to quit the
premises, and defrauded the miserable victims of prostitution of the
mean salary the law allows them, after compelling them to yield to
our brutality. Our scandalous proceedings often exposed us to the
greatest danger.
We would very often spend the whole night rambling about the city,
inventing and carrying into execution the most impertinent, practical
jokes. One of our favourite pleasures was to unmoor the patricians'
gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying
by anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to
indulge in. We would rouse up hurriedly, in the middle of the night,
an honest midwife, telling her to hasten to Madame So-and-so, who,
not being even pregnant, was sure to tell her she was a fool when she
called at the house. We did the same with physicians, whom we often
sent half dressed to some nobleman who was enjoying excellent health.
The priests fared no better; we would send them to carry the last
sacraments to married men who were peacefully slumbering near their
wives, and not thinking of extreme unction.
We were in the habit of cutting the wires of the bells in every
house, and if we chanced to find a gate open we would go up the
stairs in the dark, and frighten the sleeping inmates by telling them
very loudly that the house door was not closed, after which we would
go down, making as much noise as we could, and leave the house with
the gate wide open.
During a very dark night we formed a plot to overturn the large
marble table of St. Angelo's Square, on which it was said that in the
days of the League of Cambray the commissaries of the Republic were
in the habit of paying the bounty to the recruits who engaged to
fight under the standard of St. Mark--a circumstance which secured
for the table a sort of public veneration.
Whenever we could contrive to get into a church tower we thought it
great fun to frighten all the parish by ringing the alarm bell, as if
some fire had broken out; but that was not all, we always cut the
bell ropes, so that in the morning the churchwardens had no means of
summoning the faithful to early mass. Sometimes we would cross the
canal, each of us in a different gondola, and take to our heels
without paying as soon as we landed on the opposite side, in order to
make the gondoliers run after us.
The city was alive with complaints, and we laughed at the useless
search made by the police to find out those who disturbed the peace
of the inhabitants. We took good care to be careful, for if we had
been discovered we stood a very fair chance of being sent to practice
rowing at the expense of the Council of Ten.
We were seven, and sometimes eight, because, being much attached to
my brother Francois, I gave him a share now and then in our nocturnal
orgies. But at last fear put a stop to our criminal jokes, which in
those days I used to call only the frolics of young men. This is the
amusing adventure which closed our exploits.
In every one of the seventy-two parishes of the city of Venice, there
is a large public-house called 'magazzino'. It remains open all
night, and wine is retailed there at a cheaper price than in all the
other drinking houses. People can likewise eat in the 'magazzino',
but they must obtain what they want from the pork butcher near by,
who has the exclusive sale of eatables, and likewise keeps his shop
open throughout the night. The pork butcher is usually a very poor
cook, but as he is cheap, poor people are willingly satisfied with
him, and these resorts are considered very useful to the lower class.
The nobility, the merchants, even workmen in good circumstances, are
never seen in the 'magazzino', for cleanliness is not exactly
worshipped in such places. Yet there are a few private rooms which
contain a table surrounded with benches, in which a respectable
family or a few friends can enjoy themselves in a decent way.
It was during the Carnival of 1745, after midnight; we were, all the
eight of us, rambling about together with our masks on, in quest of
some new sort of mischief to amuse us, and we went into the magazzino
of the parish of the Holy Cross to get something to drink. We found
the public room empty, but in one of the private chambers we
discovered three men quietly conversing with a young and pretty
woman, and enjoying their wine.
Our chief, a noble Venetian belonging to the Balbi family, said to
us, "It would be a good joke to carry off those three blockheads, and
to keep the pretty woman in our possession." He immediately
explained his plan, and under cover of our masks we entered their
room, Balbi at the head of us. Our sudden appearance rather
surprised the good people, but you may fancy their astonishment when
they heard Balbi say to them: "Under penalty of death, and by order
of the Council of Ten, I command you to follow us immediately,
without making the slightest noise; as to you, my good woman, you
need not be frightened, you will be escorted to your house." When he
had finished his speech, two of us got hold of the woman to take her
where our chief had arranged beforehand, and the others seized the
three poor fellows, who were trembling all over, and had not the
slightest idea of opposing any resistance.
The waiter of the magazzino came to be paid, and our chief gave him
what was due, enjoining silence under penalty of death. We took our
three prisoners to a large boat. Balbi went to the stern, ordered
the boatman to stand at the bow, and told him that he need not
enquire where we were going, that he would steer himself whichever
way he thought fit. Not one of us knew where Balbi wanted to take
the three poor devils.
He sails all along the canal, gets out of it, takes several turnings,
and in a quarter of an hour, we reach Saint George where Balbi lands
our prisoners, who are delighted to find themselves at liberty.
After this, the boatman is ordered to take us to Saint Genevieve,
where we land, after paying for the boat.
We proceed at once to Palombo Square, where my brother and another of
our band were waiting for us with our lovely prisoner, who was
crying.
"Do not weep, my beauty," says Balbi to her, "we will not hurt you.
We intend only to take some refreshment at the Rialto, and then we
will take you home in safety."
"Where is my husband?"
"Never fear; you shall see him again to-morrow."
Comforted by that promise, and as gentle as a lamb, she follows us to
the "Two Swords." We ordered a good fire in a private room, and,
everything we wanted to eat and to drink having been brought in, we
send the waiter away, and remain alone. We take off our masks, and
the sight of eight young, healthy faces seems to please the beauty we
had so unceremoniously carried off. We soon manage to reconcile her
to her fate by the gallantry of our proceedings; encouraged by a good
supper and by the stimulus of wine, prepared by our compliments and
by a few kisses, she realizes what is in store for her, and does not
seem to have any unconquerable objection. Our chief, as a matter of
right, claims the privilege of opening the ball; and by dint of sweet
words he overcomes the very natural repugnance she feels at
consummating the sacrifice in so numerous company. She, doubtless,
thinks the offering agreeable, for, when I present myself as the
priest appointed to sacrifice a second time to the god of love, she
receives me almost with gratitude, and she cannot conceal her joy
when she finds out that she is destined to make us all happy. My
brother Francois alone exempted himself from paying the tribute,
saying that he was ill, the only excuse which could render his
refusal valid, for we had established as a law that every member of
our society was bound to do whatever was done by the others.
After that fine exploit, we put on our masks, and, the bill being
paid, escorted the happy victim to Saint Job, where she lived, and
did not leave her till we had seen her safe in her house, and the
street door closed.
My readers may imagine whether we felt inclined to laugh when the
charming creature bade us good night, thanking us all with perfect
good faith!
Two days afterwards, our nocturnal orgy began to be talked of. The
young woman's husband was a weaver by trade, and so were his two
friends. They joined together to address a complaint to the Council
of Ten. The complaint was candidly written and contained nothing but
the truth, but the criminal portion of the truth was veiled by a
circumstance which must have brought a smile on the grave
countenances of the judges, and highly amused the public at large:
the complaint setting forth that the eight masked men had not
rendered themselves guilty of any act disagreeable to the wife. It
went on to say that the two men who had carried her off had taken her
to such a place, where they had, an hour later, been met by the other
six, and that they had all repaired to the "Two Swords," where they
had spent an hour in drinking. The said lady having been handsomely
entertained by the eight masked men, had been escorted to her house,
where she had been politely requested to excuse the joke perpetrated
upon her husband. The three plaintiffs had not been able to leave
the island of Saint George until day-break, and the husband, on
reaching his house, had found his wife quietly asleep in her bed.
She had informed him of all that had happened; she complained of
nothing but of the great fright she had experienced on account of her
husband, and on that count she entreated justice and the punishment
of the guilty parties.
That complaint was comic throughout, for the three rogues shewed
themselves very brave in writing, stating that they would certainly
not have given way so easily if the dread authority of the council
had not been put forth by the leader of the band. The document
produced three different results; in the first place, it amused the
town; in the second, all the idlers of Venice went to Saint Job to
hear the account of the adventure from the lips of the heroine
herself, and she got many presents from her numerous visitors; in the
third place, the Council of Ten offered a reward of five hundred
ducats to any person giving such information as would lead to the
arrest of the perpetrators of the practical joke, even if the
informer belonged to the band, provided he was not the leader.
The offer of that reward would have made us tremble if our leader,
precisely the one who alone had no interest in turning informer, had
not been a patrician. The rank of Balbi quieted my anxiety at once,
because I knew that, even supposing one of us were vile enough to
betray our secret for the sake of the reward, the tribunal would have
done nothing in order not to implicate a patrician. There was no
cowardly traitor amongst us, although we were all poor; but fear had
its effect, and our nocturnal pranks were not renewed.
Three or four months afterwards the chevalier Nicolas Iron, then one
of the inquisitors, astonished me greatly by telling me the whole
story, giving the names of all the actors. He did not tell me
whether any one of the band had betrayed the secret, and I did not
care to know; but I could clearly see the characteristic spirit of
the aristocracy, for which the 'solo mihi' is the supreme law.
Towards the middle of April of the year 1746 M. Girolamo Cornaro, the
eldest son of the family Cornaro de la Reine, married a daughter of
the house of Soranzo de St. Pol, and I had the honour of being
present at the wedding--as a fiddler. I played the violin in one of
the numerous bands engaged for the balls which were given for three
consecutive days in the Soranzo Palace.
On the third day, towards the end of the dancing, an hour before day-
break, feeling tired, I left the orchestra abruptly; and as I was
going down the stairs I observed a senator, wearing his red robes, on
the point of getting into a gondola. In taking his handkerchief out
of his pocket he let a letter drop on the ground. I picked it up,
and coming up to him just as he was going down the steps I handed it
to him. He received it with many thanks, and enquired where I lived.
I told him, and he insisted upon my coming with him in the gondola
saying that he would leave me at my house. I accepted gratefully,
and sat down near him. A few minutes afterwards he asked me to rub
his left arm, which, he said, was so benumbed that he could not feel
it. I rubbed it with all my strength, but he told me in a sort of
indistinct whisper that the numbness was spreading all along the left
side, and that he was dying.
I was greatly frightened; I opened the curtain, took the lantern, and
found him almost insensible, and the mouth drawn on one side. I
understood that he was seized with an apoplectic stroke, and called
out to the gondoliers to land me at once, in order to procure a
surgeon to bleed the patient.
I jumped out of the gondola, and found myself on the very spot where
three years before I had taught Razetta such a forcible lesson; I
enquired for a surgeon at the first coffee-house, and ran to the
house that was pointed out to me. I knocked as hard as I could; the
door was at last opened, and I made the surgeon follow me in his
dressing-gown as far as the gondola, which was waiting; he bled the
senator while I was tearing my shirt to make the compress and the
bandage.
The operation being performed, I ordered the gondoliers to row as
fast as possible, and we soon reached St. Marina; the servants were
roused up, and taking the sick man out of the gondola we carried him
to his bed almost dead.
Taking everything upon myself, I ordered a servant to hurry out for a
physician, who came in a short time, and ordered the patient to be
bled again, thus approving the first bleeding prescribed by me.
Thinking I had a right to watch the sick man, I settled myself near
his bed to give him every care he required.
An hour later, two noblemen, friends of the senator, came in, one a
few minutes after the other. They were in despair; they had enquired
about the accident from the gondoliers, and having been told that I
knew more than they did, they loaded me with questions which I
answered. They did not know who I was, and did not like to ask me;
whilst I thought it better to preserve a modest silence.
The patient did not move; his breathing alone shewed that he was
still alive; fomentations were constantly applied, and the priest who
had been sent for, and was of very little use under such
circumstances, seemed to be there only to see him die. All visitors
were sent away by my advice, and the two noblemen and myself were the
only persons in the sick man's room. At noon we partook silently of
some dinner which was served in the sick room.
In the evening one of the two friends told me that if I had any
business to attend to I could go, because they would both pass the
night on a mattress near the patient.
"And I, sir," I said, "will remain near his bed in this arm-chair,
for if I went away the patient would die, and he will live as long as
I am near him."
This sententious answer struck them with astonishment, as I expected
it would, and they looked at each other in great surprise.
We had supper, and in the little conversation we had I gathered the
information that the senator, their friend, was M. de Bragadin, the
only brother of the procurator of that name. He was celebrated in
Venice not only for his eloquence and his great talents as a
statesman, but also for the gallantries of his youth. He had been
very extravagant with women, and more than one of them had committed
many follies for him. He had gambled and lost a great deal, and his
brother was his most bitter enemy, because he was infatuated with the
idea that he had tried to poison him. He had accused him of that
crime before the Council of Ten, which, after an investigation of
eight months, had brought in a verdict of not guilty: but that just
sentence, although given unanimously by that high tribunal, had not
had the effect of destroying his brother's prejudices against him.
M. de Bragadin, who was perfectly innocent of such a crime and
oppressed by an unjust brother who deprived him of half of his
income, spent his days like an amiable philosopher, surrounded by his
friends, amongst whom were the two noblemen who were then watching
him; one belonged to the Dandolo family, the other was a Barbaro, and
both were excellent men. M. de Bragadin was handsome, learned,
cheerful, and most kindly disposed; he was then about fifty years
old.
The physician who attended him was named Terro; he thought, by some
peculiar train of reasoning, that he could cure him by applying a
mercurial ointment to the chest, to which no one raised any
objection. The rapid effect of the remedy delighted the two friends,
but it frightened me, for in less than twenty-four hours the patient
was labouring under great excitement of the brain. The physician
said that he had expected that effect, but that on the following day
the remedy would act less on the brain, and diffuse its beneficial
action through the whole of the system, which required to be
invigorated by a proper equilibrium in the circulation of the fluids.
At midnight the patient was in a state of high fever, and in a
fearful state of irritation. I examined him closely, and found him
hardly able to breathe. I roused up his two friends; and declared
that in my opinion the patient would soon die unless the fatal
ointment was at once removed. And without waiting for their answer,
I bared his chest, took off the plaster, washed the skin carefully
with lukewarm water, and in less than three minutes he breathed
freely and fell into a quiet sleep. Delighted with such a fortunate
result, we lay down again.
The physician came very early in the morning, and was much pleased to
see his patient so much better, but when M. Dandolo informed him of
what had been done, he was angry, said it was enough to kill his
patient, and asked who had been so audacious as to destroy the effect
of his prescription. M. de Bragadin, speaking for the first time,
said to him--
"Doctor, the person who has delivered me from your mercury, which was
killing me, is a more skilful physician than you;" and, saying these
words, he pointed to me.
It would be hard to say who was the more astonished: the doctor, when
he saw an unknown young man, whom he must have taken for an impostor,
declared more learned than himself; or I, when I saw myself
transformed into a physician, at a moment's notice. I kept silent,
looking very modest, but hardly able to control my mirth, whilst the
doctor was staring at me with a mixture of astonishment and of spite,
evidently thinking me some bold quack who had tried to supplant him.
At last, turning towards M. de Bragadin, he told him coldly that he
would leave him in my hands; he was taken at his word, he went away,
and behold! I had become the physician of one of the most
illustrious members of the Venetian Senate! I must confess that I
was very glad of it, and I told my patient that a proper diet was all
he needed, and that nature, assisted by the approaching fine season,
would do the rest.
The dismissed physician related the affair through the town, and, as
M. de Bragadin was rapidly improving, one of his relations, who came
to see him, told him that everybody was astonished at his having
chosen for his physician a fiddler from the theatre; but the senator
put a stop to his remarks by answering that a fiddler could know more
than all the doctors in Venice, and that he owed his life to me.
The worthy nobleman considered me as his oracle, and his two friends
listened to me with the deepest attention. Their infatuation
encouraging me, I spoke like a learned physician, I dogmatized, I
quoted authors whom I had never read.
M. de Bragadin, who had the weakness to believe in the occult
sciences, told me one day that, for a young man of my age, he thought
my learning too extensive, and that he was certain I was the
possessor of some supernatural endowment. He entreated me to tell
him the truth.
What extraordinary things will sometimes occur from mere chance, or
from the force of circumstances! Unwilling to hurt his vanity by
telling him that he was mistaken, I took the wild resolution of
informing him, in the presence of his two friends, that I possessed a
certain numeral calculus which gave answers (also in numbers), to any
questions I liked to put.
M. de Bragadin said that it was Solomon's key, vulgarly called
cabalistic science, and he asked me from whom I learnt it.
"From an old hermit," I answered," "who lives on the Carpegna
Mountain, and whose acquaintance I made quite by chance when I was a
prisoner in the Spanish army."
"The hermit," remarked the senator, "has without informing you of it,
linked an invisible spirit to the calculus he has taught you, for
simple numbers can not have the power of reason. You possess a real
treasure, and you may derive great advantages from it."
"I do not know," I said, "in what way I could make my science useful,
because the answers given by the numerical figures are often so
obscure that I have felt discouraged, and I very seldom tried to make
any use of my calculus. Yet, it is very true that, if I had not
formed my pyramid, I never should have had the happiness of knowing
your excellency."
"How so?"
"On the second day, during the festivities at the Soranzo Palace, I
enquired of my oracle whether I would meet at the ball anyone whom I
should not care to see. The answer I obtained was this: 'Leave the
ball-room precisely at four o'clock.' I obeyed implicitly, and met
your excellency."
The three friends were astounded. M. Dandolo asked me whether I
would answer a question he would ask, the interpretation of which
would belong only to him, as he was the only person acquainted with
the subject of the question.
I declared myself quite willing, for it was necessary to brazen it
out, after having ventured as far as I had done. He wrote the
question, and gave it to me; I read it, I could not understand either
the subject or the meaning of the words, but it did not matter, I had
to give an answer. If the question was so obscure that I could not
make out the sense of it, it was natural that I should not understand
the answer. I therefore answered, in ordinary figures, four lines of
which he alone could be the interpreter, not caring much, at least in
appearance, how they would be understood. M. Dandolo read them twice
over, seemed astonished, said that it was all very plain to him; it
was Divine, it was unique, it was a gift from Heaven, the numbers
being only the vehicle, but the answer emanating evidently from an
immortal spirit.
M. Dandolo was so well pleased that his two friends very naturally
wanted also to make an experiment. They asked questions on all sorts
of subjects, and my answers, perfectly unintelligible to myself, were
all held as Divine by them. I congratulated them on their success,
and congratulated myself in their presence upon being the possessor
of a thing to which I had until then attached no importance whatever,
but which I promised to cultivate carefully, knowing that I could
thus be of some service to their excellencies.
They all asked me how long I would require to teach them the rules of
my sublime calculus. "Not very long," I answered, "and I will teach
you as you wish, although the hermit assured me that I would die
suddenly within three days if I communicated my science to anyone,
but I have no faith whatever in that prediction." M. de Bragadin who
believed in it more than I did, told me in a serious tone that I was
bound to have faith in it, and from that day they never asked me
again to teach them. They very likely thought that, if they could
attach me to them, it would answer the purpose as well as if they
possessed the science themselves. Thus I became the hierophant of
those three worthy and talented men, who, in spite of their literary
accomplishments, were not wise, since they were infatuated with
occult and fabulous sciences, and believed in the existence of
phenomena impossible in the moral as well as in the physical order of
things. They believed that through me they possessed the
philosopher's stone, the universal panacea, the intercourse with all
the elementary, heavenly, and infernal spirits; they had no doubt
whatever that, thanks to my sublime science, they could find out the
secrets of every government in Europe.
After they had assured themselves of the reality of my cabalistic
science by questions respecting the past, they decided to turn it to
some use by consulting it upon the present and upon the future. I
had no difficulty in skewing myself a good guesser, because I always
gave answers with a double meaning, one of the meanings being
carefully arranged by me, so as not to be understood until after the
event; in that manner, my cabalistic science, like the oracle of
Delphi, could never be found in fault. I saw how easy it must have
been for the ancient heathen priests to impose upon ignorant, and
therefore credulous mankind. I saw how easy it will always be for
impostors to find dupes, and I realized, even better than the Roman
orator, why two augurs could never look at each other without
laughing; it was because they had both an equal interest in giving
importance to the deceit they perpetrated, and from which they
derived such immense profits. But what I could not, and probably
never shall, understand, was the reason for which the Fathers, who
were not so simple or so ignorant as our Evangelists, did not feel
able to deny the divinity of oracles, and, in order to get out of the
difficulty, ascribed them to the devil. They never would have
entertained such a strange idea if they had been acquainted with
cabalistic science. My three worthy friends were like the holy
Fathers; they had intelligence and wit, but they were superstitious,
and no philosophers. But, although believing fully in my oracles,
they were too kind-hearted to think them the work of the devil, and
it suited their natural goodness better to believe my answers
inspired by some heavenly spirit. They were not only good Christians
and faithful to the Church, but even real devotees and full of
scruples. They were not married, and, after having renounced all
commerce with women, they had become the enemies of the female sex;
perhaps a strong proof of the weakness of their minds. They imagined
that chastity was the condition 'sine qua non' exacted by the spirits
from those who wished to have intimate communication or intercourse
with them: they fancied that spirits excluded women, and 'vice
versa'.
With all these oddities, the three friends were truly intelligent and
even witty, and, at the beginning of my acquaintance with them, I
could not reconcile these antagonistic points. But a prejudiced mind
cannot reason well, and the faculty of reasoning is the most
important of all. I often laughed when I heard them talk on
religious matters; they would ridicule those whose intellectual
faculties were so limited that they could not understand the
mysteries of religion. The incarnation of the Word, they would say,
was a trifle for God, and therefore easy to understand, and the
resurrection was so comprehensible that it did not appear to them
wonderful, because, as God cannot die, Jesus Christ was naturally
certain to rise again. As for the Eucharist, transubstantiation, the
real presence, it was all no mystery to them, but palpable evidence,
and yet they were not Jesuits. They were in the habit of going to
confession every week, without feeling the slightest trouble about
their confessors, whose ignorance they kindly regretted. They
thought themselves bound to confess only what was a sin in their own
opinion, and in that, at least, they reasoned with good sense.
With those three extraordinary characters, worthy of esteem and
respect for their moral qualities, their honesty, their reputation,
and their age, as well as for their noble birth, I spent my days in a
very pleasant manner: although, in their thirst for knowledge, they
often kept me hard at work for ten hours running, all four of us
being locked up together in a room, and unapproachable to everybody,
even to friends or relatives.
I completed the conquest of their friendship by relating to them the
whole of my life, only with some proper reserve, so as not to lead
them into any capital sins. I confess candidly that I deceived them,
as the Papa Deldimopulo used to deceive the Greeks who applied to him
for the oracles of the Virgin. I certainly did not act towards them
with a true sense of honesty, but if the reader to whom I confess
myself is acquainted with the world and with the spirit of society, I
entreat him to think before judging me, and perhaps I may meet with
some indulgence at his hands.
I might be told that if I had wished to follow the rules of pure
morality I ought either to have declined intimate intercourse with
them or to have undeceived them. I cannot deny these premises, but I
will answer that I was only twenty years of age, I was intelligent,
talented, and had just been a poor fiddler. I should have lost my
time in trying to cure them of their weakness; I should not have
succeeded, for they would have laughed in my face, deplored my
ignorance, and the result of it all would have been my dismissal.
Besides, I had no mission, no right, to constitute myself an apostle,
and if I had heroically resolved on leaving them as soon as I knew
them to be foolish visionaries, I should have shewn myself a
misanthrope, the enemy of those worthy men for whom I could procure
innocent pleasures, and my own enemy at the same time; because, as a
young man, I liked to live well, to enjoy all the pleasures natural
to youth and to a good constitution.
By acting in that manner I should have failed in common politeness, I
should perhaps have caused or allowed M. de Bragadin's death, and I
should have exposed those three honest men to becoming the victims of
the first bold cheat who, ministering to their monomania, might have
won their favour, and would have ruined them by inducing them to
undertake the chemical operations of the Great Work. There is also
another consideration, dear reader, and as I love you I will tell you
what it is. An invincible self-love would have prevented me from
declaring myself unworthy of their friendship either by my ignorance
or by my pride; and I should have been guilty of great rudeness if I
had ceased to visit them.
I took, at least it seems to me so, the best, the most natural, and
the noblest decision, if we consider the disposition of their mind,
when I decided upon the plan of conduct which insured me the
necessaries of life and of those necessaries who could be a better
judge than your very humble servant?
Through the friendship of those three men, I was certain of obtaining
consideration and influence in my own country. Besides, I found it
very flattering to my vanity to become the subject of the speculative
chattering of empty fools who, having nothing else to do, are always
trying to find out the cause of every moral phenomenon they meet
with, which their narrow intellect cannot understand.
People racked their brain in Venice to find out how my intimacy with
three men of that high character could possibly exist; they were
wrapped up in heavenly aspirations, I was a world's devotee; they
were very strict in their morals, I was thirsty of all pleasures!
At the beginning of summer, M. de Bragadin was once, more able to
take his seat in the senate, and, the day before he went out for the
first time, he spoke to me thus:
"Whoever you may be, I am indebted to you for my life. Your first
protectors wanted to make you a priest, a doctor, an advocate, a
soldier, and ended by making a fiddler of you; those persons did not
know you. God had evidently instructed your guardian angel to bring
you to me. I know you and appreciate you. If you will be my son,
you have only to acknowledge me for your father, and, for the future,
until my death, I will treat you as my own child. Your apartment is
ready, you may send your clothes: you shall have a servant, a gondola
at your orders, my own table, and ten sequins a month. It is the sum
I used to receive from my father when I was your age. You need not
think of the future; think only of enjoying yourself, and take me as
your adviser in everything that may happen to you, in everything you
may wish to undertake, and you may be certain of always finding me
your friend."
I threw myself at his feet to assure him of my gratitude, and
embraced him calling him my father. He folded me in his arms, called
me his dear son; I promised to love and to obey him; his two friends,
who lived in the same palace, embraced me affectionately, and we
swore eternal fraternity.
Such is the history of my metamorphosis, and of the lucky stroke
which, taking me from the vile profession of a fiddler, raised me to
the rank of a grandee.
