Under The Leads--The Earthquake
What a strange and unexplained power certain words exercise upon the
soul! I, who the evening before so bravely fortified myself with my
innocence and courage, by the word tribunal was turned to a stone, with
merely the faculty of passive obedience left to me.
My desk was open, and all my papers were on a table where I was
accustomed to write.
"Take them," said I, to the agent of the dreadful Tribunal, pointing to
the papers which covered the table. He filled a bag with them, and gave
it to one of the sbirri, and then told me that I must also give up the
bound manuscripts which I had in my possession. I shewed him where they
were, and this incident opened my eyes. I saw now, clearly enough, that I
had been betrayed by the wretch Manuzzi. The books were, "The Key of
Solomon the King," "The Zecorben," a "Picatrix," a book of "Instructions
on the Planetary Hours," and the necessary incantations for conversing
with demons of all sorts. Those who were aware that I possessed these
books took me for an expert magician, and I was not sorry to have such a
reputation.
Messer-Grande took also the books on the table by my bed, such as
Petrarch, Ariosto, Horace. "The Military' Philosopher" (a manuscript
which Mathilde had given me), "The Porter of Chartreux," and "The
Aretin," which Manuzzi had also denounced, for Messer-Grande asked me for
it by name. This spy, Manuzzi, had all the appearance of an honest man--a
very necessary qualification for his profession. His son made his fortune
in Poland by marrying a lady named Opeska, whom, as they say, he killed,
though I have never had any positive proof on the matter, and am willing
to stretch Christian charity to the extent of believing he was innocent,
although he was quite capable of such a crime.
While Messer-Grande was thus rummaging among my manuscripts, books and
letters, I was dressing myself in an absent-minded manner, neither
hurrying myself nor the reverse. I made my toilette, shaved myself, and
combed my hair; putting on mechanically a laced shirt and my holiday suit
without saying a word, and without Messer-Grande--who did not let me
escape his sight for an instant--complaining that I was dressing myself
as if I were going to a wedding.
As I went out I was surprised to see a band of forty men-at-arms in the
ante-room. They had done me the honour of thinking all these men
necessary for my arrest, though, according to the axiom 'Ne Hercules
quidem contra duos', two would have been enough. It is curious that in
London, where everyone is brave, only one man is needed to arrest
another, whereas in my dear native land, where cowardice prevails, thirty
are required. The reason is, perhaps, that the coward on the offensive is
more afraid than the coward on the defensive, and thus a man usually
cowardly is transformed for the moment into a man of courage. It is
certain that at Venice one often sees a man defending himself against
twenty sbirri, and finally escaping after beating them soundly. I
remember once helping a friend of mine at Paris to escape from the hands
of forty bum-bailiffs, and we put the whole vile rout of them to flight.
Messer-Grande made me get into a gondola, and sat down near me with an
escort of four men. When we came to our destination he offered me coffee,
which I refused; and he then shut me up in a room. I passed these four
hours in sleep, waking up every quarter of an hour to pass water--an
extraordinary occurrence, as I was not at all subject to stranguary; the
heat was great, and I had not supped the evening before. I have noticed
at other times that surprise at a deed of oppression acts on me as a
powerful narcotic, but I found out at the time I speak of that great
surprise is also a diuretic. I make this discovery over to the doctors,
it is possible that some learned man may make use of it to solace the
ills of humanity. I remember laughing very heartily at Prague six years
ago, on learning that some thin-skinned ladies, on reading my flight from
The Leads, which was published at that date, took great offence at the
above account, which they thought I should have done well to leave out. I
should have left it out, perhaps, in speaking to a lady, but the public
is not a pretty woman whom I am intent on cajoling, my only aim is to be
instructive. Indeed, I see no impropriety in the circumstance I have
narrated, which is as common to men and women as eating and drinking; and
if there is anything in it to shock too sensitive nerves, it is that we
resemble in this respect the cows and pigs.
It is probable that just as my overwhelmed soul gave signs of its failing
strength by the loss of the thinking faculty, so my body distilled a
great part of those fluids which by their continual circulation set the
thinking faculty in motion. Thus a sudden shock might cause instantaneous
death, and send one to Paradise by a cut much too short.
In course of time the captain of the men-at-arms came to tell me that he
was under orders to take me under the Leads. Without a word I followed
him. We went by gondola, and after a thousand turnings among the small
canals we got into the Grand Canal, and landed at the prison quay. After
climbing several flights of stairs we crossed a closed bridge which forms
the communication between the prisons and the Doge's palace, crossing the
canal called Rio di Palazzo. On the other side of this bridge there is a
gallery which we traversed. We then crossed one room, and entered
another, where sat an individual in the dress of a noble, who, after
looking fixedly at me, said, "E quello, mettetelo in deposito:"
This man was the secretary of the Inquisitors, the prudent Dominic
Cavalli, who was apparently ashamed to speak Venetian in my presence as
he pronounced my doom in the Tuscan language.
Messer-Grande then made me over to the warden of The Leads, who stood by
with an enormous bunch of keys, and accompanied by two guards, made me
climb two short flights of stairs, at the top of which followed a passage
and then another gallery, at the end of which he opened a door, and I
found myself in a dirty garret, thirty-six feet long by twelve broad,
badly lighted by a window high up in the roof. I thought this garret was
my prison, but I was mistaken; for, taking an enormous key, the gaoler
opened a thick door lined with iron, three and a half feet high, with a
round hole in the middle, eight inches in diameter, just as I was looking
intently at an iron machine. This machine was like a horse shoe, an inch
thick and about five inches across from one end to the other. I was
thinking what could be the use to which this horrible instrument was put,
when the gaoler said, with a smile,
"I see, sir, that you wish to know what that is for, and as it happens I
can satisfy your curiosity. When their excellencies give orders that
anyone is to be strangled, he is made to sit down on a stool, the back
turned to this collar, and his head is so placed that the collar goes
round one half of the neck. A silk band, which goes round the other half,
passes through this hole, and the two ends are connected with the axle of
a wheel which is turned by someone until the prisoner gives up the ghost,
for the confessor, God be thanked! never leaves him till he is dead."
"All this sounds very ingenious, and I should think that it is you who
have the honour of turning the wheel."
He made no answer, and signing to me to enter, which I did by bending
double, he shut me up, and afterwards asked me through the grated hole
what I would like to eat.
"I haven't thought anything about it yet," I answered. And he went away,
locking all the doors carefully behind him.
Stunned with grief, I leant my elbows on the top of the grating. It was
crossed, by six iron bars an inch thick, which formed sixteen square
holes. This opening would have lighted my cell, if a square beam
supporting the roof which joined the wall below the window had not
intercepted what little light came into that horrid garret. After making
the tour of my sad abode, my head lowered, as the cell was not more than
five and a half feet high, I found by groping along that it formed
three-quarters of a square of twelve feet. The fourth quarter was a kind
of recess, which would have held a bed; but there was neither bed, nor
table, nor chair, nor any furniture whatever, except a bucket--the use of
which may be guessed, and a bench fixed in the wall a foot wide and four
feet from the ground. On it I placed my cloak, my fine suit, and my hat
trimmed with Spanish paint and adorned with a beautiful white feather.
The heat was great, and my instinct made me go mechanically to the
grating, the only place where I could lean on my elbows. I could not see
the window, but I saw the light in the garret, and rats of a fearful
size, which walked unconcernedly about it; these horrible creatures
coming close under my grating without shewing the slightest fear. At the
sight of these I hastened to close up the round hole in the middle of the
door with an inside shutter, for a visit from one of the rats would have
frozen my blood. I passed eight hours in silence and without stirring, my
arms all the time crossed on the top of the grating.
At last the clock roused me from my reverie, and I began to feel restless
that no one came to give me anything to eat or to bring me a bed whereon
to sleep. I thought they might at least let me have a chair and some
bread and water. I had no appetite, certainly; but were my gaolers to
guess as much? And never in my life had I been so thirsty. I was quite
sure, however, that somebody would come before the close of the day; but
when I heard eight o'clock strike I became furious, knocking at the door,
stamping my feet, fretting and fuming, and accompanying this useless
hubbub with loud cries. After more than an hour of this wild exercise,
seeing no one, without the slightest reason to think I could be heard,
and shrouded in darkness, I shut the grating for fear of the rats, and
threw myself at full length upon the floor. So cruel a desertion seemed
to me unnatural, and I came to the conclusion that the Inquisitors had
sworn my death. My investigation as to what I had done to deserve such a
fate was not a long one, for in the most scrupulous examination of my
conduct I could find no crimes. I was, it is true, a profligate, a
gambler, a bold talker, a man who thought of little besides enjoying this
present life, but in all that there was no offence against the state.
Nevertheless, finding myself treated as a criminal, rage and despair made
me express myself against the horrible despotism which oppressed me in a
manner which I will leave my readers to guess, but which I will not
repeat here. But notwithstanding my brief and anxiety, the hunger which
began to make itself felt, and the thirst which tormented me, and the
hardness of the boards on which I lay, did not prevent exhausted nature
from reasserting her rights; I fell asleep.
My strong constitution was in need of sleep; and in a young and healthy
subject this imperious necessity silences all others, and in this way
above all is sleep rightly termed the benefactor of man.
The clock striking midnight awoke me. How sad is the awaking when it
makes one regret one's empty dreams. I could scarcely believe that I had
spent three painless hours. As I lay on my left side, I stretched out my
right hand to get my handkerchief, which I remembered putting on that
side. I felt about for it, when--heavens! what was my surprise to feel
another hand as cold as ice. The fright sent an electric shock through
me, and my hair began to stand on end.
Never had I been so alarmed, nor should I have previously thought myself
capable of experiencing such terror. I passed three or four minutes in a
kind of swoon, not only motionless but incapable of thinking. As I got
back my senses by degrees, I tried to make myself believe that the hand I
fancied I had touched was a mere creature of my disordered imagination;
and with this idea I stretched out my hand again, and again with the same
result. Benumbed with fright, I uttered a piercing cry, and, dropping the
hand I held, I drew back my arm, trembling all over:
Soon, as I got a little calmer and more capable of reasoning, I concluded
that a corpse had been placed beside me whilst I slept, for I was certain
it was not there when I lay down.
"This," said I, "is the body of some strangled wretch, and they would
thus warn me of the fate which is in store for me."
The thought maddened me; and my fear giving place to rage, for the third
time I stretched my arm towards the icy hand, seizing it to make certain
of the fact in all its atrocity, and wishing to get up, I rose upon my
left elbow, and found that I had got hold of my other hand. Deadened by
the weight of my body and the hardness of the boards, it had lost warmth,
motion, and all sensation.
In spite of the humorous features in this incident, it did not cheer me
up, but, on the contrary, inspired me with the darkest fancies. I saw
that I was in a place where, if the false appeared true, the truth might
appear false, where understanding was bereaved of half its prerogatives,
where the imagination becoming affected would either make the reason a
victim to empty hopes or to dark despair. I resolved to be on my guard;
and for the first time in my life, at the age of thirty, I called
philosophy to my assistance. I had within me all the seeds of philosophy,
but so far I had had no need for it.
I am convinced that most men die without ever having thought, in the
proper sense of the word, not so much for want of wit or of good sense,
but rather because the shock necessary to the reasoning faculty in its
inception has never occurred to them to lift them out of their daily
habits.
After what I had experienced, I could think of sleep no more, and to get
up would have been useless as I could not stand upright, so I took the
only sensible course and remained seated. I sat thus till four o'clock in
the morning, the sun would rise at five, and I longed to see the day, for
a presentiment which I held infallible told me that it would set me again
at liberty. I was consumed with a desire for revenge, nor did I conceal
it from myself. I saw myself at the head of the people, about to
exterminate the Government which had oppressed me; I massacred all the
aristocrats without pity; all must be shattered and brought to the dust.
I was delirious; I knew the authors of my misfortune, and in my fancy I
destroyed them. I restored the natural right common to all men of being
obedient only to the law, and of being tried only by their peers and by
laws to which they have agreed-in short, I built castles in Spain. Such
is man when he has become the prey of a devouring passion. He does not
suspect that the principle which moves him is not reason but wrath, its
greatest enemy.
I waited for a less time than I had expected, and thus I became a little
more quiet. At half-past four the deadly silence of the place--this hell
of the living--was broken by the shriek of bolts being shot back in the
passages leading to my cell.
"Have you had time yet to think about what you will take to eat?" said
the harsh voice of my gaoler from the wicket.
One is lucky when the insolence of a wretch like this only shews itself
in the guise of jesting. I answered that I should like some rice soup, a
piece of boiled beef, a roast, bread, wine, and water. I saw that the
lout was astonished not to hear the lamentations he expected. He went
away and came back again in a quarter of an hour to say that he was
astonished I did not require a bed and the necessary pieces of furniture,
"for," said he, "if you flatter yourself that you are only here for a
night, you are very much mistaken."
"Then bring me whatever you think necessary."
"Where shall I go for it? Here is a pencil and paper; write it down."
I skewed him by writing where to go for my shirts, stockings, and clothes
of all sorts, a bed, table, chair, the books which Messer-Grande had
confiscated, paper, pens, and so forth. On my reading out the list to him
(the lout did not know how to read) he cried, "Scratch out," said he,
"scratch out books, paper, pens, looking-glass and razors, for all that
is forbidden fruit here, and then give me some money to get your dinner."
I had three sequins so I gave him one, and he went off. He spent an hour
in the passages engaged, as I learnt afterwards, in attending on seven
other prisoners who were imprisoned in cells placed far apart from each
other to prevent all communication.
About noon the gaoler reappeared followed by five guards, whose duty it
was to serve the state prisoners. He opened: the cell door to bring in my
dinner and the furniture I had asked for. The bed was placed in the
recess; my dinner was laid out on a small table, and I had to eat with an
ivory spoon he had procured out of the money I had given him; all forks,
knives, and edged tools being forbidden.
"Tell me what you would like for to-morrow," said he, "for I can only
come here once a day at sunrise. The Lord High Secretary has told me to
inform you that he will send you some suitable books, but those you wish
for are forbidden."
"Thank him for his kindness in putting me by myself."
"I will do so, but you make a mistake in jesting thus."
"I don't jest at all, for I think truly that it is much better to be
alone than to mingle with the scoundrels who are doubtless here."
"What, sir! scoundrels? Not at all, not at all. They are only respectable
people here, who, for reasons known to their excellencies alone, have to
be sequestered from society. You have been put by yourself as an
additional punishment, and you want me to thank the secretary on that
account?"
"I was not aware of that."
The fool was right, and I soon found it out. I discovered that a man
imprisoned by himself can have no occupations. Alone in a gloomy cell
where he only sees the fellow who brings his food once a day, where he
cannot walk upright, he is the most wretched of men. He would like to be
in hell, if he believes in it, for the sake of the company. So strong a
feeling is this that I got to desire the company of a murderer, of one
stricken with the plague, or of a bear. The loneliness behind the prison
bars is terrible, but it must be learnt by experience to be understood,
and such an experience I would not wish even to my enemies. To a man of
letters in my situation, paper and ink would take away nine-tenths of the
torture, but the wretches who persecuted me did not dream of granting me
such an alleviation of my misery.
After the gaoler had gone, I set my table near the grating for the sake
of the light, and sat down to dinner, but I could only swallow a few
spoonfuls of soup. Having fasted for nearly forty-eight hours, it was not
surprising that I felt ill. I passed the day quietly enough seated on my
sofa, and proposing myself to read the "suitable books" which they had
been good enough to promise me. I did not shut my eyes the whole night,
kept awake by the hideous noise made by the rats, and by the deafening
chime of the clock of St. Mark's, which seemed to be striking in my room.
This double vexation was not my chief trouble, and I daresay many of my
readers will guess what I am going to speak of-namely, the myriads of
fleas which held high holiday over me. These small insects drank my blood
with unutterable voracity, their incessant bites gave me spasmodic
convulsions and poisoned my blood.
At day-break, Lawrence (such was the gaoler's name) came to my cell and
had my bed made, and the room swept and cleansed, and one of the guards
gave me water wherewith to wash myself. I wanted to take a walk in the
garret, but Lawrence told me that was forbidden. He gave me two thick
books which I forbore to open, not being quite sure of repressing the
wrath with which they might inspire me, and which the spy would have
infallibly reported to his masters. After leaving me my fodder and two
cut lemons he went away.
As soon as I was alone I ate my soup in a hurry, so as to take it hot,
and then I drew as near as I could to the light with one of the books,
and was delighted to find that I could see to read. I looked at the
title, and read, "The Mystical City of Sister Mary of Jesus, of Agrada."
I had never heard of it. The other book was by a Jesuit named Caravita.
This fellow, a hypocrite like the rest of them, had invented a new cult
of the "Adoration of the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ." This,
according to the author, was the part of our Divine Redeemer, which above
all others should be adored a curious idea of a besotted ignoramus, with
which I got disgusted at the first page, for to my thinking the heart is
no more worthy a part than the lungs, stomach; or any other of the
inwards. The "Mystical City" rather interested me.
I read in it the wild conceptions of a Spanish nun, devout to
superstition, melancholy, shut in by convent walls, and swayed by the
ignorance and bigotry of her confessors. All these grotesque, monstrous,
and fantastic visions of hers were dignified with the name of
revelations. The lover and bosom-friend of the Holy Virgin, she had
received instructions from God Himself to write the life of His divine
mother; the necessary information was furnished her by the Holy Ghost.
This life of Mary began, not with the day of her birth, but with her
immaculate conception in the womb of Anne, her mother. This Sister Mary
of Agrada was the head of a Franciscan convent founded by herself in her
own house. After telling in detail all the deeds of her divine heroine
whilst in her mother's womb, she informs us that at the age of three she
swept and cleansed the house with the assistance of nine hundred
servants, all of whom were angels whom God had placed at her disposal,
under the command of Michael, who came and went between God and herself
to conduct their mutual correspondence.
What strikes the judicious reader of the book is the evident belief of
the more than fanatical writer that nothing is due to her invention;
everything is told in good faith and with full belief. The work contains
the dreams of a visionary, who, without vanity but inebriated with the
idea of God, thinks to reveal only the inspirations of the Divine Spirit.
The book was published with the permission of the very holy and very
horrible Inquisition. I could not recover from my astonishment! Far from
its stirring up in my breast a holy and simple zeal of religion, it
inclined me to treat all the mystical dogmas of the Faith as fabulous.
Such works may have dangerous results; for example, a more susceptible
reader than myself, or one more inclined to believe in the marvellous,
runs the risk of becoming as great a visionary as the poor nun herself.
The need of doing something made me spend a week over this masterpiece of
madness, the product of a hyper-exalted brain. I took care to say nothing
to the gaoler about this fine work, but I began to feel the effects of
reading it. As soon as I went off to sleep I experienced the disease
which Sister Mary of Agrada had communicated to my mind weakened by
melancholy, want of proper nourishment and exercise, bad air, and the
horrible uncertainty of my fate. The wildness of my dreams made me laugh
when I recalled them in my waking moments. If I had possessed the
necessary materials I would have written my visions down, and I might
possibly have produced in my cell a still madder work than the one chosen
with such insight by Cavalli.
This set me thinking how mistaken is the opinion which makes human
intellect an absolute force; it is merely relative, and he who studies
himself carefully will find only weakness. I perceived that though men
rarely become mad, still such an event is well within the bounds of
possibility, for our reasoning faculties are like powder, which, though
it catches fire easily, will never catch fire at all without a spark. The
book of the Spanish nun has all the properties necessary to make a man
crack-brained; but for the poison to take effect he must be isolated, put
under the Leads, and deprived of all other employments.
In November, 1767, as I was going from Pampeluna to Madrid, my coachman,
Andrea Capello, stopped for us to dine in a town of Old Castille. So
dismal and dreary a place did I find it that I asked its name. How I
laughed when I was told that it was Agrada!
"Here, then," I said to myself, "did that saintly lunatic produce that
masterpiece which but for M. Cavalli I should never have known."
An old priest, who had the highest possible opinion of me the moment I
began to ask him about this truthful historian of the mother of Christ,
shewed me the very place where she had written it, and assured me that
the father, mother, sister, and in short all the kindred of the blessed
biographer, had been great saints in their generation. He told me, and
spoke truly, that the Spaniards had solicited her canonization at Rome,
with that of the venerable Palafox. This "Mystical City," perhaps, gave
Father Malagrida the idea of writing the life of St. Anne, written, also,
at the dictation of the Holy Ghost, but the poor devil of a Jesuit had to
suffer martyrdom for it--an additional reason for his canonization, if
the horrible society ever comes to life again, and attains the universal
power which is its secret aim.
At the end of eight or nine days I found myself moneyless. Lawrence asked
me for some, but I had not got it.
"Where can I get some?"
"Nowhere."
What displeased this ignorant and gossiping fellow about me was my
silence and my laconic manner of talking.
Next day he told me that the Tribunal had assigned me fifty sous per diem
of which he would have to take charge, but that he would give me an
account of his expenditure every month, and that he would spend the
surplus on what I liked.
"Get me the Leyden Gazette twice a week."
"I can't do that, because it is not allowed by the authorities."
Sixty-five livres a month was more than I wanted, since I could not eat
more than I did: the great heat and the want of proper nourishment had
weakened me. It was in the dog-days; the strength of the sun's rays upon
the lead of the roof made my cell like a stove, so that the streams of
perspiration which rolled off my poor body as I sat quite naked on my
sofa-chair wetted the floor to right and left of me.
I had been in this hell-on-earth for fifteen days without any secretion
from the bowels. At the end of this almost incredible time nature
re-asserted herself, and I thought my last hour was come. The
haemorrhoidal veins were swollen to such an extent that the pressure on
them gave me almost unbearable agony. To this fatal time I owe the
inception of that sad infirmity of which I have never been able to
completely cure myself. The recurrence of the same pains, though not so
acute, remind me of the cause, and do not make my remembrance of it any
the more agreeable. This disease got me compliments in Russia when I was
there ten years later, and I found it in such esteem that I did not dare
to complain. The same kind of thing happened to me at Constantinople,
when I was complaining of a cold in the head in the presence of a Turk,
who was thinking, I could see, that a dog of a Christian was not worthy
of such a blessing.
The same day I sickened with a high fever and kept my bed. I said nothing
to Lawrence about it, but the day after, on finding my dinner untouched,
he asked me how I was.
"Very well."
"That can't be, sir, as you have eaten nothing. You are ill, and you will
experience the generosity of the Tribunal who will provide you, without
fee or charge, with a physician, surgeon, and all necessary medicines."
He went out, returning after three hours without guards, holding a candle
in his hand, and followed by a grave-looking personage; this was the
doctor. I was in the height of the fever, which had not left me for three
days. He came up to me and began to ask me questions, but I told him that
with my confessor and my doctor I would only speak apart. The doctor told
Lawrence to leave the room, but on the refusal of that Argus to do so, he
went away saying that I was dangerously ill, possibly unto death. For
this I hoped, for my life as it had become was no longer my chiefest
good. I was somewhat glad also to think that my pitiless persecutors
might, on hearing of my condition, be forced to reflect on the cruelty of
the treatment to which they had subjected me.
Four hours afterwards I heard the noise of bolts once more, and the
doctor came in holding the candle himself. Lawrence remained outside. I
had become so weak that I experienced a grateful restfulness. Kindly
nature does not suffer a man seriously ill to feel weary. I was delighted
to hear that my infamous turnkey was outside, for since his explanation
of the iron collar I had looked an him with loathing.
In a quarter of an hour I had told the doctor all.
"If we want to get well," said he, "we must not be melancholy."
"Write me the prescription, and take it to the only apothecary who can
make it up. M. Cavalli is the bad doctor who exhibited 'The Heart of
Jesus,' and 'The Mystical City.'"
"Those two preparations are quite capable of having brought on the fever
and the haemorrhoids. I will not forsake you."
After making me a large jug of lemonade, and telling the to drink
frequently, he went away. I slept soundly, dreaming fantastic dreams.
In he morning the doctor came again with Lawrence and a surgeon, who bled
me. The doctor left me some medicine which he told me to take in the
evening, and a bottle of soap. "I have obtained leave," said he, "for you
to move into the garret where the heat is less, and the air better than
here."
"I decline the favour, as I abominate the rats, which you know nothing
about, and which would certainly get into my bed."
"What a pity! I told M. Cavalli that he had almost killed you with his
books, and he has commissioned me to take them back, and to give you
Boethius; and here it is."
"I am much obliged to you. I like it better than Seneca, and I am sure it
will do me good."
"I am leaving you a very necessary instrument, and some barley water for
you to refresh yourself with."
He visited me four times, and pulled me through; my constitution did the
rest, and my appetite returned. At the beginning of September I found
myself, on the whole, very well, suffering from no actual ills except the
heat, the vermin, and weariness, for I could not be always reading
Boethius.
One day Lawrence told me that I might go out of my cell to wash myself
whilst the bed was being made and the room swept. I took advantage of the
favour to walk up and down for the ten minutes taken by these operations,
and as I walked hard the rats were alarmed and dared not shew themselves.
On the same day Lawrence gave me an account of my money, and brought
himself in as my debtor to the amount of thirty livres, which however, I
could not put into my pocket. I left the money in his hands, telling him
to lay it out on masses on my behalf, feeling sure that he would make
quite a different use of it, and he thanked me in a tone that persuaded
me he would be his own priest. I gave him the money every month, and I
never saw a priest's receipt. Lawrence was wise to celebrate the
sacrifice at the tavern; the money was useful to someone at all events.
I lived from day to day, persuading myself every night that the next day
I should be at liberty; but as I was each day deceived, I decided in my
poor brain that I should be set free without fail on the 1st of October,
on which day the new Inquisitors begin their term of office. According to
this theory, my imprisonment would last as long as the authority of the
present Inquisitors, and thus was explained the fact that I had seen
nothing of the secretary, who would otherwise have undoubtedly come to
interrogate, examine, and convict me of my crimes, and finally to
announce my doom. All this appeared to me unanswerable, because it seemed
natural, but it was fallacious under the Leads, where nothing is done
after the natural order. I imagined the Inquisitors must have discovered
my innocence and the wrong they had done me, and that they only kept me
in prison for form's sake, and to protect their repute from the stain of
committing injustice; hence I concluded that they would give me my
freedom when they laid down their tyrannical authority. My mind was so
composed and quiet that I felt as if I could forgive them, and forget the
wrong that they had done me. "How can they leave me here to the mercy of
their successors," I thought, "to whom they cannot leave any evidence
capable of condemning me?" I could not believe that my sentence had been
pronounced and confirmed, without my being told of it, or of the reasons
by which my judges had been actuated. I was so certain that I had right
on my side, that I reasoned accordingly; but this was not the attitude I
should have assumed towards a court which stands aloof from all the
courts in the world for its unbounded absolutism. To prove anyone guilty,
it is only necessary for the Inquisitors to proceed against him; so there
is no need to speak to him, and when he is condemned it would be useless
to announce to the prisoner his sentence, as his consent is not required,
and they prefer to leave the poor wretch the feeling of hope; and
certainly, if he were told the whole process, imprisonment would not be
shortened by an hour. The wise man tells no one of his business, and the
business of the Tribunal of Venice is only to judge and to doom. The
guilty party is not required to have any share in the matter; he is like
a nail, which to be driven into a wall needs only to be struck.
To a certain extent I was acquainted with the ways of the Colossus which
was crushing me under foot, but there are things on earth which one can
only truly understand by experience. If amongst my readers there are any
who think such laws unjust, I forgive them, as I know they have a strong
likeness to injustice; but let me tell them that they are also necessary,
as a tribunal like the Venetian could not subsist without them. Those who
maintain these laws in full vigour are senators, chosen from amongst the
fittest for that office, and with a reputation for honour and virtue.
The last day of September I passed a sleepless night, and was on thorns
to see the dawn appear, so sure was I that that day would make me free.
The reign of those villains who had made me a captive drew to a close;
but the dawn appeared, Lawrence came as usual, and told me nothing new.
For five or six days I hovered between rage and despair, and then I
imagined that for some reasons which to me were unfathomable they had
decided to keep me prisoner for the remainder of my days. This awful idea
only made me laugh, for I knew that it was in my power to remain a slave
for no long time, but only till I should take it into my own hands to
break my prison. I knew that I should escape or die: 'Deliberata morte
ferocior'.
In the beginning of November I seriously formed the plan of forcibly
escaping from a place where I was forcibly kept. I began to rack my
brains to find a way of carrying the idea into execution, and I conceived
a hundred schemes, each one bolder than the other, but a new plan always
made me give up the one I was on the point of accepting.
While I was immersed in this toilsome sea of thought, an event happened
which brought home to me the sad state of mind I was in.
I was standing up in the garret looking towards the top, and my glance
fell on the great beam, not shaking but turning on its right side, and
then, by slow and interrupted movement in the opposite direction, turning
again and replacing itself in its original position. As I lost my balance
at the same time, I knew it was the shock of an earthquake. Lawrence and
the guards, who just then came out of my room, said that they too, had
felt the earth tremble. In such despair was I that this incident made me
feel a joy which I kept to myself, saying nothing. Four or five seconds
after the same movement occurred, and I could not refrain from saying,
"Another, O my God! but stronger."
The guards, terrified with what they thought the impious ravings of a
desperate madman, fled in horror.
After they were gone, as I was pondering the matter over, I found that I
looked upon the overthrow of the Doge's palace as one of the events which
might lead to liberty; the mighty pile, as it fell, might throw me safe
and sound, and consequently free, on St. Mark's Place, or at the worst it
could only crush me beneath its ruins. Situated as I was, liberty reckons
for all, and life for nothing, or rather for very little. Thus in the
depths of my soul I began to grow mad.
This earthquake shock was the result of those which at the same time
destroyed Lisbon.