I FOLLOWED the jailer in silence. After turning through a number of
passages, and several large rooms, we arrived at a small staircase, which
brought us under the _Piombi_, those notorious state prisons, dating from
the time of the Venetian republic.
There the jailer first registered my name, and then locked me up in the
room appointed for me. The chambers called _I Piombi_ consist of the
upper portion of the Doge’s palace, and are covered throughout with lead.
My room had a large window with enormous bars, and commanded a view of
the roof (also of lead), and the church, of St. Mark. Beyond the church
I could discern the end of the Piazza in the distance, with an immense
number of cupolas and belfries on all sides. St. Mark’s gigantic
Campanile was separated from me only by the length of the church, and I
could hear persons speaking from the top of it when they talked at all
loud. To the left of the church was to be seen a portion of the grand
court of the palace, and one of the chief entrances. There is a public
well in that part of the court, and people were continually in the habit
of going thither to draw water. From the lofty site of my prison they
appeared to me about the size of little children, and I could not at all
hear their conversation, except when they called out very loud. Indeed,
I found myself much more solitary than I had been in the Milanese
prisons.
During several days the anxiety I suffered from the criminal trial
appointed by the special commission, made me rather melancholy, and it
was increased, doubtless, by that painful feeling of deeper solitude.
I was here, moreover, further removed from my family, of whom I heard no
more. The new faces that appeared wore a gloom at once strange and
appalling. Report had greatly exaggerated the struggle of the Milanese
and the rest of Italy to recover their independence; it was doubted if I
were not one of the most desperate promoters of that mad enterprise. I
found that my name, as a writer, was not wholly unknown to my jailer, to
his wife, and even his daughter, besides two sons, and the under-jailers,
all of whom, by their manner, seemed to have an idea that a writer of
tragedies was little better than a kind of magician. They looked grave
and distant, yet as if eager to learn more of me, had they dared to waive
the ceremony of their iron office.
In a few days I grew accustomed to their looks, or rather, I think, they
found I was not so great a necromancer as to escape through the lead
roofs, and, consequently, assumed a more conciliating demeanour. The
wife had most of the character that marks the true jailer; she was dry
and hard, all bone, without a particle of heart, about forty, and
incapable of feeling, except it were a savage sort of instinct for her
offspring. She used to bring me my coffee, morning and afternoon, and my
water at dinner. She was generally accompanied by her daughter, a girl
of about fifteen, not very pretty, but with mild, compassionating looks,
and her two sons, from ten to thirteen years of age. They always went
back with their mother, but there was a gentle look and a smile of love
for me upon their young faces as she closed the door, my only company
when they were gone. The jailer never came near me, except to conduct me
before the special commission, that terrible ordeal for what are termed
crimes of state.
The under-jailers, occupied with the prisons of the police, situated on a
lower floor, where there were numbers of robbers, seldom came near me.
One of these assistants was an old man, more than seventy, but still able
to discharge his laborious duties, and to run up and down the steps to
the different prisons; another was a young man about twenty-five, more
bent upon giving an account of his love affairs than eager to devote
himself to his office.