I ONCE more learnt to value solitude, and my days tracked each other
without any distinction or mark of change.
The summer was over; it was towards the close of September, and the heat
grew less oppressive; October came. I congratulated myself now on
occupying a chamber well adapted for winter. One morning, however, the
jailer made his appearance, with an order to change my prison.
“And where am I to go?”
“Only a few steps, into a fresher chamber.”
“But why not think of it when I was dying of suffocation; when the air
was filled with gnats, and my bed with bugs?”
“The order did not come before.”
“Patience! let us be gone!”
Notwithstanding I had suffered so greatly in this prison, it gave me pain
to leave it; not simply because it would have been best for the winter
season, but for many other reasons. There I had the ants to attract my
attention, which I had fed and looked upon, I may almost say, with
paternal care. Within the last few days, however, my friend the spider,
and my great ally in my war with the gnats, had, for some reason or
other, chosen to emigrate; at least he did not come as usual. “Yet
perhaps,” said I, “he may remember me, and come back, but he will find my
prison empty, or occupied by some other guest—no friend perhaps to
spiders—and thus meet with an awkward reception. His fine woven house,
and his gnat-feasts will all be put an end to.”
Again, my gloomy abode had been embellished by the presence of Angiola,
so good, so gentle and compassionate. There she used to sit, and try
every means she could devise to amuse me, even dropping crumbs of bread
for my little visitors, the ants; and there I heard her sobs, and saw the
tears fall thick and fast, as she spoke of her cruel lover.
The place I was removed to was under the leaden prisons, (_I Piombi_)
open to the north and west, with two windows, one on each side; an abode
exposed to perpetual cold and even icy chill during the severest months.
The window to the west was the largest, that to the north was high and
narrow, and situated above my bed.
I first looked out at this last, and found that it commanded a view of
the Palace of the Patriarch. Other prisons were near mine, in a narrow
wing to the right, and in a projection of the building right opposite.
Here were two prisons, one above the other. The lower had an enormous
window, through which I could see a man, very richly drest, pacing to and
fro. It was the Signor Caporale di Cesena. He perceived me, made a
signal, and we pronounced each other’s names.
I next looked out at my other window. I put the little table upon my
bed, and a chair upon my table; I climbed up and found myself on a level
with part of the palace roof; and beyond this was to be seen a fine view
of the city and the lake.
I paused to admire it; and though I heard some one open the door, I did
not move. It was the jailer; and perceiving that I had clambered up, he
got it into his head I was making an attempt to escape, forgetting, in
his alarm, that I was not a mouse to creep through all those narrow bars.
In a moment he sprung upon the bed, spite of a violent sciatica which had
nearly bent him double, and catching me by the legs, he began to call
out, “thieves and murder!”
“But don’t you see,” I exclaimed, “you thoughtless man, that I cannot
conjure myself through these horrible bars? Surely you know I got up
here out of mere curiosity.”
“Oh, yes, I see, I apprehend, sir; but quick, sir, jump down, sir; these
are all temptations of the devil to make you think of it! come down, sir,
pray.”
I lost no time in my descent, and laughed.