THE effect of this accident upon my imagination had not yet ceased, when
one night, as I was sitting at my little table reading, and half perished
with cold, I heard a number of voices not far from me. They were those
of the jailer, his wife, and sons, with the assistants, all crying:
“Fire! fire. Oh, blessed Virgin! we are lost, we are lost!”
I felt no longer cold, I started to my feet in a violent perspiration,
and looked out to discover the quarter from which the fire proceeded. I
could perceive nothing, I was informed, however, that it arose in the
palace itself, from some public chambers contiguous to the prisons. One
of the assistants called out, “But, sir governor, what shall we do with
these caged birds here, if the fire keeps a head?” The head jailer
replied, “Why, I should not like to have them roasted alive. Yet I
cannot let them out of their bars without special orders from the
commission. You may run as fast as you can, and get an order if you
can.”
“To be sure I will, but, you know, it will be too late for the
prisoners.”
All this was said in the rude Venetian dialect, but I understood it too
well. And now, where was all my heroic spirit and resignation, which I
had counted upon to meet sudden death? Why did the idea of being burnt
alive throw me into such a fever? I felt ashamed of this unworthy fear,
and though just on the point of crying out to the jailer to let me out, I
restrained myself, reflecting that there might be as little pleasure in
being strangled as in being burnt. Still I felt really afraid.
“Here,” said I, “is a specimen of my courage, should I escape the flames,
and be doomed to mount the scaffold. I will restrain my fear, and hide
it from others as well as I can, though I know I shall tremble. Yet
surely it is courage to behave as if we were not afraid, whatever we may
feel. Is it not generosity to give away that which it costs us much to
part with? It is, also, an act of obedience, though we obey with great
repugnance.”
The tumult in the jailer’s house was so loud and continued that I
concluded the fire was on the increase. The messenger sent to ask
permission for our temporary release had not returned. At last I thought
I heard his voice; no; I listened, he is not come. Probably the
permission will not be granted; there will be no means of escape; if the
jailer should not humanely take the responsibility upon himself, we shall
be suffocated in our dungeons! Well, but this, I exclaimed, is not
philosophy, and it is not religion. Were it not better to prepare myself
to witness the flames bursting into my chamber, and about to swallow me
up.
Meantime the clamour seemed to diminish; by degrees it died away; was
this any proof that the fire had ceased? Or, perhaps, all who could had
already fled, and left the prisoners to their fate.
The silence continued, no flames appeared, and I retired to bed,
reproaching myself for the want of fortitude I had evinced. Indeed, I
began to regret that I had not been burnt alive, instead of being handed
over, as a victim, into the hands of men.
The next morning, I learnt the real cause of the fire from Tremerello,
and laughed at his account of the fear he had endured, as if my own had
not been as great—perhaps, in fact, much greater of the two.