LXII.

_A tragic accident, with a happy termination._

A few months after these occurrences, my brother Gasparo, who had fallen

ill of too much study and harassing cares, went to Padua to consult the

physicians of that famous university. Though we no longer shared the

same home, and had divided our patrimony, I always regarded him as my

friend and master. The news I received of his sad state of health, which

declined from bad to worse, in spite of the most skilful medical

assistance, caused me the gravest uneasiness.

One morning a gondolier in the service of Mme. Dolfin-Tron brought me a

letter which she had received from Professor Giovanni Marsili at Padua,

together with a note from his mistress. The note urgently begged me to

repair to her at once. The letter contained news of far more serious

import. From it I learned that my poor brother, whether oppressed by

dark and melancholical phantasies, or by the delirium of a burning fever

which attacked him, had thrown himself in a fit of exaltation from a

window into the Brenta. He had fallen with his chest upon a great stone;

and though he had been brought alive out of the river, he was

speechless, spat blood continually, and lay insensible, plunged in

profound lethargy, and consumed with a mortal fever, which left but

little hope of his survival.

In spite of my philosophy, the reading of this letter well-nigh deprived

me of my wits, and I ran in a state of distraction to that noble lady. I

found her stretched upon a sofa, drowned in tears. No sooner did she

cast eyes upon me than she rose, and rushed into my arms upon the point

of fainting. "Dear friend," she sobbed out, as soon as she found power

to speak, "go to Padua at once; save my father for me, save my

father!"[80] Then she fell back upon the sofa and shed a torrent of

tears.

What though I needed comfort myself, I strove to comfort her affliction,

by promising to go upon the spot to Padua, and by reminding her that my

brother's case might not be so desperate as was supposed.

I shall not describe my hurried journey. At Fusina I ran up against

Count Carlo di Coloredo, who asked me with much sweetness of manner

whether there was anything astir in Venice. I believe that I brutally

said "Nothing," as I jumped into a carriage and departed. The gloomy

anticipation of finding my poor brother a corpse grew upon me with

increasing strength as I approached the walls of Padua, shutting out the

sense of water, earth, trees, animals, and men upon that doleful

journey.

When I arrived, I alighted at my friend Innocenzio Massimo's hospitable

dwelling, and was received, as always, with open arms. Sadness was

written on the faces of all his family. I hardly dared to inquire after

my brother; and when I summoned courage to do so, I was told that he was

yet alive, but in a state which left too little hope.

I repaired at once to his lodgings in the Prato della Valle. There I

found Mme. Jeanne Sarah Cenet, a Frenchwoman of some five-and-fifty

years, mere skin and bones, who was attending unremittingly to the

invalid, half-mad herself with grief and tears and watching. She gave me

a detailed account of my brother's condition. He lay there, a scarcely

breathing corpse, afflicted with continuous fever, incapable of speech,

taking no nourishment, and barely swallowing a few drops of water. The

haemoptysis had ceased, and the expectoration was only tinged with blood.

I asked what doctor was attending him. She replied that there were four.

Without questioning their ability, I was terrified at the number of

them. Then she added that a fifth physician, the celebrated Professor

della Bona, had been called into one consultation. He had suggested

certain remedies, which the other four doctors rejected as frivolities,

and none of them had been employed. "Very well!" said I.

At this point they came to tell me that the invalid, on hearing my

voice from his bedroom, had opened his eyes and spoken these words very

faintly: "My brother Charles!" I went to him and tried to rouse him.

Drowned in his lethargy, he made no answer; but I thought I could detect

upon his face some spark of relief.

One of the four doctors boasted of having restored my brother to life

when he was taken from the river, by using the methods prescribed by the

Magistrates of Public Health for the resuscitation of drowned persons. I

went to offer this man an honorarium, and found him surrounded by his

witnesses, engaged in drawing up a memorial to the Magistrates of

Health. It set forth the prodigious energy with which he, the doctor,

had successfully employed their methods on the person of Count Gasparo

Gozzi, and wound up with an energetic petition for the golden medal

awarded in such circumstances to the operator. He was anxious to relate

the whole event, to enlarge upon his merits, and to read aloud his

eloquent memorial. I begged him to spare me what could only torture an

afflicted fancy with fresh images of sorrow. Then I placed some sequins

in his hand, and left him to the elaboration of his petition.

Afterwards, I heard that he had received the medal, and I bore no grudge

against the needy expeditious son of science.

My brother passed some days and nights between life and death, in his

deep lethargy and ardent fever, without taking nourishment. Mme. Cenet

used to force open his jaws and insinuate little balls of butter

between his teeth in a coffee-spoon. This was all the food he had,

licking the spoon and swallowing the butter without consciousness. The

four doctors came to see him twice a day very kindly, for they had all

been urgently besought to do so by Mme. Dolfin Tron. They looked at the

water, examined the expectoration, felt the pulse, affirmed that it was

a mortal fever, shrugged their shoulders, and went away again.

The anxious thoughts which weighed upon my mind, fatiguing cares for the

sick man, errands I had to run, and the great heat of the season,

contributed to tax my strength. But, in addition, I had to carry on a

voluminous correspondence daily with Venice, writing long letters to

Mme. Dolfin Tron, to the secretary of the Riformatori di Padova,[81] and

to other persons. My brother held an office under the Riformatori, which

brought him in seven or eight hundred ducats a year. One day I received

a pressing letter from the noble lady above mentioned, informing me that

many applicants were already intriguing and canvassing for this post, in

the expectation of my brother's death. Her husband, who presided at the

board, and herself were both of opinion that I ought to apply in writing

for the office. She guaranteed my unopposed election if I did so.

Instead of relieving my mind, this letter only added to my sadness. I

answered that I was grateful for the counsels she had given, and for her

generous promises; but she ought to know my temper, and to remember that

I had refused to compete for the far more important and lucrative office

of Master of the Posts to Vienna, which she had recommended, and for

which she had engaged the influence of her powerful consort. I had

undertaken heavy charges for the sake of my family, but I did not care

to burden my shoulders with affairs which involved public

responsibility. I had neither wife nor children, was averse to taking

place among the great, disliked the ceremonies and observances which

office necessitates, did not want to become rich, and was satisfied with

my moderate estate. To see my brother in health again, I would willingly

strip myself to my shirt of all that I possessed: but I civilly declined

the offer which she generously made.

This called forth an answer, in which the lady treated me as a Quixotic

hero of romance. She insisted that I should send in a petition for the

office, and repeated that various applicants were moving heaven and

earth to secure the reversion of it. In conclusion, she told me that I

was in duty bound to accept a post of emolument which would enable me to

assist my brother's family.

Here I detected the real motive which urged her to make me assume the

part of candidate against my inclination. I was embittered when I

remembered how much I had already done for more than thirty years to

protect the interests of my kindred, prosecuting their lawsuits, paying

off their debts, and fighting their battles with a host of litigious

claimants. Now, forsooth, I was to be goaded into dragging the chain of

an onerous and troublesome office, for which I felt myself entirely

unfit.

I replied that no pricks of conscience with regard to my brother's

family impelled me to seek what I neither desired nor deserved. If an

application were made in my name (for I well knew that my sister-in-law

was capable of taking such a step), I should feel myself obliged to

utter a protest. Here I was at Padua, ready to spend my blood for my

brother. If he survived, by the favour of God, I hoped that the

Riformatori would not deprive him of his post. If he died, to my

infinite sorrow, the tribunal would be able to award it to some fitting

person, who deserved it more than I did.

I hoped to be delivered from this well-meant tyranny. But such was not

the case. Doctor Bartolommeo Bevilacqua, rector of the public schools of

Venice, and my good friend, arrived at Padua. He had been sent off

post-haste by the lady to persuade me into taking the step which she

thought it a folly to refuse. I repeated all that I had previously

urged, and declared that my mind was made up to accept no office under

any magistracy. I meant to remain a peace-loving madman to the end.

Perhaps I shall be condemned for the repugnance I have always felt to

becoming the slave of great folk and public interests; but this point in

my character is fixed and ineradicable. I may add that the result of

these negotiations was to free me from the pertinacious patronage

against which I rebelled with my whole nature.

Under these various anxieties and the heat of the season my health gave

away. I was seized with a violent fever, which confined me to bed for

three days. During that time the news which I received about my brother

grew always worse and worse. When I was able to leave my room, I went to

Mme. Cenet. She told me that a priest had been summoned to assist him in

his passage from this world. Two of the doctors, on examining his

expectoration, found that it consisted of pure matter. They concluded

that the lungs, bruised by his fall, had begun to gangrene, and that he

had only a few hours to live. I asked whether Professor della Bona had

repeated his visit. She answered, No. Happening just then to catch sight

of that eminent physician passing along the Prato della Valle, I ran

out, and besought him to come up and give a look at my poor dying

brother. He willingly complied; and on the way I told him what the

doctors had discovered.

At this point I am obliged to exchange the tragic tone for comic humour,

and shall perhaps appear satirical against my will.

The worthy professor listened attentively a long time to my brother's

breathing. Then he said: "The respiration is certainly weak, but

unimpeded. There can be no question of gangrene. Where is that purulent

expectoration?" We brought him the vessel, which he inspected closely,

and laid aside with these words: "There is no pus there; it is only

butter." And so it was. The butter which Mme. Cenet administered had

been spat up from time to time by the patient. "Our invalid," continued

the physician, "is dying of nothing else but an acute fever. Has he

drunk the manna-water I recommended, and have you made the injections of

quinine?" Mme. Cenet answered that these remedies had not been used,

because the other doctors disapproved of them. "Fine!" he replied. "What

was the object then of calling me in? I am not accustomed to play the

part of Truffaldino." Turning to me, he added: "Your brother's life

hangs upon a thread. I cannot answer for it in the state of extreme

weakness to which he is reduced. Yet, though the case looks desperate,

follow my prescriptions, and repeat them frequently."

I begged him not to abandon the sick man, and superintended the

treatment he had ordered. Gradually the fever abated. My brother opened

his eyes, and began to utter a few words. He took small quantities of

stronger food, and swallowed moderate doses of quinine. Then arrived a

terrible crisis. His whole alimentary canal, from the oesophagus to

the rectum, was covered with those ulcers which medical men call

_apthae_. Professor Della Bona regarded this as very serious. But in a

few days my brother regained strength, sat up in bed, and joked with the

doctor. Then, at the end of another period, he left his couch, ate with

appetite, and composed some sonnets. His health, undermined by study,

misfortunes, advanced age, and a mortal illness, was now in as good a

state as could be expected under the circumstances.

Seeing him thus re-established, I was able to leave Padua. But I ought

to add, that when I went to express my heartfelt thanks to Professor

Della Bona, and to press a fee upon him, that generous and benevolent

man refused to accept anything. He was paid enough, he said, by the

recovery of one whom he prized as a friend; not to speak of the

obligations which he owed to the great lady who had recommended my

brother to his care.