_We cannot always go on laughing.--Deaths of friends.--Dissolution of
the old Republic of S. Mark.--I lay my pen down on the 18th of March
1798._
As years advanced, it came to me, as it comes to all, to be reminded
that we cannot go on always laughing. One Sunday I was hearing mass in
the Church of S. Moise, when a friend came up and asked me in a whisper
whether I had heard of the fatal accident to the patrician Paolo Balbi.
"What accident?" I said with consternation. "Last night he died," was
the reply. "What!" exclaimed I, still more terrified: "why, I was with
him three hours yesterday evening; he was in perfect health and
spirits." "Nevertheless," said my informant, "the poor gentleman is
dead. Excuse me if I have been the bearer of disastrous news." When the
mass, to which I listened without listening, was over, I ran to the
patrician's house. I cherished warm affection for this friend of many
years, and hoped against hope that the news might be false. Alas! the
house resounded with funeral lamentations; the widow and children had
already left it for the palace of their relatives, the Malipieri.
Not many days afterwards I received the sad announcement that my brother
Francesco was seriously ill of a kind of cachexy on his estate in
Friuli. A few days later I learned that he had breathed his last. The
poor fellow left his wife and three sons well provided for; but when the
salutary restraint of his authority was removed by death, they showed
every inclination to dissipate what he had brought together for their
comfort.
One morning my friend Raffaelle Todeschini was announced. His
countenance wore an expression of alarm, while he began: "I come to
bring you painful news. Last evening, in the coffee-house at the Ponte
dell'Angelo, that honourable gentleman, Carlo Maffei, died suddenly."
The blow fell heavy on my heart; for I have enjoyed few friendships
equal to that of this most excellent gentleman. In his will he mentioned
me in terms of the highest and most unmerited praise, bequeathing me his
gold snuff-box by way of remembrance. That was the one and only legacy
which fell to my share in the course of my whole life.
In a short period of time I lost successively several other relatives
and friends. My brother Gasparo expired at Padua, recommending his
second wife, the Mme. Cenet who had nursed him through his long illness,
to my care. A sudden stroke of apoplexy robbed me of the first and
faithfullest friend I ever had, Innocenzio Massimo. My sister Laura, who
was married and lived at Adria, passed away while yet in the prime of
womanhood. I could add other names to this funereal catalogue, if I were
not unwilling to detain my readers longer in the graveyard.
Meanwhile, a terrible attack of fever laid me low in my turn. The
physician, Giorgio Cornaro, a man of the highest probity and candour,
who showed a vigilant affection for his patients, came at once to visit
me. The intense pains I suffered during the following night, and the
excessive fierceness with which the fever renewed its assaults, made me
feel that I was about to follow my relatives and friends to the tomb. I
waited through those sombre hours; but when I heard my servant stirring,
I sent him for a confessor. The man refused at first, and had to be
dispatched upon his errand by a voice more worthy of a cut-throat than a
penitent. While I was confessing, Dr. Cornaro entered. He inquired what
I had been about, and I replied that I did not think it amiss to be
prepared beforehand. "I felt sufficiently ill to fulfil the duties of a
Catholic upon his death-bed, and have saved you the trouble of breaking
the news to me in case of necessity." "Very well," said he, feeling my
pulse and frowning. "We must cut short this fever with quinine, before
it reaches the third assault. It is a violent attack of the sort we call
pernicious." How many pounds of the drug I swallowed is unknown to me. I
only remember that they brought me a large glassful every two hours. The
fever abated; but I had to drag through three months of a slow and
painful convalescence.
But now it is time to close these Memoirs. The publisher, Palese,
informs me that the third volume will be more than large enough. I lay
my pen aside just at the moment when I should have had to describe that
vast undulation called the French Revolution, which swept over Europe,
upsetting kingdoms and drowning the landmarks of immemorial history.
This awful typhoon caught Venice in its gyration, affording a splendidly
hideous field for philosophical reflection. "Splendidly hideous" is a
contradiction in terms; but at the period in which we are living
paradoxes have become classical.
The sweet delusive dream of a democracy, organised and based on
irremovable foundations--the expectation of a moral impossibility--made
men howl and laugh and dance and weep together. The ululations of the
dreamers, yelling out _Liberty_, _Equality_, _Fraternity_, deafened our
ears; and those of us who still remained awake were forced to feign
themselves dreamers, in order to protect their honour, their property,
their lives. People who are not accustomed to trace the inevitable
effects of doctrines propagated through the centuries see only mysteries
and prodigies in convulsions of this kind. The whole tenor of my
writings, on the other hand, and particularly my poem _Marfisa
bizzarra_, which conceals philosophy beneath the mantle of burlesque
humour, prove that I was keenly alive to the disastrous results which
had to be expected from revolutionary science sown broadcast during the
past age. I always dreaded and predicted a cataclysm as the natural
consequence of those pernicious doctrines. Yet my Cassandra warnings
were doomed to remain as useless as these Memoirs will certainly be--as
ineffectual as a doctor's prescriptions for a man whose lungs are
rotten. The sweet delusive dream of our physically impossible democracy
will end in the evolution of....
But Palese calls on me to staunch this flow of ink upon the paper. Let
us leave to serious and candid historians the task of relating what we
are sure, if we live, to see.
To-day is the 18th of March in the year 1798; and here I lay my pen
down, lest I injure my good publisher. Farewell, patient and benign
readers of my useless Memoirs!