When in Venice, I had but two zecchinos left wherewith to fight my way
through this wicked world. My spirits for the first time deserted me: I
never passed so miserable a night in my life, and in shame of my “doublet
and hose,” I felt very much inclined to “cry like a child.” While tossing
on my pillow, however, I chanced to recollect a letter which my landlord
of Bologna, Signor Passerini, had given me to a friend of his, a Signor
Andrioli; for, as he told me, he thought the introduction might be of use
to me.
In the morning I went to the Rialto coffee-house, to which I was directed
by the address of the letter. Here I found the gentleman who was the
object of my search. After reading my credentials very graciously, he
smiled, and requested me to take a turn with him in the Piazza St Marc.
He was a fine-looking man, of about sixty years of age. I remarked there
was an aristocratic manner about him, and he wore a very large tie-wig,
well powdered, with an immensely long tail. He addressed me with a
benevolent and patronizing air, and told me that he should be delighted
to be of service to me, and bade me from that moment consider myself
under his protection. “A little business,” said he, “calls me away at
this moment, but if you will meet me here at two o’clock, we will adjourn
to my cassino, where, if you can dine on one dish, you will perhaps do me
the favour to partake of a boiled capon and rice. I can only offer you
that; perhaps a rice soup, for which my cook is famous; and it may be
just one or two little things not worth mentioning.”
A boiled capon--rice soup--other little things, thought I--manna in
the wilderness! I strolled about, not to get an appetite, for that was
ready, but to kill time. My excellent, hospitable, long-tailed friend was
punctual to the moment; I joined him, and proceeded towards his residence.
As we were bending our steps thither, we happened to pass a luganigera’s
(a ham-shop), in which there was some ham ready dressed in the window.
My powdered patron paused,--it was an awful pause; he reconnoitred,
examined, and at last said, “Do you know, Signor, I was thinking that
some of that ham would eat deliciously with our capon:--I am known in
this neighbourhood, and it would not do for me to be seen buying ham. But
do you go in, my child, and get two or three pounds of it, and I will
walk on and wait for you.”
I went in of course, and purchased three pounds of the ham, to pay for
which I was obliged to change one of my two zecchinos. I carefully folded
up the precious viand, and rejoined my excellent patron, who eyed the
relishing slices with the air of a _gourmand_; indeed, he was somewhat
diffuse in his own dispraise for not having recollected to order his
servant to get some before he left home. During this peripatetic lecture
on gastronomy, we happened to pass a cantina, in plain English, a
wine-cellar. At the door he made another full stop.
“In that house,” said he, “they sell the best Cyprus wine in
Venice--peculiar wine--a sort of wine not to be had any where else; I
should like you to taste it; but I do not like to be seen buying wine by
retail to carry home; go in yourself; buy a couple of flasks, and bring
them to _my cassino_; nobody hereabouts knows you, and it won’t signify
in the least.”
This last request was quite appalling; my pocket groaned to its very
centre; however, recollecting that I was on the high road to preferment,
and that a patron, cost what he might, was still a patron, I made the
plunge, and, issuing from the cantina, set forward for my venerable
friend’s cassino, with three pounds of ham in my pocket, and a flask of
wine under each arm.
I continued walking with my excellent long-tailed patron, expecting
every moment to see an elegant, agreeable residence, smiling in all the
beauties of nature and art; when, at last, in a dirty miserable lane, at
the door of a tall dingy-looking house, my Mæcenas stopped, indicated
that we had reached our journey’s end, and, marshalling me the way that
I should go, began to mount three flights of sickening stairs, at the
top of which I found his cassino: it was a little Cas, and a deuce of a
place to boot; in plain English, it was a garret. The door was opened by
a wretched old miscreant, who acted as cook, and whose drapery, to use a
gastronomic simile, was “done to rags.”
Upon a ricketty apology for a table were placed a tattered cloth, which
once had been white, and two plates; and presently in came a large bowl
of boiled rice.
“Where’s the capon?” said my patron to his man.
“Capon!” echoed the ghost of a servant; “the----”
“Has not the rascal sent it?” cried the master.
“Rascal!” repeated the man, apparently terrified.
“I knew he would not,” exclaimed my patron, with an air of exultation,
for which I saw no cause. “Well, well, never mind, put down the ham and
the wine; with those and the rice, I dare say, young gentleman, you will
be able to make it out. I ought to apologise, but in fact it is all your
own fault that there is not more; if I had fallen in with you earlier, we
should have had a better dinner.”
I confess I was surprised, disappointed, and amused; but as matters
stood, there was no use in complaining, and accordingly we fell to,
neither of us wanting the best of all sauces--appetite.
I soon perceived that my promised patron had baited his trap with a
fowl to catch a fool; but as we ate and drank, all care vanished, and,
rogue as I suspected him to be, my long-tailed friend was a clever witty
fellow, and, besides telling me a number of anecdotes, gave me some
very good advice; amongst other things to be avoided, he cautioned me
against numbers of people who in Venice lived only by duping the unwary.
I thought this counsel came very ill _from him_. “Above all,” said he,
“keep up your spirits, and recollect the Venetian proverb, ‘A hundred
years of melancholy will not pay one farthing of debt.’”--_Reminiscences
of Michael Kelly._
* * * * *
Poets often compare life to the sea; and the truth is, that, however
bright the surface may be, they are both of them, whenever analysis is
used, _salt water_.
APOLOGUES AND FABLES, IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE GERMAN AND OTHER
LANGUAGES.
(_Translated for the Irish Penny Journal._)
No. III.--THE STORY OF THE OLD WOLF.