I Turn Out A Worthless Fellow--My Good Fortune--I Become A Rich Nobleman
With an education which ought to have ensured me an honourable standing
in the world, with some intelligence, wit, good literary and scientific
knowledge, and endowed with those accidental physical qualities which are
such a good passport into society, I found myself, at the age of twenty,
the mean follower of a sublime art, in which, if great talent is rightly
admired, mediocrity is as rightly despised. I was compelled by poverty to
become a member of a musical band, in which I could expect neither esteem
nor consideration, and I was well aware that I should be the
laughing-stock of the persons who had known me as a doctor in divinity,
as an ecclesiastic, and as an officer in the army, and had welcomed me in
the highest society.
I knew all that, for I was not blind to my position; but contempt, the
only thing to which I could not have remained indifferent, never shewed
itself anywhere under a form tangible enough for me to have no doubt of
my being despised, and I set it at defiance, because I was satisfied that
contempt is due only to cowardly, mean actions, and I was conscious that
I had never been guilty of any. As to public esteem, which I had ever
been anxious to secure, my ambition was slumbering, and satisfied with
being my own master I enjoyed my independence without puzzling my head
about the future. I felt that in my first profession, as I was not
blessed with the vocation necessary to it, I should have succeeded only
by dint of hypocrisy, and I should have been despicable in my own
estimation, even if I had seen the purple mantle on my shoulders, for the
greatest dignities cannot silence a man's own conscience. If, on the
other hand, I had continued to seek fortune in a military career, which
is surrounded by a halo of glory, but is otherwise the worst of
professions for the constant self-abnegation, for the complete surrender
of one's will which passive obedience demands, I should have required a
patience to which I could not lay any claim, as every kind of injustice
was revolting to me, and as I could not bear to feel myself dependent.
Besides, I was of opinion that a man's profession, whatever it might be,
ought to supply him with enough money to satisfy all his wants; and the
very poor pay of an officer would never have been sufficient to cover my
expenses, because my education had given me greater wants than those of
officers in general. By scraping my violin I earned enough to keep myself
without requiring anybody's assistance, and I have always thought that
the man who can support himself is happy. I grant that my profession was
not a brilliant one, but I did not mind it, and, calling prejudices all
the feelings which rose in my breast against myself, I was not long in
sharing all the habits of my degraded comrades. When the play was over, I
went with them to the drinking-booth, which we often left intoxicated to
spend the night in houses of ill-fame. When we happened to find those
places already tenanted by other men, we forced them by violence to quit
the premises, and defrauded the miserable victims of prostitution of the
mean salary the law allows them, after compelling them to yield to our
brutality. Our scandalous proceedings often exposed us to the greatest
danger.
We would very often spend the whole night rambling about the city,
inventing and carrying into execution the most impertinent, practical
jokes. One of our favourite pleasures was to unmoor the patricians'
gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying by
anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to indulge in.
We would rouse up hurriedly, in the middle of the night, an honest
midwife, telling her to hasten to Madame So-and-so, who, not being even
pregnant, was sure to tell her she was a fool when she called at the
house. We did the same with physicians, whom we often sent half dressed
to some nobleman who was enjoying excellent health. The priests fared no
better; we would send them to carry the last sacraments to married men
who were peacefully slumbering near their wives, and not thinking of
extreme unction.
We were in the habit of cutting the wires of the bells in every house,
and if we chanced to find a gate open we would go up the stairs in the
dark, and frighten the sleeping inmates by telling them very loudly that
the house door was not closed, after which we would go down, making as
much noise as we could, and leave the house with the gate wide open.
During a very dark night we formed a plot to overturn the large marble
table of St. Angelo's Square, on which it was said that in the days of
the League of Cambray the commissaries of the Republic were in the habit
of paying the bounty to the recruits who engaged to fight under the
standard of St. Mark--a circumstance which secured for the table a sort
of public veneration.
Whenever we could contrive to get into a church tower we thought it great
fun to frighten all the parish by ringing the alarm bell, as if some fire
had broken out; but that was not all, we always cut the bell ropes, so
that in the morning the churchwardens had no means of summoning the
faithful to early mass. Sometimes we would cross the canal, each of us in
a different gondola, and take to our heels without paying as soon as we
landed on the opposite side, in order to make the gondoliers run after
us.
The city was alive with complaints, and we laughed at the useless search
made by the police to find out those who disturbed the peace of the
inhabitants. We took good care to be careful, for if we had been
discovered we stood a very fair chance of being sent to practice rowing
at the expense of the Council of Ten.
We were seven, and sometimes eight, because, being much attached to my
brother Francois, I gave him a share now and then in our nocturnal
orgies. But at last fear put a stop to our criminal jokes, which in those
days I used to call only the frolics of young men. This is the amusing
adventure which closed our exploits.
In every one of the seventy-two parishes of the city of Venice, there is
a large public-house called 'magazzino'. It remains open all night, and
wine is retailed there at a cheaper price than in all the other drinking
houses. People can likewise eat in the 'magazzino', but they must obtain
what they want from the pork butcher near by, who has the exclusive sale
of eatables, and likewise keeps his shop open throughout the night. The
pork butcher is usually a very poor cook, but as he is cheap, poor people
are willingly satisfied with him, and these resorts are considered very
useful to the lower class. The nobility, the merchants, even workmen in
good circumstances, are never seen in the 'magazzino', for cleanliness is
not exactly worshipped in such places. Yet there are a few private rooms
which contain a table surrounded with benches, in which a respectable
family or a few friends can enjoy themselves in a decent way.
It was during the Carnival of 1745, after midnight; we were, all the
eight of us, rambling about together with our masks on, in quest of some
new sort of mischief to amuse us, and we went into the magazzino of the
parish of the Holy Cross to get something to drink. We found the public
room empty, but in one of the private chambers we discovered three men
quietly conversing with a young and pretty woman, and enjoying their
wine.
Our chief, a noble Venetian belonging to the Balbi family, said to us,
"It would be a good joke to carry off those three blockheads, and to keep
the pretty woman in our possession." He immediately explained his plan,
and under cover of our masks we entered their room, Balbi at the head of
us. Our sudden appearance rather surprised the good people, but you may
fancy their astonishment when they heard Balbi say to them: "Under
penalty of death, and by order of the Council of Ten, I command you to
follow us immediately, without making the slightest noise; as to you, my
good woman, you need not be frightened, you will be escorted to your
house." When he had finished his speech, two of us got hold of the woman
to take her where our chief had arranged beforehand, and the others
seized the three poor fellows, who were trembling all over, and had not
the slightest idea of opposing any resistance.
The waiter of the magazzino came to be paid, and our chief gave him what
was due, enjoining silence under penalty of death. We took our three
prisoners to a large boat. Balbi went to the stern, ordered the boatman
to stand at the bow, and told him that he need not enquire where we were
going, that he would steer himself whichever way he thought fit. Not one
of us knew where Balbi wanted to take the three poor devils.
He sails all along the canal, gets out of it, takes several turnings, and
in a quarter of an hour, we reach Saint George where Balbi lands our
prisoners, who are delighted to find themselves at liberty. After this,
the boatman is ordered to take us to Saint Genevieve, where we land,
after paying for the boat.
We proceed at once to Palombo Square, where my brother and another of our
band were waiting for us with our lovely prisoner, who was crying.
"Do not weep, my beauty," says Balbi to her, "we will not hurt you. We
intend only to take some refreshment at the Rialto, and then we will take
you home in safety."
"Where is my husband?"
"Never fear; you shall see him again to-morrow."
Comforted by that promise, and as gentle as a lamb, she follows us to the
"Two Swords." We ordered a good fire in a private room, and, everything
we wanted to eat and to drink having been brought in, we send the waiter
away, and remain alone. We take off our masks, and the sight of eight
young, healthy faces seems to please the beauty we had so unceremoniously
carried off. We soon manage to reconcile her to her fate by the gallantry
of our proceedings; encouraged by a good supper and by the stimulus of
wine, prepared by our compliments and by a few kisses, she realizes what
is in store for her, and does not seem to have any unconquerable
objection. Our chief, as a matter of right, claims the privilege of
opening the ball; and by dint of sweet words he overcomes the very
natural repugnance she feels at consummating the sacrifice in so numerous
company. She, doubtless, thinks the offering agreeable, for, when I
present myself as the priest appointed to sacrifice a second time to the
god of love, she receives me almost with gratitude, and she cannot
conceal her joy when she finds out that she is destined to make us all
happy. My brother Francois alone exempted himself from paying the
tribute, saying that he was ill, the only excuse which could render his
refusal valid, for we had established as a law that every member of our
society was bound to do whatever was done by the others.
After that fine exploit, we put on our masks, and, the bill being paid,
escorted the happy victim to Saint Job, where she lived, and did not
leave her till we had seen her safe in her house, and the street door
closed.
My readers may imagine whether we felt inclined to laugh when the
charming creature bade us good night, thanking us all with perfect good
faith!
Two days afterwards, our nocturnal orgy began to be talked of. The young
woman's husband was a weaver by trade, and so were his two friends. They
joined together to address a complaint to the Council of Ten. The
complaint was candidly written and contained nothing but the truth, but
the criminal portion of the truth was veiled by a circumstance which must
have brought a smile on the grave countenances of the judges, and highly
amused the public at large: the complaint setting forth that the eight
masked men had not rendered themselves guilty of any act disagreeable to
the wife. It went on to say that the two men who had carried her off had
taken her to such a place, where they had, an hour later, been met by the
other six, and that they had all repaired to the "Two Swords," where they
had spent an hour in drinking. The said lady having been handsomely
entertained by the eight masked men, had been escorted to her house,
where she had been politely requested to excuse the joke perpetrated upon
her husband. The three plaintiffs had not been able to leave the island
of Saint George until day-break, and the husband, on reaching his house,
had found his wife quietly asleep in her bed. She had informed him of all
that had happened; she complained of nothing but of the great fright she
had experienced on account of her husband, and on that count she
entreated justice and the punishment of the guilty parties.
That complaint was comic throughout, for the three rogues shewed
themselves very brave in writing, stating that they would certainly not
have given way so easily if the dread authority of the council had not
been put forth by the leader of the band. The document produced three
different results; in the first place, it amused the town; in the second,
all the idlers of Venice went to Saint Job to hear the account of the
adventure from the lips of the heroine herself, and she got many presents
from her numerous visitors; in the third place, the Council of Ten
offered a reward of five hundred ducats to any person giving such
information as would lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of the
practical joke, even if the informer belonged to the band, provided he
was not the leader.
The offer of that reward would have made us tremble if our leader,
precisely the one who alone had no interest in turning informer, had not
been a patrician. The rank of Balbi quieted my anxiety at once, because I
knew that, even supposing one of us were vile enough to betray our secret
for the sake of the reward, the tribunal would have done nothing in order
not to implicate a patrician. There was no cowardly traitor amongst us,
although we were all poor; but fear had its effect, and our nocturnal
pranks were not renewed.
Three or four months afterwards the chevalier Nicolas Iron, then one of
the inquisitors, astonished me greatly by telling me the whole story,
giving the names of all the actors. He did not tell me whether any one of
the band had betrayed the secret, and I did not care to know; but I could
clearly see the characteristic spirit of the aristocracy, for which the
'solo mihi' is the supreme law.
Towards the middle of April of the year 1746 M. Girolamo Cornaro, the
eldest son of the family Cornaro de la Reine, married a daughter of the
house of Soranzo de St. Pol, and I had the honour of being present at the
wedding--as a fiddler. I played the violin in one of the numerous bands
engaged for the balls which were given for three consecutive days in the
Soranzo Palace.
On the third day, towards the end of the dancing, an hour before
day-break, feeling tired, I left the orchestra abruptly; and as I was
going down the stairs I observed a senator, wearing his red robes, on the
point of getting into a gondola. In taking his handkerchief out of his
pocket he let a letter drop on the ground. I picked it up, and coming up
to him just as he was going down the steps I handed it to him. He
received it with many thanks, and enquired where I lived. I told him, and
he insisted upon my coming with him in the gondola saying that he would
leave me at my house. I accepted gratefully, and sat down near him. A few
minutes afterwards he asked me to rub his left arm, which, he said, was
so benumbed that he could not feel it. I rubbed it with all my strength,
but he told me in a sort of indistinct whisper that the numbness was
spreading all along the left side, and that he was dying.
I was greatly frightened; I opened the curtain, took the lantern, and
found him almost insensible, and the mouth drawn on one side. I
understood that he was seized with an apoplectic stroke, and called out
to the gondoliers to land me at once, in order to procure a surgeon to
bleed the patient.
I jumped out of the gondola, and found myself on the very spot where
three years before I had taught Razetta such a forcible lesson; I
enquired for a surgeon at the first coffee-house, and ran to the house
that was pointed out to me. I knocked as hard as I could; the door was at
last opened, and I made the surgeon follow me in his dressing-gown as far
as the gondola, which was waiting; he bled the senator while I was
tearing my shirt to make the compress and the bandage.
The operation being performed, I ordered the gondoliers to row as fast as
possible, and we soon reached St. Marina; the servants were roused up,
and taking the sick man out of the gondola we carried him to his bed
almost dead.
Taking everything upon myself, I ordered a servant to hurry out for a
physician, who came in a short time, and ordered the patient to be bled
again, thus approving the first bleeding prescribed by me. Thinking I had
a right to watch the sick man, I settled myself near his bed to give him
every care he required.
An hour later, two noblemen, friends of the senator, came in, one a few
minutes after the other. They were in despair; they had enquired about
the accident from the gondoliers, and having been told that I knew more
than they did, they loaded me with questions which I answered. They did
not know who I was, and did not like to ask me; whilst I thought it
better to preserve a modest silence.
The patient did not move; his breathing alone shewed that he was still
alive; fomentations were constantly applied, and the priest who had been
sent for, and was of very little use under such circumstances, seemed to
be there only to see him die. All visitors were sent away by my advice,
and the two noblemen and myself were the only persons in the sick man's
room. At noon we partook silently of some dinner which was served in the
sick room.
In the evening one of the two friends told me that if I had any business
to attend to I could go, because they would both pass the night on a
mattress near the patient.
"And I, sir," I said, "will remain near his bed in this arm-chair, for if
I went away the patient would die, and he will live as long as I am near
him."
This sententious answer struck them with astonishment, as I expected it
would, and they looked at each other in great surprise.
We had supper, and in the little conversation we had I gathered the
information that the senator, their friend, was M. de Bragadin, the only
brother of the procurator of that name. He was celebrated in Venice not
only for his eloquence and his great talents as a statesman, but also for
the gallantries of his youth. He had been very extravagant with women,
and more than one of them had committed many follies for him. He had
gambled and lost a great deal, and his brother was his most bitter enemy,
because he was infatuated with the idea that he had tried to poison him.
He had accused him of that crime before the Council of Ten, which, after
an investigation of eight months, had brought in a verdict of not guilty:
but that just sentence, although given unanimously by that high tribunal,
had not had the effect of destroying his brother's prejudices against
him.
M. de Bragadin, who was perfectly innocent of such a crime and oppressed
by an unjust brother who deprived him of half of his income, spent his
days like an amiable philosopher, surrounded by his friends, amongst whom
were the two noblemen who were then watching him; one belonged to the
Dandolo family, the other was a Barbaro, and both were excellent men. M.
de Bragadin was handsome, learned, cheerful, and most kindly disposed; he
was then about fifty years old.
The physician who attended him was named Terro; he thought, by some
peculiar train of reasoning, that he could cure him by applying a
mercurial ointment to the chest, to which no one raised any objection.
The rapid effect of the remedy delighted the two friends, but it
frightened me, for in less than twenty-four hours the patient was
labouring under great excitement of the brain. The physician said that he
had expected that effect, but that on the following day the remedy would
act less on the brain, and diffuse its beneficial action through the
whole of the system, which required to be invigorated by a proper
equilibrium in the circulation of the fluids.
At midnight the patient was in a state of high fever, and in a fearful
state of irritation. I examined him closely, and found him hardly able to
breathe. I roused up his two friends; and declared that in my opinion the
patient would soon die unless the fatal ointment was at once removed. And
without waiting for their answer, I bared his chest, took off the
plaster, washed the skin carefully with lukewarm water, and in less than
three minutes he breathed freely and fell into a quiet sleep. Delighted
with such a fortunate result, we lay down again.
The physician came very early in the morning, and was much pleased to see
his patient so much better, but when M. Dandolo informed him of what had
been done, he was angry, said it was enough to kill his patient, and
asked who had been so audacious as to destroy the effect of his
prescription. M. de Bragadin, speaking for the first time, said to him--
"Doctor, the person who has delivered me from your mercury, which was
killing me, is a more skilful physician than you;" and, saying these
words, he pointed to me.
It would be hard to say who was the more astonished: the doctor, when he
saw an unknown young man, whom he must have taken for an impostor,
declared more learned than himself; or I, when I saw myself transformed
into a physician, at a moment's notice. I kept silent, looking very
modest, but hardly able to control my mirth, whilst the doctor was
staring at me with a mixture of astonishment and of spite, evidently
thinking me some bold quack who had tried to supplant him. At last,
turning towards M. de Bragadin, he told him coldly that he would leave
him in my hands; he was taken at his word, he went away, and behold! I
had become the physician of one of the most illustrious members of the
Venetian Senate! I must confess that I was very glad of it, and I told my
patient that a proper diet was all he needed, and that nature, assisted
by the approaching fine season, would do the rest.
The dismissed physician related the affair through the town, and, as M.
de Bragadin was rapidly improving, one of his relations, who came to see
him, told him that everybody was astonished at his having chosen for his
physician a fiddler from the theatre; but the senator put a stop to his
remarks by answering that a fiddler could know more than all the doctors
in Venice, and that he owed his life to me.
The worthy nobleman considered me as his oracle, and his two friends
listened to me with the deepest attention. Their infatuation encouraging
me, I spoke like a learned physician, I dogmatized, I quoted authors whom
I had never read.
M. de Bragadin, who had the weakness to believe in the occult sciences,
told me one day that, for a young man of my age, he thought my learning
too extensive, and that he was certain I was the possessor of some
supernatural endowment. He entreated me to tell him the truth.
What extraordinary things will sometimes occur from mere chance, or from
the force of circumstances! Unwilling to hurt his vanity by telling him
that he was mistaken, I took the wild resolution of informing him, in the
presence of his two friends, that I possessed a certain numeral calculus
which gave answers (also in numbers), to any questions I liked to put.
M. de Bragadin said that it was Solomon's key, vulgarly called cabalistic
science, and he asked me from whom I learnt it.
"From an old hermit," I answered, "who lives on the Carpegna Mountain,
and whose acquaintance I made quite by chance when I was a prisoner in
the Spanish army."
"The hermit," remarked the senator, "has without informing you of it,
linked an invisible spirit to the calculus he has taught you, for simple
numbers can not have the power of reason. You possess a real treasure,
and you may derive great advantages from it."
"I do not know," I said, "in what way I could make my science useful,
because the answers given by the numerical figures are often so obscure
that I have felt discouraged, and I very seldom tried to make any use of
my calculus. Yet, it is very true that, if I had not formed my pyramid, I
never should have had the happiness of knowing your excellency."
"How so?"
"On the second day, during the festivities at the Soranzo Palace, I
enquired of my oracle whether I would meet at the ball anyone whom I
should not care to see. The answer I obtained was this: 'Leave the
ball-room precisely at four o'clock.' I obeyed implicitly, and met your
excellency."
The three friends were astounded. M. Dandolo asked me whether I would
answer a question he would ask, the interpretation of which would belong
only to him, as he was the only person acquainted with the subject of the
question.
I declared myself quite willing, for it was necessary to brazen it out,
after having ventured as far as I had done. He wrote the question, and
gave it to me; I read it, I could not understand either the subject or
the meaning of the words, but it did not matter, I had to give an answer.
If the question was so obscure that I could not make out the sense of it,
it was natural that I should not understand the answer. I therefore
answered, in ordinary figures, four lines of which he alone could be the
interpreter, not caring much, at least in appearance, how they would be
understood. M. Dandolo read them twice over, seemed astonished, said that
it was all very plain to him; it was Divine, it was unique, it was a gift
from Heaven, the numbers being only the vehicle, but the answer emanating
evidently from an immortal spirit.
M. Dandolo was so well pleased that his two friends very naturally wanted
also to make an experiment. They asked questions on all sorts of
subjects, and my answers, perfectly unintelligible to myself, were all
held as Divine by them. I congratulated them on their success, and
congratulated myself in their presence upon being the possessor of a
thing to which I had until then attached no importance whatever, but
which I promised to cultivate carefully, knowing that I could thus be of
some service to their excellencies.
They all asked me how long I would require to teach them the rules of my
sublime calculus. "Not very long," I answered, "and I will teach you as
you wish, although the hermit assured me that I would die suddenly within
three days if I communicated my science to anyone, but I have no faith
whatever in that prediction." M. de Bragadin who believed in it more than
I did, told me in a serious tone that I was bound to have faith in it,
and from that day they never asked me again to teach them. They very
likely thought that, if they could attach me to them, it would answer the
purpose as well as if they possessed the science themselves. Thus I
became the hierophant of those three worthy and talented men, who, in
spite of their literary accomplishments, were not wise, since they were
infatuated with occult and fabulous sciences, and believed in the
existence of phenomena impossible in the moral as well as in the physical
order of things. They believed that through me they possessed the
philosopher's stone, the universal panacea, the intercourse with all the
elementary, heavenly, and infernal spirits; they had no doubt whatever
that, thanks to my sublime science, they could find out the secrets of
every government in Europe.
After they had assured themselves of the reality of my cabalistic science
by questions respecting the past, they decided to turn it to some use by
consulting it upon the present and upon the future. I had no difficulty
in skewing myself a good guesser, because I always gave answers with a
double meaning, one of the meanings being carefully arranged by me, so as
not to be understood until after the event; in that manner, my cabalistic
science, like the oracle of Delphi, could never be found in fault. I saw
how easy it must have been for the ancient heathen priests to impose upon
ignorant, and therefore credulous mankind. I saw how easy it will always
be for impostors to find dupes, and I realized, even better than the
Roman orator, why two augurs could never look at each other without
laughing; it was because they had both an equal interest in giving
importance to the deceit they perpetrated, and from which they derived
such immense profits. But what I could not, and probably never shall,
understand, was the reason for which the Fathers, who were not so simple
or so ignorant as our Evangelists, did not feel able to deny the divinity
of oracles, and, in order to get out of the difficulty, ascribed them to
the devil. They never would have entertained such a strange idea if they
had been acquainted with cabalistic science. My three worthy friends were
like the holy Fathers; they had intelligence and wit, but they were
superstitious, and no philosophers. But, although believing fully in my
oracles, they were too kind-hearted to think them the work of the devil,
and it suited their natural goodness better to believe my answers
inspired by some heavenly spirit. They were not only good Christians and
faithful to the Church, but even real devotees and full of scruples. They
were not married, and, after having renounced all commerce with women,
they had become the enemies of the female sex; perhaps a strong proof of
the weakness of their minds. They imagined that chastity was the
condition 'sine qua non' exacted by the spirits from those who wished to
have intimate communication or intercourse with them: they fancied that
spirits excluded women, and 'vice versa'.
With all these oddities, the three friends were truly intelligent and
even witty, and, at the beginning of my acquaintance with them, I could
not reconcile these antagonistic points. But a prejudiced mind cannot
reason well, and the faculty of reasoning is the most important of all.
I often laughed when I heard them talk on religious matters; they would
ridicule those whose intellectual faculties were so limited that they
could not understand the mysteries of religion. The incarnation of the
Word, they would say, was a trifle for God, and therefore easy to
understand, and the resurrection was so comprehensible that it did not
appear to them wonderful, because, as God cannot die, Jesus Christ
was naturally certain to rise again. As for the Eucharist,
transubstantiation, the real presence, it was all no mystery to them, but
palpable evidence, and yet they were not Jesuits. They were in the habit
of going to confession every week, without feeling the slightest trouble
about their confessors, whose ignorance they kindly regretted. They
thought themselves bound to confess only what was a sin in their own
opinion, and in that, at least, they reasoned with good sense.
With those three extraordinary characters, worthy of esteem and respect
for their moral qualities, their honesty, their reputation, and their
age, as well as for their noble birth, I spent my days in a very pleasant
manner: although, in their thirst for knowledge, they often kept me hard
at work for ten hours running, all four of us being locked up together in
a room, and unapproachable to everybody, even to friends or relatives.
I completed the conquest of their friendship by relating to them the
whole of my life, only with some proper reserve, so as not to lead them
into any capital sins. I confess candidly that I deceived them, as the
Papa Deldimopulo used to deceive the Greeks who applied to him for the
oracles of the Virgin. I certainly did not act towards them with a true
sense of honesty, but if the reader to whom I confess myself is
acquainted with the world and with the spirit of society, I entreat him
to think before judging me, and perhaps I may meet with some indulgence
at his hands.
I might be told that if I had wished to follow the rules of pure morality
I ought either to have declined intimate intercourse with them or to have
undeceived them. I cannot deny these premises, but I will answer that I
was only twenty years of age, I was intelligent, talented, and had just
been a poor fiddler. I should have lost my time in trying to cure them of
their weakness; I should not have succeeded, for they would have laughed
in my face, deplored my ignorance, and the result of it all would have
been my dismissal. Besides, I had no mission, no right, to constitute
myself an apostle, and if I had heroically resolved on leaving them as
soon as I knew them to be foolish visionaries, I should have shewn myself
a misanthrope, the enemy of those worthy men for whom I could procure
innocent pleasures, and my own enemy at the same time; because, as a
young man, I liked to live well, to enjoy all the pleasures natural to
youth and to a good constitution.
By acting in that manner I should have failed in common politeness, I
should perhaps have caused or allowed M. de Bragadin's death, and I
should have exposed those three honest men to becoming the victims of the
first bold cheat who, ministering to their monomania, might have won
their favour, and would have ruined them by inducing them to undertake
the chemical operations of the Great Work. There is also another
consideration, dear reader, and as I love you I will tell you what it is.
An invincible self-love would have prevented me from declaring myself
unworthy of their friendship either by my ignorance or by my pride; and I
should have been guilty of great rudeness if I had ceased to visit them.
I took, at least it seems to me so, the best, the most natural, and the
noblest decision, if we consider the disposition of their mind, when I
decided upon the plan of conduct which insured me the necessaries of life
and of those necessaries who could be a better judge than your very
humble servant?
Through the friendship of those three men, I was certain of obtaining
consideration and influence in my own country. Besides, I found it very
flattering to my vanity to become the subject of the speculative
chattering of empty fools who, having nothing else to do, are always
trying to find out the cause of every moral phenomenon they meet with,
which their narrow intellect cannot understand.
People racked their brain in Venice to find out how my intimacy with
three men of that high character could possibly exist; they were wrapped
up in heavenly aspirations, I was a world's devotee; they were very
strict in their morals, I was thirsty of all pleasures! At the beginning
of summer, M. de Bragadin was once, more able to take his seat in the
senate, and, the day before he went out for the first time, he spoke to
me thus:
"Whoever you may be, I am indebted to you for my life. Your first
protectors wanted to make you a priest, a doctor, an advocate, a soldier,
and ended by making a fiddler of you; those persons did not know you. God
had evidently instructed your guardian angel to bring you to me. I know
you and appreciate you. If you will be my son, you have only to
acknowledge me for your father, and, for the future, until my death, I
will treat you as my own child. Your apartment is ready, you may send
your clothes: you shall have a servant, a gondola at your orders, my own
table, and ten sequins a month. It is the sum I used to receive from my
father when I was your age. You need not think of the future; think only
of enjoying yourself, and take me as your adviser in everything that may
happen to you, in everything you may wish to undertake, and you may be
certain of always finding me your friend."
I threw myself at his feet to assure him of my gratitude, and embraced
him calling him my father. He folded me in his arms, called me his dear
son; I promised to love and to obey him; his two friends, who lived in
the same palace, embraced me affectionately, and we swore eternal
fraternity.
Such is the history of my metamorphosis, and of the lucky stroke which,
taking me from the vile profession of a fiddler, raised me to the rank of
a grandee.