The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi Volume I Part 18

In after days I was glad to have laughed at this indecent exhibition.

The perusal of an anecdote in aelian confirmed my self-congratulation. It was to the following effect. "When," says he, "a firm courageous spirit is attacked before the public in quizzical caricatures and gibing insults, these trifles vanish like mist before the wind; but if they meet with a nature which is base and proud and abject all at one and the same time, they fill it with melancholy and madness, which often lead it to the grave.[143] Take the proof of these remarks. Socrates, when he was ridiculed upon the public stage by Aristophanes, enjoyed the fun and laughed at it. Poliagros, under the same circ.u.mstances, went mad and hanged himself."

In concluding this episode, which I leave my readers to characterise with stronger epithets than I shall use, I wish to affirm that I never have believed, or can believe, that my brother Gasparo lent his pen or his a.s.sent to the production of the scene in question.

XXIX.

_A disagreeable action at law brought against me._

While busily engaged in prosecuting my many lawsuits, I was unpleasantly surprised by the revival of my sister-in-law's old claim for reimburs.e.m.e.nt of monies expended by her in the management of our affairs during my father's lifetime.[144] This preposterous claim had long been lying dormant, and the better terms on which we were gradually coming to live together made me forget it as a chimera of the past.

My brother Gasparo's direction of the theatre of which he was the sole lessee bore such fruits as every one predicted. Instead of the pecuniary profits he had been encouraged to expect, the poor fellow was worried with vexatious and aggressive opposition, peculiarly trying to one of his gifts and temperament, but only too usual in enterprises of this kind.

Wounded pride and thirst for vengeance, together with the hideous necessity of meeting debts contracted in this unsuccessful speculation, were the causes which roused his wife to bring her alleged claims upon the family into a law-court. The defendants in this suit were myself and my two brothers Francesco and Almor. It will be remembered that she had induced us to sign her cabalistic book of magic numbers with the sole object of freeing her from any possible pretensions upon our side. My elder brother, who had been the first to sign, in order to give a good example to his juniors, was not prosecuted by his wife.

Our legal advisers maintained, with some show of reason, that Gasparo was the real mover in this matter. For my part, knowing as I did his peaceful character, I felt certain, that though he was capable of countenancing irregularities through indolence and the desire to live a quiet life, he was incapable of stirring up litigious strife on such foundations. I was not ignorant that he had stooped to the theatrical speculation in order merely to escape from a vortex of domestic intrigues. I knew, moreover, that, after the part.i.tion of our patrimony, his wife and family had changed their residence at least six times, through restlessness, without informing him; so that he had gone to knock at empty house-doors, and had casually learned from neighbours in what quarter of the town his flighty brood had nested last. It also reached my ears that his wife was selling property upon his life, and that he had finally been driven by the tempest of his home to take a distant lodging of two rooms,[145] where he installed himself with his little heap of books and abandoned himself to study, seeking the peace he could not find. After all, the father of a family who flies domestic cares, only brings upon himself more carping cares than those which he has fled from. All these considerations put together enabled me to convince my counsel that Gasparo had no share in the proceedings of his wife.

In the pleadings which set forth my sister-in-law's cause, Signor Guse, already named by me above, deposed on obviously false oath that he had been commissioned by us three brothers to examine her accounts, and that he had found her claim for reimburs.e.m.e.nt in the sum demanded to be just.

To cut a long story short, our arguments upon the other side were useless. It was in vain that we expounded the inability of a woman who had entered our family without dowry, and had got the management of affairs into her hands through the indolence of its real head, to const.i.tute herself its creditor; in vain that we denounced the collusion of one brother with his wife against the interests of three innocent brothers, who had been absent many years without burdening the estate; in vain that we showed how the father and the mother of the plaintiff had been received into our house and maintained for full fifteen years until their death, and how her relatives had been more the masters there than its legitimate owners; in vain that we brought forward the chaotic account-book, signed by us in compliance with our elder brother for the sole sake of calming troubled tempers; in vain that we pointed out figures, garbled, cancelled, altered in these precious doc.u.ments; in vain that we offered to discharge sums due to creditors for money or goods rendered to the plaintiff in her administration of the family affairs. All these solid pleas were like words thrown to the winds before the impudence of two scoundrelly pettifoggers, the very sc.u.m of the Venetian law-courts, who managed to convince our sapient judges that men ought to open their eyes wide before they signed papers. From that moment until now, I have always read my letters through ten times before appending my signature.

As usual, I consoled myself by laughing over the inevitable. Nor did I dream of complaining to Francesco, who had drawn me into the affair by his desire to settle matters. He, good fellow, met my laughter with a sorry countenance, protesting that he could never have antic.i.p.ated such an abominable trick of fortune.

Seven hundred ducats were pa.s.sed to my sister-in-law's credit on the termination of this suit. They did my brother's family no good. Debts to comedians had eaten up the capital beforehand; and I was obliged to pay a set of hungry fellows with the consent of him and his wife. The annoyance, however, did not stop here. In order to bolster up her claim, my sister-in-law had raked together a mult.i.tude of soi-disant creditors, who pretended to have supplied money or goods to our family; and declarations signed by them, recognising her as their sole debtor, were put into court as evidence. When they found their expectations frustrated, the wasp's nest swarmed out against us three brothers, and sequestrated our house-property for payment of their alleged debts.

Before I succeeded in finally shaking them off, I had to transact much tiresome business and to fight several lawsuits.

x.x.x.

_A long and serious illness.--My recovery.--The doctors differ.--One of my sisters takes the veil.--Beginnings of literary squabbles, and other trifles._

In the midst of these annoyances, I found the time and strength to pursue my literary studies, especially in the now neglected art of poetry, and enjoyed excellent health; when suddenly, one night, a violent hemorrhage from the lungs warned me that the life of mortals hangs upon the frailest thread.

Bleeding, vegetable diet, and a frugality in food, which few, I think, are capable of continuing for as long a s.p.a.ce of time as I can, together with my philosophical indifference to death, restored me to something like a tolerable state of health.

It seemed to me at this period that my two brothers and I, who always kept together, were in a position to settle down again into our paternal home. Mme. Gh.e.l.lini Balbi, who had rented the house for more than five years, politely retired at my request, and found another habitation at S. Agostino. I furnished our ancestral nest as decently as I was able; and we were soon installed there. It was then that I invited my youngest sister to leave her convent and join us, travelling myself to Pordenone for this purpose.

Whether through weakness, or human influence, or Divine inspiration, I know not; but I found the good girl obstinate against my prayers, my anger, and my threats. She entreated with a holy stubbornness to be left in prison, to be indulged in her desire to pa.s.s her lifetime in that blessed aviary of virgins. I commanded her to come home for at least three or four months. At the end of that time, if she still persisted in her pious fanaticism, I promised to play the part of executioner at her request. She replied with a serious enthusiasm, which made me laugh, that she knew enough of the world to be experienced in its wickedness; and when I insisted, she met me with rather less than heavenly doggedness by remarking that nothing short of cutting her in pieces would make her quit the convent-gratings. Though I did not believe that this ultimatum was dictated by the angels, I bent my head in order to avoid a scandal. On taking the veil, she received those appointments and allowances which are usually bestowed upon the brides of Christ.

Were I to fix my thoughts upon the troubles which my four married sisters have had to suffer and still suffer--and I am only too well informed about them--I should be obliged to admit that the youngest chose the better part in life. They were always in straits, always weeping, with their gentle natures and their illimitable powers of endurance. One of them died before my eyes, to my deep sorrow, only because she was a wife. Meanwhile, the nun, beloved by her sisters, placidly smiled at things which we, refined in pleasures, finding nowhere solid pleasure for our satisfaction, would call barbarous tortures, and took delight in little treats, which we philosophers, past-masters in the arts of greed, are wont to scorn and turn our backs upon. In due course she attained the highest rank of Abbess in her convent; and I believe she was more gratified with this honour than Louis XVI. with his t.i.tles of King of France and of Navarre.[146]

Time had at length allayed the discords of our family. My two remaining sisters found husbands. My brother Gasparo obtained a post at the University of Padua, which brought him six hundred ducats a year, besides pecuniary gratifications for extraordinary services.[147] This proves that literature is not wholly unremunerated in Venice. In addition to these emoluments, he found another way, legitimate indeed, but one which seems incredible, for acc.u.mulating the sequins so much needed after his theatrical disaster. There was not a marriage, a taking of the veil among our n.o.ble families, an election of a Doge, or procurator, or grand chancellor, without my brother being engaged to produce the panegyrics or poems which are usual on such occasions--more sought perhaps by fashion than by studious readers. The patricians made it their custom to reward him with a hundred sequins, which contributed to the splendour of their families, but did him little good, for in his hands money found wings and flew away.

These details have little to do with my Memoirs; yet they are honourable to my nation, and are not without a certain bearing on my subject.

Poetical trifles, published by me in collections, found favour by some aspect of novelty and by genial satire on contemporary fashions.

Unluckily, they got me the reputation of a good poet and good writer.

Accordingly, many of our lords tried to press me into the ranks of the _Raccoglitori_--collectors and compilers of occasional verse-books.

They did not know that I had adopted for my motto that line of Berni:--

"Voleva far da se, non comandato."

"His master he would be, and no man's man."

Whenever they did me the honour to force this function on me, I civilly declined, and sent their messengers on to my brother, without, however, refusing compositions of my own, which swelled the collections, to their gain or loss as chance might have it.

I never abandoned the scheme I had formed of moving at law against the Marchese Terzi of Bergamo in a suit for the recovery of lands and rights belonging to us.[148] But while I was engaged on the preliminary business, a fresh attack of pulmonary hemorrhage cooled my ardour. Many learned physicians whom I consulted, looked upon me as a victim of consumption, at the point of death. Beggars in the street, when they saw me pa.s.s, promised to pray for my life if I would fling them a copper.

The cleverest professors of medicine at Padua prescribed a.s.s's milk, which was tantamount to saying: "Phthisical creature, go and make your peace with Heaven!" My own doctor in ordinary, Arcadio Cappello by name, now dead--an old man, experienced, well acquainted with my const.i.tution, and a philosopher to boot--forbade me milk as though it had been poison. "You," he said, "are suffering from a nasty malady. Yet it has not the origin, nor has it made the progress, which these eminent physicians fancy. If you let your illness prey upon your mind, you will die. If you have the strength and heart to throw aside all thoughts about it, you will recover. It has in you no other basis than a hypochondriacal habit, which you have contracted by a sedentary life of worry, business, and excessive study. Raw milk of any kind is a pure poison in your case. Live regularly, cast aside reflections on your symptoms, take horse-exercise two or three hours a day. These are your best medicines."

Marchese Terzi owes no thanks to my malady. Bloodless as I was, through what I lost by hemorrhage and venesection, my intellect enjoyed the highest qualities of penetration and ac.u.men. Stretched out upon my bed, I had the necessary papers for my lawsuit brought to me--abstracts and wills recovered from the pork-butcher--a whole paraphernalia of doc.u.ments forbidden by my doctors--and set up a scheme of proofs and arguments, so clear and so convincing that they subsequently drove my enemy to desperate measures.

These annoying relapses of my malady continued for two years and a half to fall upon me when I least expected them. They were enough to dishearten any man less stupid than myself, and make him despair of living. Contrary to the advice of several physicians, who protested with wide-open horror-stricken eyes that riding would inflame my blood and burst the arteries of my lungs, I followed the prescription of Doctor Arcadio Cappello, half-suffocated as I was with hemorrhage. He proved to be right. Regular diet, contempt for my symptoms, and horse-exercise completed my cure. It is now twenty years and more since I have been reminded that I was ever subject to this indisposition.

As I have often had occasion to remark, no business, no quarrels, no lawsuits, and no illnesses prevented me from devoting some hours every day to poetry. This being the case, when controversies arose in Venice on philology and the higher Italian literature--controversies of which I mean to render some account in the following chapters--I went on vomiting blood from my veins, and scribbling sonnets, satires, essays in defence of our great writers, treatises on style, polemics against Chiari and Goldoni and their followers. All these trifles, when I read them aloud, made my friends laugh, as well as my doctor and the surgeon who attended on me.

Before engaging in the circ.u.mstances which led to my becoming a writer for the theatre, I will wind up the history of our private affairs.

First of all, I let the lawsuit with Marchese Terzi drop. My reasons were as follows:--With the best intentions in the world, and the strongest desire to reunite the scattered members of our family under one roof, I found this task impossible. My sisters married. My brothers Francesco and Almor in course of time took wives and begat children. My mother's inheritance of the Tiepolo property (though strictly speaking it ought to have been treated as entailed upon her sons) ran to waste in the hands of Gasparo and his wife. I had the old debts of our estate still weighing on my shoulders. It seemed to me, in this condition of affairs, best to remain a bachelor, and to devote myself to the duties I had undertaken, without ambitious projects and without a.s.suming heavier obligations. Freed from further responsibilities to my family, whom I had loyally served in their material interests, and against none of whom I harboured any rancour, I was master of my time and could devote myself to the literary exercises which were so congenial to my temper.

END OF VOL. I.