An Amusing Meeting in Orsera

An Amusing Meeting in Orsera–Journey to Corfu–My Stay in
Constantinople–Bonneval–My Return to Corfu–Madame F.–The
False Prince–I Run Away from Corfu–My Frolics at Casopo–I
Surrender My self a Prisoner–My Speedy Release and Triumph–
My Success with Madame F.

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I affirm that a stupid servant is more dangerous than a bad one, and a
much greater plague, for one can be on one’s guard against a wicked
person, but never against a fool. You can punish wickedness but not
stupidity, unless you send away the fool, male or female, who is guilty
of it, and if you do so you generally find out that the change has only
thrown you out of the frying-pan into the fire.

This chapter and the two following ones were written; they gave at full
length all the particulars which I must now abridge, for my silly servant
has taken the three chapters for her own purposes. She pleaded as an
excuse that the sheets of paper were old, written upon, covered with
scribbling and erasures, and that she had taken them in preference to
nice, clean paper, thinking that I would care much more for the last than
for the first. I flew into a violent passion, but I was wrong, for the
poor girl had acted with a good intent; her judgment alone had misled
her. It is well known that the first result of anger is to deprive the
angry man of the faculty of reason, for anger and reason do not belong to
the same family. Luckily, passion does not keep me long under its sway:
‘Irasci, celerem tamen et placabilem esse’. After I had wasted my time in
hurling at her bitter reproaches, the force of which did not strike her,
and in proving to her that she was a stupid fool, she refuted all my
arguments by the most complete silence. There was nothing to do but to
resign myself, and, although not yet in the best of tempers, I went to
work. What I am going to write will probably not be so good as what I had
composed when I felt in the proper humour, but my readers must be
satisfied with it they will, like the engineer, gain in time what they
lose in strength.

I landed at Orsera while our ship was taking ballast, as a ship cannot
sail well when she is too light, and I was walking about when I remarked
a man who was looking at me very attentively. As I had no dread of any
creditor, I thought that he was interested by my fine appearance; I could
not find fault with such a feeling, and kept walking on, but as I passed
him, he addressed me:

“Might I presume to enquire whether this is your first visit to Orsera,
captain?”

“No, sir, it is my second visit to this city.”

“Were you not here last year?”

“I was.”

“But you were not in uniform then?”

“True again; but your questions begin to sound rather indiscreet.”

“Be good enough to forgive me, sir, for my curiosity is the offspring of
gratitude. I am indebted to you for the greatest benefits, and I trust
that Providence has brought you here again only to give me the
opportunity of making greater still my debt of gratitude to you.”

“What on earth have I done, and what can I do for you? I am at a loss to
guess your meaning.”

“Will you be so kind as to come and breakfast with me? My house is near
at hand; my refosco is delicious, please to taste it, and I will convince
you in a few words that you are truly my benefactor, and that I have a
right to expect that you have returned Orsera to load me with fresh
benefits.”

I could not suspect the man of insanity; but, as I could not make him
out, I fancied that he wanted to make me purchase some of his refosco,
and I accepted his invitation. We went up to his room, and he left me for
a few moments to order breakfast. I observed several surgical
instruments, which made me suppose that he was a surgeon, and I asked him
when he returned.

“Yes, captain; I have been practising surgery in this place for twenty
years, and in a very poor way, for I had nothing to do, except a few
cases of bleeding, of cupping, and occasionally some slight excoriation
to dress or a sprained ankle to put to rights. I did not earn even the
poorest living. But since last year a great change has taken place; I
have made a good deal of money, I have laid it out advantageously, and it
is to you, captain, to you (may God bless you!) that I am indebted for my
present comforts.”

“But how so?”

“In this way, captain. You had a connection with Don Jerome’s
housekeeper, and you left her, when you went away, a certain souvenir
which she communicated to a friend of hers, who, in perfect good faith,
made a present of it to his wife. This lady did not wish, I suppose, to
be selfish, and she gave the souvenir to a libertine who, in his turn,
was so generous with it that, in less than a month, I had about fifty
clients. The following months were not less fruitful, and I gave the
benefit of my attendance to everybody, of course, for a consideration.
There are a few patients still under my care, but in a short time there
will be no more, as the souvenir left by you has now lost all its virtue.
You can easily realize now the joy I felt when I saw you; you are a bird
of good omen. May I hope that your visit will last long enough to enable
you to renew the source of my fortune?”

I laughed heartily, but he was grieved to hear that I was in excellent
health. He remarked, however, that I was not likely to be so well off on
my return, because, in the country to which I was going, there was
abundance of damaged goods, but that no one knew better than he did how
to root out the venom left by the use of such bad merchandise. He begged
that I would depend upon him, and not trust myself in the hands of
quacks, who would be sure to palm their remedies upon me. I promised him
everything, and, taking leave of him with many thanks, I returned to the
ship. I related the whole affair to M. Dolfin, who was highly amused. We
sailed on the following day, but on the fourth day, on the other side of
Curzola, we were visited by a storm which very nearly cost me my life.
This is how it happened:

The chaplain of the ship was a Sclavonian priest, very ignorant, insolent
and coarse-mannered, and, as I turned him into ridicule whenever the
opportunity offered, he had naturally become my sworn enemy. ‘Tant de
fiel entre-t-il dans l’ame d’un devot!’ When the storm was at its height,
he posted himself on the quarter-deck, and, with book in hand, proceeded
to exorcise all the spirits of hell whom he thought he could see in the
clouds, and to whom he pointed for the benefit of the sailors who,
believing themselves lost, were crying, howling, and giving way to
despair, instead of attending to the working of the ship, then in great
danger on account of the rocks and of the breakers which surrounded us.

Seeing the peril of our position, and the evil effect of his stupid,
incantations upon the minds of the sailors whom the ignorant priest was
throwing into the apathy of despair, instead of keeping up their courage,
I thought it prudent to interfere. I went up the rigging, calling upon
the sailors to do their duty cheerfully, telling them that there were no
devils, and that the priest who pretended to see them was a fool. But it
was in vain that I spoke in the most forcible manner, in vain that I went
to work myself, and shewed that safety was only to be insured by active
means, I could not prevent the priest declaring that I was an Atheist,
and he managed to rouse against me the anger of the greatest part of the
crew. The wind continued to lash the sea into fury for the two following
days, and the knave contrived to persuade the sailors who listened to him
that the hurricane would not abate as long as I was on board. Imbued with
that conviction, one of the men, thinking he had found a good opportunity
of fulfilling the wishes of the priest, came up to me as I was standing
at the extreme end of the forecastle, and pushed me so roughly that I was
thrown over. I should have been irretrievably lost, but the sharp point
of an anchor, hanging along the side of the ship, catching in my clothes,
prevented me from falling in the sea, and proved truly my sheet-anchor.
Some men came to my assistance, and I was saved. A corporal then pointed
out to me the sailor who had tried to murder me, and taking a stout stick
I treated the scoundrel to a sound thrashing; but the sailors, headed by
the furious priest, rushed towards us when they heard his screams, and I
should have been killed if the soldiers had not taken my part. The
commander and M. Dolfin then came on deck, but they were compelled to
listen to the chaplain, and to promise, in order to pacify the vile
rabble, that they would land me at the first opportunity. But even this
was not enough; the priest demanded that I should give up to him a
certain parchment that I had purchased from a Greek at Malamocco just
before sailing. I had no recollection of it, but it was true. I laughed,
and gave it to M. Dolfin; he handed it to the fanatic chaplain, who,
exulting in his victory, called for a large pan of live coals from the
cook’s galley, and made an auto-da-fe of the document. The unlucky
parchment, before it was entirely consumed, kept writhing on the fire for
half an hour, and the priest did not fail to represent those contortions
as a miracle, and all the sailors were sure that it was an infernal
manuscript given to me by the devil. The virtue claimed for that piece of
parchment by the man who had sold it to me was that it insured its lucky
possessor the love of all women, but I trust my readers will do me the
justice to believe that I had no faith whatever in amorous philtres,
talismans, or amulets of any kind: I had purchased it only for a joke.

You can find throughout Italy, in Greece, and generally in every country
the inhabitants of which are yet wrapped up in primitive ignorance, a
tribe of Greeks, of Jews, of astronomers, and of exorcists, who sell
their dupes rags and toys to which they boastingly attach wonderful
virtues and properties; amulets which render invulnerable, scraps of
cloth which defend from witchcraft, small bags filled with drugs to keep
away goblins, and a thousand gewgaws of the same description. These
wonderful goods have no marketable value whatever in France, in England,
in Germany, and throughout the north of Europe generally, but, in
revenge, the inhabitants of those countries indulge in knavish practices
of a much worse kind.

The storm abated just as the innocent parchment was writhing on the fire,
and the sailors, believing that the spirits of hell had been exorcised,
thought no more of getting rid of my person, and after a prosperous
voyage of a week we cast anchor at Corfu. As soon as I had found a
comfortable lodging I took my letters to his eminence the
proveditore-generale, and to all the naval commanders to whom I was
recommended; and after paying my respects to my colonel, and making the
acquaintance of the officers of my regiment, I prepared to enjoy myself
until the arrival of the Chevalier Venier, who had promised to take me to
Constantinople. He arrived towards the middle of June, but in the mean
time I had been playing basset, and had lost all my money, and sold or
pledged all my jewellery.

Such must be the fate awaiting every man who has a taste for gambling,
unless he should know how to fix fickle fortune by playing with a real
advantage derived from calculation or from adroitness, which defies
chance. I think that a cool and prudent player can manage both without
exposing himself to censure, or deserving to be called a cheat.

During the month that I spent in Corfu, waiting for the arrival of M.
Venier, I did not devote any time to the study, either moral or physical,
of the country, for, excepting the days on which I was on duty, I passed
my life at the coffee-house, intent upon the game, and sinking, as a
matter of course, under the adverse fortune which I braved with
obstinacy. I never won, and I had not the moral strength to stop till all
my means were gone. The only comfort I had, and a sorry one truly, was to
hear the banker himself call me–perhaps sarcastically–a fine player,
every time I lost a large stake. My misery was at its height, when new
life was infused in me by the booming of the guns fired in honour of the
arrival of the bailo. He was on board the Europa, a frigate of
seventy-two guns, and he had taken only eight days to sail from Venice to
Corfu. The moment he cast anchor, the bailo hoisted his flag of
captain-general of the Venetian navy, and the proveditore hauled down his
own colours. The Republic of Venice has not on the sea any authority
greater than that of Bailo to the Porte. The Chevalier Venier had with
him a distinguished and brilliant suite; Count Annibal Gambera, Count
Charles Zenobio, both Venetian noblemen of the first class, and the
Marquis d’Anchotti of Bressan, accompanied him to Constantinople for
their own amusement. The bailo remained a week in Corfu, and all the
naval authorities entertained him and his suite in turn, so that there
was a constant succession of balls and suppers. When I presented myself
to his excellency, he informed me that he had already spoken to the
proveditore, who had granted me a furlough of six months to enable me to
accompany him to Constantinople as his adjutant; and as soon as the
official document for my furlough had been delivered to me, I sent my
small stock of worldly goods on board the Europa, and we weighed anchor
early the next day.

We sailed with a favourable wind which remained steady and brought us in
six days to Cerigo, where we stopped to take in some water. Feeling some
curiosity to visit the ancient Cythera, I went on shore with the sailors
on duty, but it would have been better for me if I had remained on board,
for in Cerigo I made a bad acquaintance. I was accompanied by the captain
of marines.

The moment we set foot on shore, two men, very poorly dressed and of
unprepossessing appearance, came to us and begged for assistance. I asked
them who they were, and one, quicker than the other, answered;

“We are sentenced to live, and perhaps to die, in this island by the
despotism of the Council of Ten. There are forty others as unfortunate as
ourselves, and we are all born subjects of the Republic.

“The crime of which we have been accused, which is not considered a crime
anywhere, is that we were in the habit of living with our mistresses,
without being jealous of our friends, when, finding our ladies handsome,
they obtained their favours with our ready consent. As we were not rich,
we felt no remorse in availing ourselves of the generosity of our friends
in such cases, but it was said that we were carrying on an illicit trade,
and we have been sent to this place, where we receive every day ten sous
in ‘moneta lunga’. We are called ‘mangia-mayroni’, and are worse off than
galley slaves, for we are dying of ennui, and we are often starving
without knowing how to stay our hunger. My name is Don Antonio Pocchini,
I am of a noble Paduan family, and my mother belongs to the illustrious
family of Campo San-Piero.”

We gave them some money, and went about the island, returning to the ship
after we had visited the fortress. I shall have to speak of that Pocchini
in a few years.

The wind continued in our favour, and we reached the Dardanelles in eight
or ten days; the Turkish barges met us there to carry us to
Constantinople. The sight offered by that city at the distance of a
league is truly wonderful; and I believe that a more magnificent panorama
cannot be found in any part of the world. It was that splendid view which
was the cause of the fall of the Roman, and of the rise of the Greek
empire. Constantine the Great, arriving at Byzantium by sea, was so much
struck with the wonderful beauty of its position, that he exclaimed,
“Here is the proper seat of the empire of the whole world!” and in order
to secure the fulfilment of his prediction, he left Rome for Byzantium.
If he had known the prophecy of Horace, or rather if he had believed in
it, he would not have been guilty of such folly. The poet had said that
the downfall of the Roman empire would begin only when one of the
successors of Augustus bethought him removing the capital of the empire
to where it had originated. The road is not far distant from Thrace.

We arrived at the Venetian Embassy in Pera towards the middle of July,
and, for a wonder, there was no talk of the plague in Constantinople just
then. We were all provided with very comfortable lodgings, but the
intensity of the heat induced the baili to seek for a little coolness in
a country mansion which had been hired by the Bailo Dona. It was situated
at Bouyoudere. The very first order laid upon me was never to go out
unknown to the bailo, and without being escorted by a janissary, and this
order I obeyed to the letter. In those days the Russians had not tamed
the insolence of the Turkish people. I am told that foreigners can now go
about as much as they please in perfect security.

The day after our arrival, I took a janissary to accompany me to Osman
Pacha, of Caramania, the name assumed by Count de Bonneval ever since he
had adopted the turban. I sent in my letter, and was immediately shewn
into an apartment on the ground floor, furnished in the French fashion,
where I saw a stout elderly gentleman, dressed like a Frenchman, who, as
I entered the room, rose, came to meet me with a smiling countenance, and
asked me how he could serve the ‘protege’ of a cardinal of the Roman
Catholic Church, which he could no longer call his mother. I gave him all
the particulars of the circumstances which, in a moment of despair, had
induced me to ask the cardinal for letters of introduction for
Constantinople, and I added that, the letters once in my possession, my
superstitious feelings had made me believe that I was bound to deliver
them in person.

“Then, without this letter,” he said, “you never would have come to
Constantinople, and you have no need of me?”

“True, but I consider myself fortunate in having thus made the
acquaintance of a man who has attracted the attention of the whole of
Europe, and who still commands that attention.”

His excellency made some remark respecting the happiness of young men
who, like me, without care, without any fixed purpose, abandon themselves
to fortune with that confidence which knows no fear, and telling me that
the cardinal’s letter made it desirable that he should do something for
me, he promised to introduce me to three or four of his Turkish friends
who deserved to be known. He invited me to dine with him every Thursday,
and undertook to send me a janissary who would protect me from the
insults of the rabble and shew me everything worth seeing.

The cardinal’s letter representing me as a literary man, the pacha
observed that I ought to see his library. I followed him through the
garden, and we entered a room furnished with grated cupboards; curtains
could be seen behind the wirework; the books were most likely behind the
curtains.

Taking a key out of his pocket, he opened one of the cupboards, and,
instead of folios, I saw long rows of bottles of the finest wines. We
both laughed heartily.

“Here are,” said the pacha, “my library and my harem. I am old, women
would only shorten my life but good wine will prolong it, or at least,
make it more agreeable.

“I imagine your excellency has obtained a dispensation from the mufti?”

“You are mistaken, for the Pope of the Turks is very far from enjoying as
great a power as the Christian Pope. He cannot in any case permit what is
forbidden by the Koran; but everyone is at liberty to work out his own
damnation if he likes. The Turkish devotees pity the libertines, but they
do not persecute them; there is no inquisition in Turkey. Those who do
not know the precepts of religion, say the Turks, will suffer enough in
the life to come; there is no need to make them suffer in this life. The
only dispensation I have asked and obtained, has been respecting
circumcision, although it can hardly be called so, because, at my age, it
might have proved dangerous. That ceremony is generally performed, but it
is not compulsory.”

During the two hours that we spent together, the pacha enquired after
several of his friends in Venice, and particularly after Marc Antonio
Dieto. I told him that his friends were still faithful to their affection
for him, and did not find fault with his apostasy. He answered that he
was a Mahometan as he had been a Christian, and that he was not better
acquainted with the Koran than he had been with the Gospel. “I am
certain,” he added, “that I shall die-calmer and much happier than Prince
Eugene. I have had to say that God is God, and that Mahomet is the
prophet. I have said it, and the Turks care very little whether I believe
it or not. I wear the turban as the soldier wears the uniform. I was
nothing but a military man; I could not have turned my hand to any other
profession, and I made up my mind to become lieutenant-general of the
Grand Turk only when I found myself entirely at a loss how to earn my
living. When I left Venice, the pitcher had gone too often to the well,
it was broken at last, and if the Jews had offered me the command of an
army of fifty thousand men, I would have gone and besieged Jerusalem.”

Bonneval was handsome, but too stout. He had received a sabre-cut in the
lower part of the abdomen, which compelled him to wear constantly a
bandage supported by a silver plate. He had been exiled to Asia, but only
for a short time, for, as he told me, the cabals are not so tenacious in
Turkey as they are in Europe, and particularly at the court of Vienna. As
I was taking leave of him, he was kind enough to say that, since his
arrival in Turkey, he had never passed two hours as pleasantly as those
he had just spent with me, and that he would compliment the bailo about
me.

The Bailo Dona, who had known him intimately in Venice, desired me to be
the bearer of all his friendly compliments for him, and M. Venier
expressed his deep regret at not being able to make his acquaintance.

The second day after my first visit to him being a Thursday, the pacha
did not forget to send a janissary according to his promise. It was about
eleven in the morning when the janissary called for me, I followed him,
and this time I found Bonneval dressed in the Turkish style. His guests
soon arrived, and we sat down to dinner, eight of us, all well disposed
to be cheerful and happy. The dinner was entirely French, in cooking and
service; his steward and his cook were both worthy French renegades.

He had taken care to introduce me to all his guests and at the same time
to let me know who they were, but he did not give me an opportunity of
speaking before dinner was nearly over. The conversation was entirely
kept up in Italian, and I remarked that the Turks did not utter a single
word in their own language, even to say the most ordinary thing. Each
guest had near him a bottle which might have contained either white wine
or hydromel; all I know is that I drank, as well as M. de Bonneval, next
to whom I was seated, some excellent white Burgundy.

The guests got me on the subject of Venice, and particularly of Rome, and
the conversation very naturally fell upon religion, but not upon dogmatic
questions; the discipline of religion and liturgical questions were alone
discussed.

One of the guests, who was addressed as effendi, because he had been
secretary for foreign affairs, said that the ambassador from Venice to
Rome was a friend of his, and he spoke of him in the highest manner. I
told him that I shared his admiration for that ambassador, who had given
me a letter of introduction for a Turkish nobleman, whom he had
represented as an intimate friend. He enquired for the name of the person
to whom the letter was addressed, but I could not recollect it, and took
the letter out of my pocket-book. The effendi was delighted when he found
that the letter was for himself. He begged leave to read it at once, and
after he had perused it, he kissed the signature and came to embrace me.
This scene pleased M. de Bonneval and all his friends. The effendi, whose
name was Ismail, entreated the pacha to come to dine with him, and to
bring me; Bonneval accepted, and fixed a day.

Notwithstanding all the politeness of the effendi, I was particularly
interested during our charming dinner in a fine elderly man of about
sixty, whose countenance breathed at the same time the greatest sagacity
and the most perfect kindness. Two years afterwards I found again the
same features on the handsome face of M. de Bragadin, a Venetian senator
of whom I shall have to speak at length when we come to that period of my
life. That elderly gentleman had listened to me with the greatest
attention, but without uttering one word. In society, a man whose face
and general appearance excite your interest, stimulates strongly your
curiosity if he remains silent. When we left the dining-room I enquired
from de Bonneval who he was; he answered that he was wealthy, a
philosopher, a man of acknowledged merit, of great purity of morals, and
strongly attached to his religion. He advised me to cultivate his
acquaintance if he made any advances to me.

I was pleased with his advice, and when, after a walk under the shady
trees of the garden, we returned to a drawing-room furnished in the
Turkish fashion, I purposely took a seat near Yusuf Ali. Such was the
name of the Turk for whom I felt so much sympathy. He offered me his pipe
in a very graceful manner; I refused it politely, and took one brought to
me by one of M. de Bonneval’s servants. Whenever I have been amongst
smokers I have smoked or left the room; otherwise I would have fancied
that I was swallowing the smoke of the others, and that idea which is
true and unpleasant, disgusted me. I have never been able to understand
how in Germany the ladies, otherwise so polite and delicate, could inhale
the suffocating fumes of a crowd of smokers.

Yusuf, pleased to have me near him, at once led the conversation to
subjects similar to those which had been discussed at table, and
particularly to the reasons which had induced me to give up the peaceful
profession of the Church and to choose a military life; and in order to
gratify his curiosity without losing his good opinion, I gave him, but
with proper caution, some of the particulars of my life, for I wanted him
to be satisfied that, if I had at first entered the career of the holy
priesthood, it had not been through any vocation of mine. He seemed
pleased with my recital, spoke of natural vocations as a Stoic
philosopher, and I saw that he was a fatalist; but as I was careful not
to attack his system openly, he did not dislike my objections, most
likely because he thought himself strong enough to overthrow them.

I must have inspired the honest Mussulman with very great esteem, for he
thought me worthy of becoming his disciple; it was not likely that he
could entertain the idea of becoming himself the disciple of a young man
of nineteen, lost, as he thought, in a false religion.

After spending an hour in examining me, in listening to my principles, he
said that he believed me fit to know the real truth, because he saw that
I was seeking for it, and that I was not certain of having obtained it so
far. He invited me to come and spend a whole day with him, naming the
days when I would be certain to find him at home, but he advised me to
consult the Pacha Osman before accepting his invitation. I told him that
the pacha had already mentioned him to me and had spoken very highly of
his character; he seemed much pleased. I fixed a day for my visit, and
left him.

I informed M. de Bonneval of all that had occurred; he was delighted, and
promised that his janissary would be every day at the Venetian palace,
ready to execute my orders.

I received the congratulations of the baili upon the excellent
acquaintances I had already made, and M. Venier advised me not to neglect
such friends in a country where weariness of life was more deadly to
foreigners than the plague.

On the day appointed, I went early to Yusuf’s palace, but he was out. His
gardener, who had received his instructions, shewed me every attention,
and entertained me very agreeably for two hours in doing the honours of
his master’s splendid garden, where I found the most beautiful flowers.
This gardener was a Neapolitan, and had belonged to Yusuf for thirty
years. His manners made me suspect that he was well born and well
educated, but he told me frankly that he had never been taught even to
read, that he was a sailor when he, was taken in slavery, and that he was
so happy in the service of Yusuf that liberty would be a punishment to
him. Of course I did not venture to address him any questions about his
master, for his reserve might have put my curiosity to the blush.

Yusuf had gone out on horseback; he returned, and, after the usual
compliments, we dined alone in a summerhouse, from which we had a fine
view of the sea, and in which the heat was cooled by a delightful breeze,
which blows regularly at the same hour every day from the north-west; and
is called the mistral. We had a good dinner; there was no prepared dish
except the cauroman, a peculiar delicacy of the Turks. I drank water and
hydromel, and I told Yusuf that I preferred the last to wine, of which I
never took much at that time. “Your hydromel,” I said, “is very good, and
the Mussulmans who offend against the law by drinking wine do not deserve
any indulgence; I believe they drink wine only because it is forbidden.”
“Many of the true believers,” he answered, “think that they can take it
as a medicine. The Grand Turk’s physician has brought it into vogue as a
medicine, and it has been the cause of his fortune, for he has captivated
the favour of his master who is in reality constantly ill, because he is
always in a state of intoxication.” I told Yusuf that in my country
drunkards were scarce, and that drunkenness was a vice to be found only
among the lowest people; he was much astonished. “I cannot understand,”
he said, “why wine is allowed by all religions, when its use deprives man
of his reason.”–”All religions,” I answered, “forbid excess in drinking
wine, and the crime is only in the abuse.” I proved him the truth of what
I had said by telling him that opium produced the same results as wine,
but more powerfully, and consequently Mahomet ought to have forbidden the
use of it. He observed that he had never taken either wine or opium in
the course of his life.

After dinner, pipes were brought in and we filled them ourselves. I was
smoking with pleasure, but, at the same time, was expectorating. Yusuf,
who smoked like a Turk, that is to say, without spitting, said,–

“The tobacco you are now smoking is of a very fine quality, and you ought
to swallow its balsam which is mixed with the saliva.”

“I suppose you are right; smoking cannot be truly enjoyed without the
best tobacco.”

“That is true to a certain extent, but the enjoyment found in smoking
good tobacco is not the principal pleasure, because it only pleases our
senses; true enjoyment is that which works upon the soul, and is
completely independent of the senses.”

“I cannot realize pleasures enjoyed by the soul without the
instrumentality of the senses.”

“Listen to me. When you fill your pipe do you feel any pleasure?”

“Yes.”

“Whence does that pleasure arise, if it is not from your soul? Let us go
further. Do you not feel pleased when you give up your pipe after having
smoked all the tobacco in it–when you see that nothing is left but some
ashes?”

“It is true.”

“Well, there are two pleasures in which your senses have certainly
nothing to do, but I want you to guess the third, and the most
essential.”

“The most essential? It is the perfume.”

“No; that is a pleasure of the organ of smelling–a sensual pleasure.”

“Then I do not know.”

“Listen. The principal pleasure derived from tobacco smoking is the sight
of a smoke itself. You must never see it go out of the bowl of your
pipe,–but only from the corner o your mouth, at regular intervals which
must not be too frequent. It is so truly the greatest pleasure connected
with the pipe, that you cannot find anywhere a blind man who smokes. Try
yourself the experiment of smoking a pipe in your room, at night and
without a light; you will soon lay the pipe down.”

“It is all perfectly true; yet you must forgive me if I give the
preference to several pleasures, in which my senses are interested, over
those which afford enjoyment only to my soul.”

“Forty years ago I was of the same opinion, and in forty years, if you
succeed in acquiring wisdom, you will think like me. Pleasures which give
activity to our senses, my dear son, disturb the repose of our soul–a
proof that they do not deserve the name of real enjoyments.”

“But if I feel them to be real enjoyments, it is enough to prove that
they are truly so.”

“Granted; but if you would take the trouble of analyzing them after you
have tasted them, you would not find them unalloyed.”

“It may be so, but why should I take a trouble which would only lessen my
enjoyment.”

“A time will come when you will feel pleasure in that very trouble.”

“It strikes me, dear father, that you prefer mature age to youth.”

“You may boldly say old age.”

“You surprise me. Must I believe that your early life has been unhappy?”

“Far from it. It was always fortunate in good health, and the master of
my own passions; but all I saw in my equals was for me a good school in
which I have acquired the knowledge of man, and learned the real road to
happiness. The happiest of men is not the most voluptuous, but the one
who knows how to choose the highest standards of voluptuousness, which
can be found, I say again, not in the pleasures which excite our senses,
but in those which give greater repose to the soul.”

“That is the voluptuousness which you consider unalloyed.”

“Yes, and such is the sight of a vast prairie all covered with grass. The
green colour, so strongly recommended by our divine prophet, strikes my
eyes, and at the same moment I feel that my soul is wrapped up in a calm
so delightful that I fancy myself nearer the Creator. I enjoy the same
peace, the same repose, when I am seated on the banks of a river, when I
look upon the water so quiet, yet always moving, which flows constantly,
yet never disappears from my sight, never loses any of its clearness in
spite of its constant motion. It strikes me as the image of my own
existence, and of the calm which I require for my life in order to reach,
like the water I am gazing upon, the goal which I do not see, and which
can only be found at the other end of the journey.”

Thus did the Turk reason, and we passed four hours in this sort of
conversation. He had buried two wives, and he had two sons and one
daughter. The eldest son, having received his patrimony, had established
himself in the city of Salonica, where he was a wealthy merchant; the
other was in the seraglio, in the service of the Grand Turk and his
fortune was in the hands of a trustee. His daughter, Zelmi, then fifteen
years of age, was to inherit all his remaining property. He had given her
all the accomplishments which could minister to the happiness of the man
whom heaven had destined for her husband. We shall hear more of that
daughter anon. The mother of the three children was dead, and five years
previous to the time of my visit, Yusuf had taken another wife, a native
of Scio, young and very beautiful, but he told me himself that he was now
too old, and could not hope to have any child by her. Yet he was only
sixty years of age. Before I left, he made me promise to spend at least
one day every week with him.

At supper, I told the baili how pleasantly the day had passed.

“We envy you,” they said, “the prospect you have before you of spending
agreeably three or four months in this country, while, in our quality of
ministers, we must pine away with melancholy.”

A few days afterwards, M. de Bonneval took me with him to dine at
Ismail’s house, where I saw Asiatic luxury on a grand scale, but there
were a great many guests, and the conversation was held almost entirely
in the Turkish language–a circumstance which annoyed me and M. de
Bonneval also. Ismail saw it, and he invited me to breakfast whenever I
felt disposed, assuring me that he would have much pleasure in receiving
me. I accepted the invitation, and I went ten or twelve days afterwards.
When we reach that period my readers must kindly accompany me to the
breakfast. For the present I must return to Yusuf who, during my second
visit, displayed a character which inspired, me with the greatest esteem
and the warmest affection.

We had dined alone as before, and, conversation happening to turn upon
the fine arts, I gave my opinion upon one of the precepts in the Koran,
by which the Mahometans are deprived of the innocent enjoyment of
paintings and statues. He told me that Mahomet, a very sagacious
legislator, had been right in removing all images from the sight of the
followers of Islam.

“Recollect, my son, that the nations to which the prophet brought the
knowledge of the true God were all idolators. Men are weak; if the
disciples of the prophet had continued to see the same objects, they
might have fallen back into their former errors.”

“No one ever worshipped an image as an image; the deity of which the
image is a representation is what is worshipped.”

“I may grant that, but God cannot be matter, and it is right to remove
from the thoughts of the vulgar the idea of a material divinity. You are
the only men, you Christians, who believe that you see God.”

“It is true, we are sure of it, but observe that faith alone gives us
that certainty.”

“I know it; but you are idolators, for you see nothing but a material
representation, and yet you have a complete certainty that you see God,
unless you should tell me that faith disaffirms it.”

“God forbid I should tell you such a thing! Faith, on the contrary,
affirms our certainty.”

“We thank God that we have no need of such self-delusion, and there is
not one philosopher in the world who could prove to me that you require
it.”

“That would not be the province of philosophy, dear father, but of
theology–a very superior science.”

“You are now speaking the language of our theologians, who differ from
yours only in this; they use their science to make clearer the truths we
ought to know, whilst your theologians try to render those truths more
obscure.”

“Recollect, dear father, that they are mysteries.”

“The existence of God is a sufficiently important mystery to prevent men
from daring to add anything to it. God can only be simple; any kind of
combination would destroy His essence; such is the God announced by our
prophet, who must be the same for all men and in all times. Agree with me
that we can add nothing to the simplicity of God. We say that God is one;
that is the image of simplicity. You say that He is one and three at the
same time, and such a definition strikes us as contradictory, absurd, and
impious.”

“It is a mystery.”

“Do you mean God or the definition? I am speaking only of the definition,
which ought not to be a mystery or absurd. Common sense, my son, must
consider as absurd an assertion which substantiallv nonsensical. Prove to
me that three is not a compound, that it cannot be a compound and I will
become a Christian at once.”

“My religion tells me to believe without arguing, and I shudder, my dear
Yusuf, when I think that, through some specious reasoning, I might be led
to renounce the creed of my fathers. I first must be convinced that they
lived in error. Tell me whether, respecting my father’s memory, I ought
to have such a good opinion of myself as to sit in judgement over him,
with the intention of giving my sentence against him?”

My lively remonstrance moved Yusuf deeply, but after a few instants of
silence he said to me,–

“With such feelings, my son, you are sure to find grace in the eyes of
God, and you are, therefore, one of the elect. If you are in error, God
alone can convince you of it, for no just man on earth can refute the
sentiment you have just given expression to.”

We spoke of many other things in a friendly manner, and in the evening we
parted with the often repeated assurance of the warmest affection and of
the most perfect devotion.

But my mind was full of our conversation, and as I went on pondering over
the matter, I thought that Yusuf might be right in his opinion as to the
essence of God, for it seemed evident that the Creator of all beings
ought to be perfectly simple; but I thought at the same time how
impossible it would be for me, because the Christian religion had made a
mistake, to accept the Turkish creed, which might perhaps have just a
conception of God, but which caused me to smile when I recollected that
the man who had given birth to it had been an arrant imposter. I had not
the slightest idea, however, that Yusuf wished to make a convert of me.

The third time I dined with him religion was again the subject of
conversation.

“Do you believe, dear father, that the religion of Mahomet is the only
one in which salvation can be secured?”

“No, my dear son, I am not certain of it, and no man can have such a
certainty; but I am sure that the Christian religion is not the true one,
because it cannot be universal.”

“Why not?”

“Because there is neither bread nor wine to be found in three-fourths of
the world. Observe that the precepts of the Koran can be followed
everywhere.”

I did not know how to answer, and I would not equivocate.

“If God cannot be matter,” I said, “then He must be a spirit?”

“We know what He is not but we do not know what He is: man cannot affirm
that God is a spirit, because he can only realize the idea in an abstract
manner. God immaterial; that is the extent of our knowledge and it can
never be greater.”

I was reminded of Plato, who had said exactly the same an most certainly
Yusuf never read Plato.

He added that the existence of God could be useful only to those who did
not entertain a doubt of that existence, and that, as a natural
consequence, Atheists must be the most miserable of men. God has made in
man His own image in order that, amongst all the animals created by Him,
there should be one that can understand and confess the existence of the
Creator. Without man, God would have no witness of His own glory, and man
must therefore understand that his first and highest duty is to glorify
God by practising justice and trusting to His providence.

“Observe, my son, that God never abandons the man who, in the midst of
misfortunes, falls down in prayer before Him, and that He often allows
the wretch who has no faith in prayer to die miserably.”

“Yet we meet with Atheists who are fortunate and happy.”

“True; but, in spite of their tranquillity, I pity them because they have
no hope beyond this life, and are on a level with animals. Besides, if
they are philosophers, they must linger in dark ignorance, and, if they
never think, they have no consolation, no resource, when adversity
reaches them. God has made man in such a manner that he cannot be happy
unless he entertains no doubt of the existence of his Divine Creator; in
all stations of life man is naturally prone to believe in that existence,
otherwise man would never have admitted one God, Creator of all beings
and of all things.”

“I should like to know why Atheism has only existed in the systems of the
learned, and never as a national creed.”

“Because the poor feel their wants much more than the rich, There are
amongst us a great many impious men who deride the true believers because
they have faith in the pilgrimage to Mecca. Wretches that they are, they
ought to respect the ancient customs which, exciting the devotion of
fervent souls, feed religious principles, and impart courage under all
misfortunes. Without such consolation, people would give way to all the
excess of despair.”

Much pleased with the attention I gave to all he said, Yusuf would thus
yield to the inclination he felt to instruct me, and, on my side, feeling
myself drawn towards him by the charm which amiable goodness exerts upon
all hearts, I would often go and spend the day with him, even without any
previous invitation, and Yusuf’s friendship soon became one of my most
precious treasures.

One morning, I told my janissary to take me to the palace of Ismail
Effendi, in order to fulfil my promise to breakfast with him. He gave me
the most friendly welcome, and after an excellent breakfast he invited me
to take a walk in his garden. We found there a pretty summer-house which
we entered, and Ismail attempted some liberties which were not at all to
my taste, and which I resented by rising in a very abrupt manner. Seeing
that I was angry, the Turk affected to approve my reserve, and said that
he had only been joking. I left him after a few minutes, with the
intention of not visiting him again, but I was compelled to do so, as I
will explain by-and-by.

When I saw M. de Bonneval I told him what had happened and he said that,
according to Turkish manners, Ismail had intended to give me a great
proof of his friendship, but that I need not be afraid of the offence
being repeated. He added that politeness required that I should visit him
again, and that Ismail was, in spite of his failing, a perfect gentleman,
who had at his disposal the most beautiful female slaves in Turkey.

Five or six weeks after the commencement of our intimacy, Yusuf asked me
one day whether I was married. I answered that I was not; the
conversation turned upon several moral questions, and at last fell upon
chastity, which, in his opinion, could be accounted a virtue only if
considered from one point of view, namely, that of total abstinence, but
he added that it could not be acceptable to God; because it transgressed
against the very first precept He had given to man.

“I would like to know, for instance,” he said, “what name can be given to
the chastity of your knights of Malta. They take a vow of chastity, but
it does not mean that they will renounce women altogether, they renounce
marriage only. Their chastity, and therefore chastity in general, is
violated only by marriage; yet I observe that marriage is one of your
sacraments. Therefore, those knights of Malta promise not to give way to
lustful incontinence in the only case in which God might forgive it, but
they reserve the license of being lustful unlawfully as often as they
please, and whenever an opportunity may offer itself; and that immoral,
illicit license is granted to them to such an extent, that they are
allowed to acknowledge legally a child which can be born to them only
through a double crime! The most revolting part of it all is that these
children of crime, who are of course perfectly innocent themselves, are
called natural children, as if children born in wedlock came into the
world in an unnatural manner! In one word, my dear son, the vow of
chastity is so much opposed to Divine precepts and to human nature that
it can be agreeable neither to God nor to society, nor to those who
pledge themselves to keep it, and being in such opposition to every
divine and human law, it must be a crime.”

He enquired for the second time whether I was married; I replied in the
negative, and added that I had no idea of ever getting married.

“What!” he exclaimed; “I must then believe that you are not a perfect
man, or that you intend to work out your own damnation; unless you should
tell me that you are a Christian only outwardly.”

“I am a man in the very strongest sense of the word, and I am a true
Christian. I must even confess that I adore women, and that I have not
the slightest idea of depriving myself of the most delightful of all
pleasures.”

“According to your religion, damnation awaits you.”

“I feel certain of the contrary, because, when we confess our sins, our
priests are compelled to give us absolution.”

“I know it, but you must agree with me that it is absurd to suppose that
God will forgive a crime which you would, perhaps, not commit, if you did
not think that, after confession, a priest, a man like you, will give you
absolution. God forgives only the repenting sinner.”

“No doubt of it, and confession supposes repentance; without it,
absolution has no effect.”

“Is onanism a crime amongst you?”

“Yes, even greater than lustful and illegitimate copulation.”

“I was aware of it, and it has always caused me great surprise, for the
legislator who enacts a law, the execution of which is impossible, is a
fool. A man in good health, if he cannot have a woman, must necessarily
have recourse to onanism, whenever imperious nature demands it, and the
man who, from fear of polluting his soul, would abstain from it, would
only draw upon himself a mortal disease.”

“We believe exactly the reverse; we think that young people destroy their
constitutions, and shorten their lives through self-abuse. In several
communities they are closely watched, and are as much as possible
deprived of every opportunity of indulging in that crime.”

“Those who watch them are ignorant fools, and those who pay the watchers
for such a service are even more stupid, because prohibition must excite
the wish to break through such a tyrannical law, to set at nought an
interdiction so contrary to nature.”

“Yet it seems to me that self-abuse in excess must be injurious to
health, for it must weaken and enervate.”

“Certainly, because excess in everything is prejudicial and pernicious;
but all such excess is the result of our severe prohibition. If girls are
not interfered with in the matter of self-abuse, I do not see why boys
should be.”

“Because girls are very far from running the same risk; they do not lose
a great deal in the action of self-abuse, and what they lose does not
come from the same source whence flows the germinal liquid in men.”

“I do not know, but we have some physicians who say that chlorosis in
girls is the result of that pleasure indulged in to excess.”

After many such conversations, in which he seemed to consider me as
endowed with reason and talent, even when I was not of his opinion, Yusuf
Ali surprised me greatly one day by the following proposition:

“I have two sons and a daughter. I no longer think of my sons, because
they have received their share of my fortune. As far as my daughter is
concerned she will, after my death, inherit all my possessions, and I am,
besides, in a position while I am alive to promote the fortune of the man
who may marry her. Five years ago I took a young wife, but she has not
given me any progeny, and I know to a certainty that no offspring will
bless our union. My daughter, whose name is Zelmi, is now fifteen; she is
handsome, her eyes are black and lovely like her mother’s, her hair is of
the colour of the raven’s wing, her complexion is animated alabaster; she
is tall, well made, and of a sweet disposition; I have given her an
education which would make her worthy of our master, the Sultan. She
speaks Greek and Italian fluently, she sings delightfully, and
accompanies herself on the harp; she can draw and embroider, and is
always contented and cheerful. No living man can boast of having seen her
features, and she loves me so dearly that my will is hers. My daughter is
a treasure, and I offer her to you if you will consent to go for one year
to Adrianople to reside with a relative of mine, who will teach you our
religion, our language, and our manners. You will return at the end of
one year, and as soon as you have become a Mussulman my daughter shall be
your wife. You will find a house ready furnished, slaves of your own, and
an income which will enable you to live in comfort. I have no more to say
at present. I do not wish you to answer me either to-day, or to-morrow,
or on any fixed day. You will give me your decision whenever you feel
yourself called upon by your genius to give it, and you need not give me
any answer unless you accept my offer, for, should you refuse it, it is
not necessary that the subject should be again mentioned. I do not ask
you to give full consideration to my proposal, for now that I have thrown
the seed in your soul it must fructify. Without hurry, without delay,
without anxiety, you can but obey the decrees of God and follow the
immutable decision of fate. Such as I know you, I believe that you only
require the possession of Zelmi to be completely happy, and that you will
become one of the pillars of the Ottoman Empire.”

Saying those words, Yusuf pressed me affectionately in his arms, and left
me by myself to avoid any answer I might be inclined to make. I went away
in such wonder at all I had just heard, that I found myself at the
Venetian Embassy without knowing how I had reached it. The baili thought
me very pensive, and asked whether anything was the matter with me, but I
did not feel disposed to gratify their curiosity. I found that Yusuf had
indeed spoken truly: his proposal was of such importance that it was my
duty, not only not to mention it to anyone, but even to abstain from
thinking it over, until my mind had recovered its calm sufficiently to
give me the assurance that no external consideration would weigh in the
balance and influence my decision. I had to silence all my passions;
prejudices, principles already formed, love, and even self-interest were
to remain in a state of complete inaction.

When I awoke the next morning I began to think the matter over, and I
soon discovered that, if I wanted to come to a decision, I ought not to
ponder over it, as the more I considered the less likely I should be to
decide. This was truly a case for the ‘sequere Deum’ of the Stoics.

I did not visit Yusuf for four days, and when I called on him on the
fifth day, we talked cheerfully without once mentioning his proposal,
although it was very evident that we were both thinking of it. We
remained thus for a fortnight, without ever alluding to the matter which
engrossed all our thoughts, but our silence was not caused by
dissimulation, or by any feeling contrary to our mutual esteem and
friendship; and one day Yusuf suggested that very likely I had
communicated his proposal to some wise friend, in order to obtain good
advice. I immediately assured him it was not so, and that in a matter of
so delicate a nature I thought I ought not to ask anybody’s advice.

“I have abandoned myself to God, dear Yusuf, and, full of confidence in
Him, I feel certain that I shall decide for the best, whether I make up
my mind to become your son, or believe that I ought to remain what I am
now. In the mean time, my mind ponders over it day and night, whenever I
am quiet and feel myself composed and collected. When I come to a
decision, I will impart it to you alone, and from that moment you shall
have over me the authority of a father.”

At these words the worthy Yusuf, his eyes wet with tears, placed his left
hand over my head, and the first two fingers of the right hand on my
forehead, saying:

“Continue to act in that way, my dear son, and be certain that you can
never act wrongly.”

“But,” I said to him, “one thing might happen, Zelmi might not accept
me.”

“Have no anxiety about that. My daughter loves you; she, as well as my
wife and her nurse, sees you every time that we dine together, and she
listens to you with pleasure.”

“Does she know that you are thinking of giving her to me as my wife?”

“She knows that I ardently wish you to become a true believer, so as to
enable me to link her destiny to yours.”

“I am glad that your habits do not permit you to let me see her, because
she might dazzle me with her beauty, and then passion would soon have too
much weight in the scale; I could no longer flatter myself that my
decision had been taken in all the unbiased, purity of my soul.”

Yusuf was highly delighted at hearing me speak in that manner, and I
spoke in perfect good faith. The mere idea of seeing Zelmi caused me to
shudder. I felt that, if I had fallen in love with her, I would have
become a Mussulman in order to possess her, and that I might soon have
repented such a step, for the religion of Mahomet presented to my eyes
and to my mind nothing but a disagreeable picture, as well for this life
as for a future one. As for wealth, I did not think it deserved the
immense sacrifice demanded from me. I could find equal wealth in Europe,
without stamping my forehead with the shameful brand of apostasy. I cared
deeply for the esteem of the persons of distinction who knew me, and did
not want to render myself unworthy of it. Besides, I felt an immense
desire to obtain fame amongst civilized and polite nations, either in the
fine arts or in literature, or in any other honourable profession, and I
could not reconcile myself to the idea of abandoning to my equals the
triumph which I might win if I lived amongst them. It seemed to me, and I
am still of the same opinion, that the decision of wearing the turban
befits only a Christian despairing of himself and at the end of his wits,
and fortunately I was lost not in that predicament. My greatest objection
was to spend a year in Adrianople to learn a language for which I did not
feel any liking, and which I should therefore have learned but
imperfectly. How could I, at my age, renounce the prerogative, so
pleasant to my vanity, of being reputed a fine talker? and I had secured
that reputation wherever I was known. Then I would often think that
Zelmi, the eighth wonder of creation in the eyes of her father might not
appear such in my eyes, and it would have been enough to make me
miserable, for Yusuf was likely to live twenty years longer, and I felt
that gratitude, as well as respect, would never have permitted me to give
that excellent man any cause for unhappiness by ceasing to shew myself a
devoted and faithful husband to his daughter. Such were my thoughts, and,
as Yusuf could not guess them, it was useless to make a confidant of him.

A few days afterwards, I dined with the Pacha Osman and met my Effendi
Ismail. He was very friendly to me, and I reciprocated his attentions,
though I paid no attention to the reproaches he addressed to me for not
having come to breakfast with him for such a long time. I could not
refuse to dine at his house with Bonneval, and he treated me to a very
pleasing sight; Neapolitan slaves, men and women, performed a pantomime
and some Calabrian dances. M. de Bonneval happened to mention the dance
called forlana, and Ismail expressing a great wish to know it, I told him
that I could give him that pleasure if I had a Venetian woman to dance
with and a fiddler who knew the time. I took a violin, and played the
forlana, but, even if the partner had been found, I could not play and
dance at the same time.

Ismail whispered a few words to one of his eunuchs, who went out of the
room and returned soon with some message that he delivered to him. The
effendi told me that he had found the partner I wanted, and I answered
that the musician could be had easily, if he would send a note to the
Venetian Embassy, which was done at once. The Bailo Dona sent one of his
men who played the violin well enough for dancing purposes. As soon as
the musician was ready, a door was thrown open, and a fine looking woman
came in, her face covered with a black velvet mask, such as we call
moretta in Venice. The appearance of that beautiful masked woman
surprised and delighted every one of the guests, for it was impossible to
imagine a more interesting object, not only on account of the beauty of
that part of the face which the mask left exposed, but also for the
elegance of her shape, the perfection of her figure, and the exquisite
taste displayed in her costume. The nymph took her place, I did the same,
and we danced the forlana six times without stopping.

I was in perspiration and out of breath, for the foylana is the most
violent of our national dances; but my beautiful partner stood near me
without betraying the slightest fatigue, and seemed to challenge me to a
new performance. At the round of the dance, which is the most difficult
step, she seemed to have wings. I was astounded, for I had never seen
anyone, even in Venice, dance the forlana so splendidly. After a few
minutes rest, rather ashamed of my feeling tired, I went up to her, and
said, ‘Ancora sei, a poi basta, se non volete vedermi a morire.’ She
would have answered me if she had been able, but she wore one of those
cruel masks which forbid speech. But a pressure of her hand which nobody
could see made me guess all I wanted to know. The moment we finished
dancing the eunuch opened the door, and my lovely partner disappeared.

Ismail could not thank me enough, but it was I who owed him my thanks,
for it was the only real pleasure which I enjoyed in Constantinople. I
asked him whether the lady was from Venice, but he only answered by a
significant smile.

“The worthy Ismail,” said M. de Bonneval to me, as we were leaving the
house late in the evening, “has been to-day the dupe of his vanity, and I
have no doubt that he is sorry already for what he has done. To bring out
his beautiful slave to dance with you! According to the prejudices of
this country it is injurious to his dignity, for you are sure to have
kindled an amorous flame in the poor girl’s breast. I would advise you to
be careful and to keep on your guard, because she will try to get up some
intrigue with you; but be prudent, for intrigues are always dangerous in
Turkey.”

I promised to be prudent, but I did not keep my promise; for, three or
four days afterwards, an old slave woman met me in the street, and
offered to sell me for one piaster a tobacco-bag embroidered in gold; and
as she put it in my hand she contrived to make me feel that there was a
letter in the bag.

I observed that she tried to avoid the eyes of the janissary who was
walking behind me; I gave her one piaster, she left me, and I proceeded
toward Yusuf’s house. He was not at home, and I went to his garden to
read the letter with perfect freedom. It was sealed and without any
address, and the slave might have made a mistake; but my curiosity was
excited to the highest pitch; I broke the seal, and found the following
note written in good enough Italian:

“Should you wish to see the person with whom you danced the forlana, take
a walk towards evening in the garden beyond the fountain, and contrive to
become acquainted with the old servant of the gardener by asking her for
some lemonade. You may perchance manage to see your partner in the
forlana without running any risk, even if you should happen to meet
Ismail; she is a native of Venice. Be careful not to mention this
invitation to any human being.”

“I am not such a fool, my lovely countrywoman,” I exclaimed, as if she
had been present, and put the letter in my pocket. But at that very
moment, a fine-looking elderly woman came out of a thicket, pronounced my
name, and enquired what I wanted and how I had seen her. I answered that
I had been speaking to the wind, not supposing that anyone could hear me,
and without any more preparation, she abruptly told me that she was very
glad of the opportunity of speaking with me, that she was from Rome, that
she had brought up Zelmi, and had taught her to sing and to play the
harp. She then praised highly the beauty and the excellent qualities of
her pupil, saying that, if I saw her, I would certainly fall in love with
her, and expressing how much she regretted that the law should not allow
it.

“She sees us at this very moment,” she added, “from behind that green
window-blind, and we love you ever since Yusuf has informed us that you
may, perhaps, become Zelmi’s husband.”

“May I mention our conversation to Yusuf?” I enquired.

“No.”

Her answering in the negative made me understand that, if I had pressed
her a little, she would have allowed me to see her lovely pupil, and
perhaps it was with that intention that she had contrived to speak to me,
but I felt great reluctance to do anything to displease my worthy host. I
had another reason of even greater importance: I was afraid of entering
an intricate maze in which the sight of a turban hovering over me made me
shudder.

Yusuf came home, and far from being angry when he saw me with the woman,
he remarked that I must have found much pleasure in conversing with a
native of Rome, and he congratulated me upon the delight I must have felt
in dancing with one of the beauties from the harem of the voluptuous
Ismail.

“Then it must be a pleasure seldom enjoyed, if it is so much talked of?”

“Very seldom indeed, for there is amongst us an invincible prejudice
against exposing our lovely women to the eyes of other men; but everyone
may do as he pleases in his own house: Ismail is a very worthy and a very
intelligent man.”

“Is the lady with whom I danced known?”

“I believe not. She wore a mask, and everybody knows that Ismail
possesses half a dozen slaves of surpassing beauty.”

I spent a pleasant day with Yusuf, and when I left him, I ordered my
janissary to take me to Ismail’s. As I was known by his servants, they
allowed me to go in, and I proceeded to the spot described in the letter.
The eunuch came to me, informed me that his master was out, but that he
would be delighted to hear of my having taken a walk in the garden. I
told him that I would like a glass of lemonade, and he took me to the
summerhouse, where I recognized the old woman who had sold me the
tobacco-pouch. The eunuch told her to give me a glass of some liquid
which I found delicious, and would not allow me to give her any money. We
then walked together towards the fountain, but he told me abruptly that
we were to go back, as he saw three ladies to whom he pointed, adding
that, for the sake of decency, it was necessary to avoid them. I thanked
him for his attentions, left my compliments for Ismail, and went away not
dissatisfied with my first attempt, and with the hope of being more
fortunate another time.

The next morning I received a letter from Ismail inviting me to go
fishing with him on the following day, and stating that he intended to
enjoy the sport by moonlight. I immediately gave way to my suppositions,
and I went so far as to fancy that Ismail might be capable of arranging
an interview between me and the lovely Venetian. I did not mind his being
present. I begged permission of Chevalier Venier to stop out of the
palace for one night, but he granted it with the greatest difficulty,
because he was afraid of some love affair and of the results it might
have. I took care to calm his anxiety as much as I could, but without
acquainting him with all the circumstances of the case, for I thought I
was wise in being discreet.

I was exact to the appointed time, and Ismail received me with the utmost
cordiality, but I was surprised when I found myself alone with him in the
boat. We had two rowers and a man to steer; we took some fish, fried in
oil, and ate it in the summer-house. The moon shone brightly, and the
night was delightful. Alone with Ismail, and knowing his unnatural
tastes, I did not feel very comfortable for, in spite of what M. de
Bonneval had told me, I was afraid lest the Turk should take a fancy to
give me too great a proof of his friendship, and I did not relish our
tete-a-tete. But my fears were groundless.

“Let us leave this place quietly,” said Ismail, “I have just heard a
slight noise which heralds something that will amuse us.”

He dismissed his attendants, and took my hand, saying,

“Let us go to a small room, the key of which I luckily have with me, but
let us be careful not to make any noise. That room has a window
overlooking the fountain where I think that two or three of my beauties
have just gone to bathe. We will see them and enjoy a very pleasing
sight, for they do not imagine that anyone is looking at them. They know
that the place is forbidden to everybody except me.”

We entered the room, we went to the window, and, the moon shining right
over the basin of the fountain, we saw three nymphs who, now swimming,
now standing or sitting on the marble steps, offered themselves to our
eyes in every possible position, and in all the attitudes of graceful
voluptuousness. Dear reader, I must not paint in too vivid colours the
details of that beautiful picture, but if nature has endowed you with an
ardent imagination and with equally ardent senses, you will easily
imagine the fearful havoc which that unique, wonderful, and enchanting
sight must have made upon my poor body.

A few days after that delightful fishing and bathing party by moonlight,
I called upon Yusuf early in the morning; as it was raining, I could not
go to the garden, and I went into the dining-room, in which I had never
seen anyone. The moment I entered the room, a charming female form rose,
covering her features with a thick veil which fell to the feet. A slave
was sitting near the window, doing some tambour-work, but she did not
move. I apologized, and turned to leave the room, but the lady stopped
me, observing, with a sweet voice, that Yusuf had commanded her to
entertain me before going out. She invited me to be seated, pointing to a
rich cushion placed upon two larger ones, and I obeyed, while, crossing
her legs, she sat down upon another cushion opposite to me. I thought I
was looking upon Zelmi, and fancied that Yusuf had made up his mind to
shew me that he was not less courageous than Ismail. Yet I was surprised,
for, by such a proceeding, he strongly contradicted his maxims, and ran
the risk of impairing the unbiased purity of my consent by throwing love
in the balance. But I had no fear of that, because, to become enamoured,
I should have required to see her face.

“I suppose,” said the veiled beauty, “that you do not know who I am?”

“I could not guess, if I tried.”

“I have been for the last five years the wife of your friend, and I am a
native of Scio. I was thirteen years of age when I became his wife.”

I was greatly astonished to find that my Mussulman philosopher had gone
so far as to allow me to converse with his wife, but I felt more at ease
after I had received that information, and fancied that I might carry the
adventure further, but it would be necessary to see the lady’s face, for
a finely-dressed body, the head of which is not seen, excites but feeble
desires. The fire lighted by amorous desires is like a fire of straw; the
moment it burns up it is near its end. I had before me a magnificent
appearance, but I could not see the soul of the image, for a thick gauze
concealed it from my hungry gaze. I could see arms as white as alabaster,
and hands like those of Alcina, ‘dove ne nodo appasisce ne vena accede’,
and my active imagination fancied that all the rest was in harmony with
those beautiful specimens, for the graceful folds of the muslin, leaving
the outline all its perfection, hid from me only the living satin of the
surface; there was no doubt that everything was lovely, but I wanted to
see, in the expression of her eyes, that all that my imagination created
had life and was endowed with feeling. The Oriental costume is a
beautiful varnish placed upon a porcelain vase to protect from the touch
the colours of the flowers and of the design, without lessening the
pleasure of the eyes. Yusuf’s wife was not dressed like a sultana; she
wore the costume of Scio, with a short skirt which concealed neither the
perfection of the leg nor the round form of the thigh, nor the voluptuous
plump fall of the hips, nor the slender, well-made waist encompassed in a
splendid band embroidered in silver and covered with arabesques. Above
all those beauties, I could see the shape of two globes which Apelles
would have taken for the model of those of his lovely Venus, and the
rapid, inequal movement of which proved to me that those ravishing
hillocks were animated. The small valley left between them, and which my
eyes greedily feasted upon, seemed to me a lake of nectar, in which my
burning lips longed to quench their thirst with more ardour than they
would have drunk from the cup of the gods.

Enraptured, unable to control myself, I thrust my arm forward by a
movement almost independent of my will, and my hand, too audacious, was
on the point of lifting the hateful veil, but she prevented me by raising
herself quickly on tiptoe, upbraiding me at the same time for my
perfidious boldness, with a voice as commanding as her attitude.

“Dost thou deserve,” she said, “Yusuf’s friendship, when thou abusest the
sacred laws of hospitality by insulting his wife?”

“Madam, you must kindly forgive me, for I never had any intention to
insult you. In my country the lowest of men may fix his eyes upon the
face of a queen.”

“Yes, but he cannot tear off her veil, if she chooses to wear it. Yusuf
shall avenge me.”

The threat, and the tone in which it was pronounced, frightened me. I
threw myself at her feet, and succeeded in calming her anger.

“Take a seat,” she said.

And she sat down herself, crossing her legs with so much freedom that I
caught a glimpse of charms which would have caused me to lose all control
over myself if the delightful sight had remained one moment longer
exposed to my eyes. I then saw that I had gone the wrong way to work, and
I felt vexed with myself; but it was too late.

“Art thou excited?” she said.

“How could I be otherwise,” I answered, “when thou art scorching me with
an ardent fire?”

I had become more prudent, and I seized her hand without thinking any
more of her face.

“Here is my husband,” she said, and Yusuf came into the room. We rose,
Yusuf embraced me, I complimented him, the slave left the room. Yusuf
thanked his wife for having entertained me, and offered her his arm to
take her to her own apartment. She took it, but when she reached the
door, she raised her veil, and kissing her husband she allowed me to see
her lovely face as if it had been done unwittingly. I followed her with
my eyes as long as I could, and Yusuf, coming back to me, said with a
laugh that his wife had offered to dine with us.

“I thought,” I said to him, “that I had Zelmi before me.”

“That would have been too much against our established rules. What I have
done is not much, but I do not know an honest man who would be bold
enough to bring his daughter into the presence of a stranger.”

“I think your wife must be handsome; is she more beautiful than Zelmi?”

“My daughter’s beauty is cheerful, sweet, and gentle; that of Sophia is
proud and haughty. She will be happy after my death. The man who will
marry her will find her a virgin.”

I gave an account of my adventure to M. de Bonneval, somewhat
exaggerating the danger I had run in trying to raise the veil of the
handsome daughter of Scio.

“She was laughing at you,” said the count, “and you ran no danger. She
felt very sorry, believe me, to have to deal with a novice like you. You
have been playing the comedy in the French fashion, when you ought to
have gone straight to the point. What on earth did you want to see her
nose for? She knew very well that she would have gained nothing by
allowing you to see her. You ought to have secured the essential point.
If I were young I would perhaps manage to give her a revenge, and to
punish my friend Yusuf. You have given that lovely woman a poor opinion
of Italian valour. The most reserved of Turkish women has no modesty
except on her face, and, with her veil over it, she knows to a certainty
that she will not blush at anything. I am certain that your beauty keeps
her face covered whenever our friend Yusuf wishes to joke with her.”

“She is yet a virgin.”

“Rather a difficult thing to admit, my good friend; but I know the
daughters of Scio; they have a talent for counterfeiting virginity.”

Yusuf never paid me a similar compliment again, and he was quite right.

A few days after, I happened to be in the shop of an Armenian merchant,
looking at some beautiful goods, when Yusuf entered the shop and praised
my taste; but, although I had admired a great many things, I did not buy,
because I thought they were too dear. I said so to Yusuf, but he remarked
that they were, on the contrary, very cheap, and he purchased them all.
We parted company at the door, and the next morning I received all the
beautiful things he had bought; it was a delicate attention of my friend,
and to prevent my refusal of such a splendid present, he had enclosed a
note stating that, on my arrival in Corfu, he would let me know to whom
the goods were to be delivered. He had thus sent me gold and silver
filigrees from Damascus, portfolios, scarfs, belts, handkerchiefs and
pipes, the whole worth four or five hundred piasters. When I called to
thank him, I compelled him to confess that it was a present offered by
his friendship.

The day before my departure from Constantinople, the excellent man burst
into tears as I bade him adieu, and my grief was as great as his own. He
told me that, by not accepting the offer of his daughter’s hand, I had so
strongly captivated his esteem that his feelings for me could not have
been warmer if I had become his son. When I went on board ship with the
Bailo Jean Dona, I found another case given to me by him, containing two
quintals of the best Mocha coffee, one hundred pounds of tobacco leaves,
two large flagons filled, one with Zabandi tobacco, the other with
camussa, and a magnificent pipe tube of jessamine wood, covered with gold
filigrane, which I sold in Corfu for one hundred sequins. I had not it in
my power to give my generous Turk any mark of my gratitude until I
reached Corfu, but there I did not fail to do so. I sold all his
beautiful presents, which made me the possessor of a small fortune.

Ismail gave me a letter for the Chevalier de Lezze, but I could not
forward it to him because I unfortunately lost it; he presented me with a
barrel of hydromel, which I turned likewise into money. M. de Bonneval
gave me a letter for Cardinal Acquaviva, which I sent to Rome with an
account of my journey, but his eminence did not think fit to acknowledge
the receipt of either. Bonneval made me a present of twelve bottles of
malmsey from Ragusa, and of twelve bottles of genuine scopolo–a great
rarity, with which I made a present in Corfu which proved very useful to
me, as the reader will discover.

The only foreign minister I saw much in Constantinople was the lord
marshal of Scotland, the celebrated Keith, who represented the King of
Prussia, and who, six years later was of great service to me in Paris.

We sailed from Constantinople in the beginning of September in the same
man-of-war which had brought us, and we reached Corfu in fourteen days.
The Bailo Dona did not land. He had with him eight splendid Turkish
horses; I saw two of them still alive in Gorizia in the year 1773.

As soon as I had landed with my luggage, and had engaged a rather mean
lodging, I presented myself to M. Andre Dolfin, the proveditore-generale,
who promised me again that I should soon be promoted to a lieutenancy.
After my visit to him, I called upon M. Camporese, my captain, and was
well received by him. My third visit was to the commander of galleases,
M. D—- R—–, to whom M. Antonio Dolfin, with whom I had travelled from
Venice to Corfu, had kindly recommended me. After a short conversation,
he asked me if I would remain with him with the title of adjutant. I did
not hesitate one instant, but accepted, saying how deeply honoured I felt
by his offer, and assuring him that he would always find me ready to
carry out his orders. He immediately had me taken to my room, and, the
next day, I found myself established in his house. I obtained from my
captain a French soldier to serve me, and I was well pleased when I found
that the man was a hairdresser by trade, and a great talker by nature,
for he could take care of my beautiful head of hair, and I wanted to
practise French conversation. He was a good-for-nothing fellow, a
drunkard and a debauchee, a peasant from Picardy, and he could hardly
read or write, but I did not mind all that; all I wanted from him was to
serve me, and to talk to me, and his French was pretty good. He was an
amusing rogue, knowing by heart a quantity of erotic songs and of smutty
stories which he could tell in the most laughable manner.

When I had sold my stock of goods from Constantinople (except the wines),
I found myself the owner of nearly five hundred sequins. I redeemed all
the articles which I had pledged in the hands of Jews, and turned into
money everything of which I had no need. I was determined not to play any
longer as a dupe, but to secure in gambling all the advantages which a
prudent young man could obtain without sullying his honour.

I must now make my readers acquainted with the sort of life we were at
that time leading in Corfu. As to the city itself, I will not describe
it, because there are already many descriptions better than the one I
could offer in these pages.

We had then in Corfu the ‘proveditore-generale’ who had sovereign
authority, and lived in a style of great magnificence. That post was then
filled by M. Andre Dolfin, a man sixty years of age, strict, headstrong,
and ignorant. He no longer cared for women, but liked to be courted by
them. He received every evening, and the supper-table was always laid for
twenty-four persons.

We had three field-officers of the marines who did duty on the galleys,
and three field-officers for the troops of the line on board the
men-of-war. Each galeass had a captain called ‘sopracomito’, and we had
ten of those captains; we had likewise ten commanders, one for each
man-of-war, including three ‘capi di mare’, or admirals. They all
belonged to the nobility of Venice. Ten young Venetian noblemen, from
twenty to twenty-two years of age, were at Corfu as midshipmen in the
navy. We had, besides, about a dozen civil clerks in the police of the
island, or in the administration of justice, entitled ‘grandi offciali di
terra’. Those who were blessed with handsome wives had the pleasure of
seeing their houses very much frequented by admirers who aspired to win
the favours of the ladies, but there was not much heroic love-making,
perhaps for the reason that there were then in Corfu many Aspasias whose
favours could be had for money. Gambling was allowed everywhere, and that
all absorbing passion was very prejudicial to the emotions of the heart.

The lady who was then most eminent for beauty and gallantry was Madame
F—-. Her husband, captain of a galley, had come to Corfu with her the
year before, and madam had greatly astonished all the naval officers.
Thinking that she had the privilege of the choice, she had given the
preference to M. D—- R—–, and had dismissed all the suitors who
presented themselves. M. F—- had married her on the very day she had
left the convent; she was only seventeen years of age then, and he had
brought her on board his galley immediately after the marriage ceremony.

I saw her for the first time at the dinner-table on the very day of my
installation at M. D—- R—–’s, and she made a great impression upon
me. I thought I was gazing at a supernatural being, so infinitely above
all the women I had ever seen, that it seemed impossible to fall in love
with her She appeared to me of a nature different and so greatly superior
to mine that I did not see the possibility of rising up to her. I even
went so far as to persuade myself that nothing but a Platonic friendship
could exist between her and M. D—- R—–, and that M. F—- was quite
right now not to shew any jealousy. Yet, that M. F—- was a perfect fool,
and certainly not worthy of such a woman. The impression made upon me by
Madame F—- was too ridiculous to last long, and the nature of it soon
changed, but in a novel manner, at least as far as I was concerned.

My position as adjutant procured me the honour of dining at M.
D—- R—–’s table, but nothing more. The other adjutant, like me, an
ensign in the army, but the greatest fool I had ever seen, shared that
honour with me. We were not, however, considered as guests, for nobody
ever spoke to us, and, what is more, no one ever honoured us with a look.
It used to put me in a rage. I knew very well that people acted in that
manner through no real contempt for us, but it went very hard with me. I
could very well understand that my colleague, Sanzonio, should not
complain of such treatment, because he was a blockhead, but I did not
feel disposed to allow myself to be put on a par with him. At the end of
eight or ten days, Madame F—-, not having con descended to cast one
glance upon my person, began to appear disagreeable to me. I felt piqued,
vexed, provoked, and the more so because I could not suppose that the
lady acted in that manner wilfully and purposely; I would have been
highly pleased if there had been premeditation on her part. I felt
satisfied that I was a nobody in her estimation, and as I was conscious
of being somebody, I wanted her to know it. At last a circumstance
offered itself in which, thinking that she could address me, she was
compelled to look at me.

M. D—- R—- having observed that a very, very fine turkey had been
placed before me, told me to carve it, and I immediately went to work. I
was not a skilful carver, and Madame F—-, laughing at my want of
dexterity, told me that, if I had not been certain of performing my task
with credit to myself, I ought not to have undertaken it. Full of
confusion, and unable to answer her as my anger prompted, I sat down,
with my heart overflowing with spite and hatred against her. To crown my
rage, having one day to address me, she asked me what was my name. She
had seen me every day for a fortnight, ever since I had been the adjutant
of M. D—- R—-; therefore she ought to have known my name. Besides, I
had been very lucky at the gaming-table, and I had become rather famous
in Corfu. My anger against Madame F was at its height.

I had placed my money in the hands of a certain Maroli, a major in the
army and a gamester by profession, who held the faro bank at the
coffee-house. We were partners; I helped him when he dealt, and he
rendered me the same office when I held the cards, which was often the
case, because he was not generally liked. He used to hold the cards in a
way which frightened the punters; my manners were very different, and I
was very lucky. Besides I was easy and smiling when my bank was losing,
and I won without shewing any avidity, and that is a manner which always
pleases the punters.

This Maroli was the man who had won all my money during my first stay in
Corfu, and finding, when I returned, that I was resolved not to be duped
any more, he judged me worthy of sharing the wise maxims without which
gambling must necessarily ruin all those who meddle with it. But as
Maroli had won my confidence only to a very slight extent, I was very
careful. We made up our accounts every night, as soon as playing was
over; the cashier kept the capital of the bank, the winnings were
divided, and each took his share away. Lucky at play, enjoying good
health and the friendship of my comrades, who, whenever the opportunity
offered, always found me generous and ready to serve them, I would have
been well pleased with my position if I had been a little more considered
at the table of M. D—- R—–, and treated with less haughtiness by his
lady who, without any reason, seemed disposed to humiliate me. My
self-love was deeply hurt, I hated her, and, with such a disposition of
mind, the more I admired the perfection of her charms, the more I found
her deficient in wit and intelligence. She might have made the conquest
of my heart without bestowing hers upon me, for all I wanted was not to
be compelled to hate her, and I could not understand what pleasure it
could be for her to be detested, while with only a little kindness she
could have been adored. I could not ascribe her manner to a spirit of
coquetry, for I had never given her the slightest proof of the opinion I
entertained of her beauty, and I could not therefore attribute her
behaviour to a passion which might have rendered me disagreeable in her
eyes; M. D—- R—- seemed to interest her only in a very slight manner,
and as to her husband, she cared nothing for him. In short, that charming
woman made me very unhappy, and I was angry with myself because I felt
that, if it had not been for the manner in which she treated me, I would
not have thought of her, and my vexation was increased by the feeling of
hatred entertained by my heart against her, a feeling which until then I
had never known to exist in me, and the discovery of which overwhelmed me
with confusion.

One day a gentleman handed me, as we were leaving the dinner-table, a
roll of gold that he had lost upon trust; Madame F—- saw it, and she
said to me very abruptly,–

“What do you do with your money?”

“I keep it, madam, as a provision against possible losses.”

“But as you do not indulge in any expense it would be better for you not
to play; it is time wasted.”

“Time given to pleasure is never time lost, madam; the only time which a
young man wastes is that which is consumed in weariness, because when he
is a prey to ennui he is likely to fall a prey to love, and to be
despised by the object of his affection.”

“Very likely; but you amuse yourself with hoarding up your money, and
shew yourself to be a miser, and a miser is not less contemptible than a
man in love. Why do you not buy yourself a pair of gloves?”

You may be sure that at these words the laughter was all on her side, and
my vexation was all the greater because I could not deny that she was
quite right. It was the adjutant’s business to give the ladies an arm to
their carriages, and it was not proper to fulfil that duty without
gloves. I felt mortified, and the reproach of avarice hurt me deeply. I
would a thousand times rather that she had laid my error to a want of
education; and yet, so full of contradictions is the human heart, instead
of making amends by adopting an appearance of elegance which the state of
my finances enabled me to keep up, I did not purchase any gloves, and I
resolved to avoid her and to abandon her to the insipid and dull
gallantry of Sanzonio, who sported gloves, but whose teeth were rotten,
whose breath was putrid, who wore a wig, and whose face seemed to be
covered with shrivelled yellow parchment.

I spent my days in a continual state of rage and spite, and the most
absurd part of it all was that I felt unhappy because I could not control
my hatred for that woman whom, in good conscience, I could not find
guilty of anything. She had for me neither love nor dislike, which was
quite natural; but being young and disposed to enjoy myself I had become,
without any wilful malice on her part, an eye-sore to her and the butt of
her bantering jokes, which my sensitiveness exaggerated greatly. For all
that I had an ardent wish to punish her and to make her repent. I thought
of nothing else. At one time I would think of devoting all my
intelligence and all my money to kindling an amorous passion in her
heart, and then to revenge myself by treating her with contempt. But I
soon realized the impracticability of such a plan, for even supposing
that I should succeed in finding my way to her heart, was I the man to
resist my own success with such a woman? I certainly could not flatter
myself that I was so strong-minded. But I was the pet child of fortune,
and my position was suddenly altered.

M. D—- R—- having sent me with dispatches to M. de Condulmer, captain
of a ‘galeazza’, I had to wait until midnight to deliver them, and when I
returned I found that M. D—- R—- had retired to his apartment for the
night. As soon as he was visible in the morning I went to him to render
an account of my mission. I had been with him only a few minutes when his
valet brought a letter saying that Madame F—-’s adjutant was waiting
for an answer. M. D—- R—- read the note, tore it to pieces, and in his
excitement stamped with his foot upon the fragments. He walked up and
down the room for a little time, then wrote an answer and rang for the
adjutant, to whom he delivered it. He then recovered his usual composure,
concluded the perusal of the dispatch sent by M. de Condulmer, and told
me to write a letter. He was looking it over when the valet came in,
telling me that Madame F—- desired to see me. M. D—- R—- told me that
he did not require my services any more for the present, and that I might
go. I left the room, but I had not gone ten yards when he called me back
to remind me that my duty was to know nothing; I begged to assure him
that I was well aware of that. I ran to Madame F—–’s house, very eager
to know what she wanted with me. I was introduced immediately, and I was
greatly surprised to find her sitting up in bed, her countenance flushed
and excited, and her eyes red from the tears she had evidently just been
shedding. My heart was beating quickly, yet I did not know why.

“Pray be seated,” she said, “I wish to speak with you.”

“Madam,” I answered, “I am not worthy of so great a favour, and I have
not yet done anything to deserve it; allow me to remain standing.”

She very likely recollected that she had never been so polite before, and
dared not press me any further. She collected her thoughts for an instant
or two, and said to me:

“Last evening my husband lost two hundred sequins upon trust at your faro
bank; he believed that amount to be in my hands, and I must therefore
give it to him immediately, as he is bound in honour to pay his losses
to-day. Unfortunately I have disposed of the money, and I am in great
trouble. I thought you might tell Maroli that I have paid you the amount
lost by my husband. Here is a ring of some value; keep it until the 1st
of January, when I will return the two hundred sequins for which I am
ready to give you my note of hand.”

“I accept the note of hand, madam, but I cannot consent to deprive you of
your ring. I must also tell you that M. F—- must go himself to the bank,
or send some one there, to redeem his debt. Within ten minutes you shall
have the amount you require.”

I left her without waiting for an answer, and I returned within a few
minutes with the two hundred ducats, which I handed to her, and putting
in my pocket her note of hand which she had just written, I bowed to take
my leave, but she addressed to me these precious words:

“I believe, sir, that if I had known that you were so well disposed to
oblige me, I could not have made up my mind to beg that service from
you.”

“Well, madam, for the future be quite certain that there is not a man in
the world capable of refusing you such an insignificant service whenever
you will condescend to ask for it in person.”

“What you say is very complimentary, but I trust never to find myself
again under the necessity of making such a cruel experiment.”

I left Madame F—–, thinking of the shrewdness of her answer. She had
not told me that I was mistaken, as I had expected she would, for that
would have caused her some humiliation: she knew that I was with M.
D—- R—- when the adjutant had brought her letter, and she could not
doubt that I was aware of the refusal she had met with. The fact of her
not mentioning it proved to me that she was jealous of her own dignity;
it afforded me great gratification, and I thought her worthy of
adoration. I saw clearly that she could have no love for M. D—- R—–,
and that she was not loved by him, and the discovery made me leap for
joy. From that moment I felt I was in love with her, and I conceived the
hope that she might return my ardent affection.

The first thing I did, when I returned to my room, was to cross out with
ink every word of her note of hand, except her name, in such a manner
that it was impossible to guess at the contents, and putting it in an
envelope carefully sealed, I deposited it in the hands of a public notary
who stated, in the receipt he gave me of the envelope, that he would
deliver it only to Madame F—–, whenever she should request its
delivery.

The same evening M. F—- came to the bank, paid me, played with cash in
hand, and won some fifty ducats. What caused me the greatest surprise was
that M. D—- R—- continued to be very gracious to Madame F—-, and
that she remained exactly the same towards him as she used to be before.
He did not even enquire what she wanted when she had sent for me. But if
she did not seem to change her manner towards my master, it was a very
different case with me, for whenever she was opposite to me at dinner,
she often addressed herself to me, and she thus gave me many
opportunities of shewing my education and my wit in amusing stories or in
remarks, in which I took care to blend instruction with witty jests. At
that time F—- had the great talent of making others laugh while I kept a
serious countenance myself. I had learnt that accomplishment from M. de
Malipiero, my first master in the art of good breeding, who used to say
to me,–

“If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if
you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a
judge.”

In everything I did, in every word I uttered, in the presence of Madame
F—-, the only aim I had was to please her, but I did not wish her to
suppose so, and I never looked at her unless she spoke to me. I wanted to
force her curiosity, to compel her to suspect nay, to guess my secret,
but without giving her any advantage over me: it was necessary for me to
proceed by slow degrees. In the mean time, and until I should have a
greater happiness, I was glad to see that my money, that magic talisman,
and my good conduct, obtained me a consideration much greater than I
could have hoped to obtain either through my position, or from my age, or
in consequence of any talent I might have shewn in the profession I had
adopted.

Towards the middle of November, the soldier who acted as my servant was
attacked with inflammation of the chest; I gave notice of it to the
captain of his company, and he was carried to the hospital. On the fourth
day I was told that he would not recover, and that he had received the
last sacraments; in the evening I happened to be at his captain’s when
the priest who had attended him came to announce his death, and to
deliver a small parcel which the dying man had entrusted to him to be
given up to his captain only after his death. The parcel contained a
brass seal engraved with ducal arms, a certificate of baptism, and a
sheet of paper covered with writing in French. Captain Camporese, who
only spoke Italian, begged me to translate the paper, the contents of
which were as follows:

“My will is that this paper, which I have written and signed with my own
hand, shall be delivered to my captain only after I have breathed my
last: until then, my confessor shall not make any use of it, for I
entrust it to his hands only under the seal of confession. I entreat my
captain to have me buried in a vault from which my body can be exhumed in
case the duke, my father, should request its exhumation. I entreat him
likewise to forward my certificate of baptism, the seal with the armorial
bearings of my family, and a legal certificate of my birth to the French
ambassador in Venice, who will send the whole to the duke, my father, my
rights of primogeniture belonging, after my demise, to the prince, my
brother. In faith of which I have signed and sealed these presents:
Francois VI. Charles Philippe Louis Foucaud, Prince de la Rochefoucault.”

The certificate of baptism, delivered at St. Sulpice gave the same names,
and the title of the father was Francois V. The name of the mother was
Gabrielle du Plessis.

As I was concluding my translation I could not help bursting into loud
laughter; but the foolish captain, who thought my mirth out of
place, hurried out to render an account of the affair to the
proveditore-generale, and I went to the coffee-house, not doubting for
one moment that his excellency would laugh at the captain, and that the
post-mortem buffoonery would greatly amuse the whole of Corfu.

I had known in Rome, at Cardinal Acquaviva’s, the Abbe de Liancourt,
great-grandson of Charles, whose sister, Gabrielle du Plessis, had been
the wife of Francois V., but that dated from the beginning of the last
century. I had made a copy from the records of the cardinal of the
account of certain circumstances which the Abbe de Liancourt wanted to
communicate to the court of Spain, and in which there were a great many
particulars respecting the house of Du Plessis. I thought at the same
time that the singular imposture of La Valeur (such was the name by which
my soldier generally went) was absurd and without a motive, since it was
to be known only after his death, and could not therefore prove of any
advantage to him.

Half an hour afterwards, as I was opening a fresh pack of cards, the
Adjutant Sanzonio came in, and told the important news in the most
serious manner. He had just come from the office of the proveditore,
where Captain Camporese had run in the utmost hurry to deposit in the
hands of his excellency the seal and the papers of the deceased prince.
His excellency had immediately issued his orders for the burial of the
prince in a vault with all the honours due to his exalted rank. Another
half hour passed, and M. Minolto, adjutant of the proveditore-generale,
came to inform me that his excellency wanted to see me. I passed the
cards to Major Maroli, and went to his excellency’s house. I found him at
supper with several ladies, three or four naval commanders, Madame F—-,
and M. D—- R—–.

“So, your servant was a prince!” said the old general to me.

“Your excellency, I never would have suspected it, and even now that he
is dead I do not believe it.”

“Why? He is dead, but he was not insane. You have seen his armorial
bearings, his certificate of baptism, as well as what he wrote with his
own hand. When a man is so near death, he does not fancy practical
jokes.”

“If your excellency is satisfied of the truth of the story, my duty is to
remain silent.”

“The story cannot be anything but true, and your doubts surprise me.”

“I doubt, monsignor, because I happen to have positive information
respecting the families of La Rochefoucault and Du Plessis. Besides, I
have seen too much of the man. He was not a madman, but he certainly was
an extravagant jester. I have never seen him write, and he has told me
himself a score of times that he had never learned.”

“The paper he has written proves the contrary. His arms have the ducal
bearings; but perhaps you are not aware that M. de la Rochefoucault is a
duke and peer of the French realm?”

“I beg your eminence’s pardon; I know all about it; I know even more, for
I know that Francois VI. married a daughter of the house of Vivonne.”

“You know nothing.”

When I heard this remark, as foolish as it was rude, I resolved on
remaining silent, and it was with some pleasure that I observed the joy
felt by all the male guests at what they thought an insult and a blow to
my vanity. An officer remarked that the deceased was a fine man, a witty
man, and had shewn wonderful cleverness in keeping up his assumed
character so well that no one ever had the faintest suspicion of what he
really was. A lady said that, if she had known him, she would have been
certain to find him out. Another flatterer, belonging to that mean,
contemptible race always to be found near the great and wealthy of the
earth, assured us that the late prince had always shewn himself cheerful,
amiable, obliging, devoid of haughtiness towards his comrades, and that
he used to sing beautifully. “He was only twenty-five years of age,” said
Madame Sagredo, looking me full in the face, “and if he was endowed with
all those qualities, you must have discovered them.”

“I can only give you, madam, a true likeness of the man, such as I have
seen him. Always gay, often even to folly, for he could throw a
somersault beautifully; singing songs of a very erotic kind, full of
stories and of popular tales of magic, miracles, and ghosts, and a
thousand marvellous feats which common-sense refused to believe, and
which, for that very reason, provoked the mirth of his hearers. His
faults were that he was drunken, dirty, quarrelsome, dissolute, and
somewhat of a cheat. I put up with all his deficiences, because he
dressed my hair to my taste, and his constant chattering offered me the
opportunity of practising the colloquial French which cannot be acquired
from books. He has always assured me that he was born in Picardy, the son
of a common peasant, and that he had deserted from the French army. He
may have deceived me when he said that he could not write.”

Just then Camporese rushed into the room, and announced that La Veleur
was yet breathing. The general, looking at me significantly, said that he
would be delighted if the man could be saved.

“And I likewise, monsignor, but his confessor will certainly kill him
to-night.”

“Why should the father confessor kill him?”

“To escape the galleys to which your excellency would not fail to send
him for having violated the secrecy of the confessional.”

Everybody burst out laughing, but the foolish old general knitted his
brows. The guests retired soon afterwards, and Madame F—–, whom I had
preceded to the carriage, M. D—- R—- having offered her his arm,
invited me to get in with her, saying that it was raining. It was the
first time that she had bestowed such an honour upon me.

“I am of your opinion about that prince,” she said, “but you have
incurred the displeasure of the proveditore.”

“I am very sorry, madam, but it could not have been avoided, for I cannot
help speaking the truth openly.”

“You might have spared him,” remarked M. D—- R—–, “the cutting jest
of the confessor killing the false prince.”

“You are right, sir, but I thought it would make him laugh as well as it
made madam and your excellency. In conversation people generally do not
object to a witty jest causing merriment and laughter.”

“True; only those who have not wit enough to laugh do not like the jest.”

“I bet a hundred sequins that the madman will recover, and that, having
the general on his side, he will reap all the advantages of his
imposture. I long to see him treated as a prince, and making love to
Madame Sagredo.”

Hearing the last words, Madame F—–, who did not like Madame Sagredo,
laughed heartily, and, as we were getting out of the carriage, M.
D—- R—- invited me to accompany them upstairs. He was in the habit of
spending half an hour alone with her at her own house when they had taken
supper together with the general, for her husband never shewed himself.
It was the first time that the happy couple admitted a third person to
their tete-a-tete. I felt very proud of the compliment thus paid to me,
and I thought it might have important results for me. My satisfaction,
which I concealed as well as I could, did not prevent me from being very
gay and from giving a comic turn to every subject brought forward by the
lady or by her lord.

We kept up our pleasant trio for four hours; and returned to the mansion
of M. D—- R—- only at two o’clock in the morning. It was during that
night that Madame F—- and M. D—- R—- really made my acquaintance.
Madame F—- told him that she had never laughed so much, and that she had
never imagined that a conversation, in appearance so simple, could afford
so much pleasure and merriment. On my side, I discovered in her so much
wit and cheerfulness, that I became deeply enamoured, and went to bed
fully satisfied that, in the future, I could not keep up the show of
indifference which I had so far assumed towards her.

When I woke up the next morning, I heard from the new soldier who served
me that La Valeur was better, and had been pronounced out of danger by
the physician. At dinner the conversation fell upon him, but I did not
open my lips. Two days afterwards, the general gave orders to have him
removed to a comfortable apartment, sent him a servant, clothed him, and
the over-credulous proveditore having paid him a visit, all the naval
commanders and officers thought it their duty to imitate him, and to
follow his example: the general curiosity was excited, there was a rush
to see the new prince. M. D—- R—- followed his leaders, and Madame
Sagredo, having set the ladies in motion, they all called upon him, with
the exception of Madame F—-, who told me laughingly that she would not
pay him a visit unless I would consent to introduce her. I begged to be
excused. The knave was called your highness, and the wonderful prince
styled Madame Sagredo his princess. M. D—- R—- tried to persuade me to
call upon the rogue, but I told him that I had said too much, and that I
was neither courageous nor mean enough to retract my words. The whole
imposture would soon have been discovered if anyone had possessed a
peerage, but it just happened that there was not a copy in Corfu, and the
French consul, a fat blockhead, like many other consuls, knew nothing of
family trees. The madcap La Valeur began to walk out a week after his
metamorphosis into a prince. He dined and had supper every day with the
general, and every evening he was present at the reception, during which,
owing to his intemperance, he always went fast asleep. Yet, there were
two reasons which kept up the belief of his being a prince: the first was
that he did not seem afraid of the news expected from Venice, where the
proveditore had written immediately after the discovery; the second was
that he solicited from the bishop the punishment of the priest who had
betrayed his secret by violating the seal of confession. The poor priest
had already been sent to prison, and the proveditore had not the courage
to defend him. The new prince had been invited to dinner by all the naval
officers, but M. D—- R—- had not made up his mind to imitate them so
far, because Madame F—- had clearly warned him that she would dine at
her own house on the day he was invited. I had likewise respectfully
intimated that, on the same occasion, I would take the liberty of dining
somewhere else.

I met the prince one day as I was coming out of the old fortress leading
to the esplanade. He stopped, and reproached me for not having called
upon him. I laughed, and advised him to think of his safety before the
arrival of the news which would expose all the imposture, in which case
the proveditore was certain to treat him very severely. I offered to help
him in his flight from Corfu, and to get a Neapolitan captain, whose ship
was ready to sail, to conceal him on board; but the fool, instead of
accepting my offer, loaded me with insults.

He was courting Madame Sagredo, who treated him very well, feeling proud
that a French prince should have given her the preference over all the
other ladies. One day that she was dining in great ceremony at M.
D—- R—–’s house, she asked me why I had advised the prince to run
away.

“I have it from his own lips,” she added, “and he cannot make out your
obstinacy in believing him an impostor.”

“I have given him that advice, madam, because my heart is good, and my
judgment sane.”

“Then we are all of us as many fools, the proveditore included?”

“That deduction would not be right, madam. An opinion contrary to that of
another does not necessarily make a fool of the person who entertains it.
It might possibly turn out, in ten or twelve days, that I have been
entirely mistaken myself, but I should not consider myself a fool in
consequence. In the mean time, a lady of your intelligence must have
discovered whether that man is a peasant or a prince by his education and
manners. For instance, does he dance well?”

“He does not know one step, but he is the first to laugh about it; he
says he never would learn dancing.”

“Does he behave well at table?”

“Well, he doesn’t stand on ceremony. He does not want his plate to be
changed, he helps himself with his spoon out of the dishes; he does not
know how to check an eructation or a yawn, and if he feels tired he
leaves the table. It is evident that he has been very badly brought up.”

“And yet he is very pleasant, I suppose. Is he clean and neat?”

“No, but then he is not yet well provided with linen.”

“I am told that he is very sober.”

“You are joking. He leaves the table intoxicated twice a day, but he
ought to be pitied, for he cannot drink wine and keep his head clear.
Then he swears like a trooper, and we all laugh, but he never takes
offence.”

“Is he witty?”

“He has a wonderful memory, for he tells us new stories every day.”

“Does he speak of his family?”

“Very often of his mother, whom he loved tenderly. She was a Du Plessis.”

“If his mother is still alive she must be a hundred and fifty years old.”

“What nonsense!”

“Not at all; she was married in the days of Marie de Medicis.”

“But the certificate of baptism names the prince’s mother, and his
seal–”

“Does he know what armorial bearings he has on that seal?”

“Do you doubt it?”

“Very strongly, or rather I am certain that he knows nothing about it.”

We left the table, and the prince was announced. He came in, and Madame
Sagredo lost no time in saying to him, “Prince, here is M. Casanova; he
pretends that you do not know your own armorial bearings.” Hearing these
words, he came up to me, sneering, called me a coward, and gave me a
smack on the face which almost stunned me. I left the room very slowly,
not forgetting my hat and my cane, and went downstairs, while M.
D—- R—- was loudly ordering the servants to throw the madman out of
the window.

I left the palace and went to the esplanade in order to wait for him. The
moment I saw him, I ran to meet him, and I beat him so violently with my
cane that one blow alone ought to have killed him. He drew back, and
found himself brought to a stand between two walls, where, to avoid being
beaten to death, his only resource was to draw his sword, but the
cowardly scoundrel did not even think of his weapon, and I left him, on
the ground, covered with blood. The crowd formed a line for me to pass,
and I went to the coffee-house, where I drank a glass of lemonade,
without sugar to precipitate the bitter saliva which rage had brought up
from my stomach. In a few minutes, I found myself surrounded by all the
young officers of the garrison, who joined in the general opinion that I
ought to have killed him, and they at last annoyed me, for it was not my
fault if I had not done so, and I would certainly have taken his life if
he had drawn his sword.

I had been in the coffee-house for half an hour when the general’s
adjutant came to tell me that his excellency ordered me to put myself
under arrest on board the bastarda, a galley on which the prisoners had
their legs in irons like galley slaves. The dose was rather too strong to
be swallowed, and I did not feel disposed to submit to it. “Very good,
adjutant,” I replied, “it shall be done.” He went away, and I left the
coffee-house a moment after him, but when I reached the end of the
street, instead of going towards the esplanade, I proceeded quickly
towards the sea. I walked along the beach for a quarter of an hour, and
finding a boat empty, but with a pair of oars, I got in her, and
unfastening her, I rowed as hard as I could towards a large caicco,
sailing against the wind with six oars. As soon as I had come up to her,
I went on board and asked the carabouchiri to sail before the wind and to
take me to a large wherry which could be seen at some distance, going
towards Vido Rock. I abandoned the row-boat, and, after paying the master
of the caicco generously, I got into the wherry, made a bargain with the
skipper who unfurled three sails, and in less than two hours we were
fifteen miles away from Corfu. The wind having died away, I made the men
row against the current, but towards midnight they told me that they
could not row any longer, they were worn out with fatigue. They advised
me to sleep until day-break, but I refused to do so, and for a trifle I
got them to put me on shore, without asking where I was, in order not to
raise their suspicions. It was enough for me to know that I was at a
distance of twenty miles from Corfu, and in a place where nobody could
imagine me to be. The moon was shining, and I saw a church with a house
adjoining, a long barn opened on both sides, a plain of about one hundred
yards confined by hills, and nothing more. I found some straw in the
barn, and laying myself down, I slept until day-break in spite of the
cold. It was the 1st of December, and although the climate is very mild
in Corfu I felt benumbed when I awoke, as I had no cloak over my thin
uniform.

The bells begin to toll, and I proceed towards the church. The
long-bearded papa, surprised at my sudden apparition, enquires whether I
am Romeo (a Greek); I tell him that I am Fragico (Italian), but he turns
his back upon me and goes into his house, the door of which he shuts
without condescending to listen to me.

I then turned towards the sea, and saw a boat leaving a tartan lying at
anchor within one hundred yards of the island; the boat had four oars and
landed her passengers. I come up to them and meet a good-looking Greek, a
woman and a young boy ten or twelve years old. Addressing myself to the
Greek, I ask him whether he has had a pleasant passage, and where he
comes from. He answers in Italian that he has sailed from Cephalonia with
his wife and his son, and that he is bound for Venice; he had landed to
hear mass at the Church of Our Lady of Casopo, in order to ascertain
whether his father-in-law was still alive, and whether he would pay the
amount he had promised him for the dowry of his wife.

“But how can you find it out?”

“The Papa Deldimopulo will tell me; he will communicate faithfully the
oracle of the Holy Virgin.” I say nothing and follow him into the church;
he speaks to the priest, and gives him some money. The papa says the
mass, enters the sanctum sanctorum, comes out again in a quarter of an
hour, ascends the steps of the altar, turns towards his audience, and,
after meditating for a minute and stroking his long beard, he delivers
his oracle in a dozen words. The Greek of Cephalonia, who certainly could
not boast of being as wise as Ulysses, appears very well pleased, and
gives more money to the impostor. We leave the church, and I ask him
whether he feels satisfied with the oracle.

“Oh! quite satisfied. I know now that my father-in-law is alive, and that
he will pay me the dowry, if I consent to leave my child with him. I am
aware that it is his fancy and I will give him the boy.”

“Does the papa know you?”

“No; he is not even acquainted with my name.”

“Have you any fine goods on board your tartan?”

“Yes; come and breakfast with me; you can see all I have.”

“Very willingly.”

Delighted at hearing that oracles were not yet defunct, and satisfied
that they will endure as long as there are in this world simple-minded
men and deceitful, cunning priests, I follow the good man, who took me to
his tartan and treated me to an excellent breakfast. His cargo consisted
of cotton, linen, currants, oil, and excellent wines. He had also a stock
of night-caps, stockings, cloaks in the Eastern fashion, umbrellas, and
sea biscuits, of which I was very fond; in those days I had thirty teeth,
and it would have been difficult to find a finer set. Alas! I have but
two left now, the other twenty-eight are gone with other tools quite as
precious; but ‘dum vita super est, bene est.’ I bought a small stock of
everything he had except cotton, for which I had no use, and without
discussing his price I paid him the thirty-five or forty sequins he
demanded, and seeing my generosity he made me a present of six beautiful
botargoes.

I happened during our conversation to praise the wine of Xante, which he
called generoydes, and he told me that if I would accompany him to Venice
he would give me a bottle of that wine every day including the
quarantine. Always superstitious, I was on the point of accepting, and
that for the most foolish reason-namely, that there would be no
premeditation in that strange resolution, and it might be the impulse of
fate. Such was my nature in those days; alas; it is very different now.
They say that it is because wisdom comes with old age, but I cannot
reconcile myself to cherish the effect of a most unpleasant cause.

Just as I was going to accept his offer he proposes to sell me a very
fine gun for ten sequins, saying that in Corfu anyone would be glad of it
for twelve. The word Corfu upsets all my ideas on the spot! I fancy I
hear the voice of my genius telling me to go back to that city. I
purchase the gun for the ten sequins, and my honest Cephalonian, admiring
my fair dealing, gives me, over and above our bargain, a beautiful
Turkish pouch well filled with powder and shot. Carrying my gun, with a
good warm cloak over my uniform and with a large bag containing all my
purchases, I take leave of the worthy Greek, and am landed on the shore,
determined on obtaining a lodging from the cheating papa, by fair means
or foul. The good wine of my friend the Cephalonian had excited me just
enough to make me carry my determination into immediate execution. I had
in my pockets four or five hundred copper gazzette, which were very
heavy, but which I had procured from the Greek, foreseeing that I might
want them during my stay on the island.

I store my bag away in the barn and I proceed, gun in hand, towards the
house of the priest; the church was closed.

I must give my readers some idea of the state I was in at that moment. I
was quietly hopeless. The three or four hundred sequins I had with me did
not prevent me from thinking that I was not in very great security on the
island; I could not remain long, I would soon be found out, and, being
guilty of desertion, I should be treated accordingly. I did not know what
to do, and that is always an unpleasant predicament. It would be absurd
for me to return to Corfu of my own accord; my flight would then be
useless, and I should be thought a fool, for my return would be a proof
of cowardice or stupidity; yet I did not feel the courage to desert
altogether. The chief cause of my decision was not that I had a thousand
sequins in the hands of the faro banker, or my well-stocked wardrobe, or
the fear of not getting a living somewhere else, but the unpleasant
recollection that I should leave behind me a woman whom I loved to
adoration, and from whom I had not yet obtained any favour, not even that
of kissing her hand. In such distress of mind I could not do anything
else but abandon myself to chance, whatever the result might be, and the
most essential thing for the present was to secure a lodging and my daily
food.

I knock at the door of the priest’s dwelling. He looks out of a window
and shuts it without listening to me, I knock again, I swear, I call out
loudly, all in vain, Giving way to my rage, I take aim at a poor sheep
grazing with several others at a short distance, and kill it. The
herdsman begins to scream, the papa shows himself at the window, calling
out, “Thieves! Murder!” and orders the alarm-bell to be rung. Three bells
are immediately set in motion, I foresee a general gathering: what is
going to happen? I do not know, but happen what will, I load my gun and
await coming events.

In less than eight or ten minutes, I see a crowd of peasants coming down
the hills, armed with guns, pitchforks, or cudgels: I withdraw inside of
the barn, but without the slightest fear, for I cannot suppose that,
seeing me alone, these men will murder me without listening to me.

The first ten or twelve peasants come forward, gun in hand and ready to
fire: I stop them by throwing down my gazzette, which they lose no time
in picking up from the ground, and I keep on throwing money down as the
men come forward, until I had no more left. The clowns were looking at
each other in great astonishment, not knowing what to make out of a
well-dressed young man, looking very peaceful, and throwing his money to
them with such generosity. I could not speak to them until the deafening
noise of the bells should cease. I quietly sit down on my large bag, and
keep still, but as soon as I can be heard I begin to address the men. The
priest, however, assisted by his beadle and by the herdsman, interrupts
me, and all the more easily that I was speaking Italian. My three
enemies, who talked all at once, were trying to excite the crowd against
me.

One of the peasants, an elderly and reasonable-looking man, comes up to
me and asks me in Italian why I have killed the sheep.

“To eat it, my good fellow, but not before I have paid for it.”

“But his holiness, the papa, might choose to charge one sequin for it.”

“Here is one sequin.”

The priest takes the money and goes away: war is over. The peasant tells
me that he has served in the campaign of 1716, and that he was at the
defence of Corfu. I compliment him, and ask him to find me a lodging and
a man able to prepare my meals. He answers that he will procure me a
whole house, that he will be my cook himself, but I must go up the hill.
No matter! He calls two stout fellows, one takes my bag, the other
shoulders my sheep, and forward! As we are walking along, I tell him,–

“My good man, I would like to have in my service twenty-four fellows like
these under military discipline. I would give each man twenty gazzette a
day, and you would have forty as my lieutenant.”

“I will,” says the old soldier, “raise for you this very day a body-guard
of which you will be proud.”

We reach a very convenient house, containing on the ground floor three
rooms and a stable, which I immediately turned into a guard-room.

My lieutenant went to get what I wanted, and particularly a needlewoman
to make me some shirts. In the course of the day I had furniture,
bedding, kitchen utensils, a good dinner, twenty-four well-equipped
soldiers, a super-annuated sempstress and several young girls to make my
shirts. After supper, I found my position highly pleasant, being
surrounded with some thirty persons who looked upon me as their
sovereign, although they could not make out what had brought me to their
island. The only thing which struck me as disagreeable was that the young
girls could not speak Italian, and I did not know Greek enough to enable
me to make love to them.

The next morning my lieutenant had the guard relieved, and I could not
help bursting into a merry laugh. They were like a flock of sheep: all
fine men, well-made and strong; but without uniform and without
discipline the finest band is but a herd. However, they quickly learned
how to present arms and to obey the orders of their officer. I caused
three sentinels to be placed, one before the guardroom, one at my door,
and the third where he could have a good view of the sea. This sentinel
was to give me warning of the approach of any armed boat or vessel. For
the first two or three days I considered all this as mere amusement, but,
thinking that I might really want the men to repel force by force, I had
some idea of making my army take an oath of allegiance. I did not do so,
however, although my lieutenant assured me that I had only to express my
wishes, for my generosity had captivated the love of all the islanders.

My sempstress, who had procured some young needlewomen to sew my shirts,
had expected that I would fall in love with one and not with all, but my
amorous zeal overstepped her hopes, and all the pretty ones had their
turn; they were all well satisfied with me, and the sempstress was
rewarded for her good offices. I was leading a delightful life, for my
table was supplied with excellent dishes, juicy mutton, and snipe so
delicious that I have never tasted their like except in St. Petersburg. I
drank scopolo wine or the best muscatel of the Archipelago. My lieutenant
was my only table companion. I never took a walk without him and two of
my body-guard, in order to defend myself against the attacks of a few
young men who had a spite against me because they fancied, not without
some reason, that my needlewomen, their mistresses, had left them on my
account. I often thought while I was rambling about the island, that
without money I should have been unhappy, and that I was indebted to my
gold for all the happiness I was enjoying; but it was right to suppose at
the same time that, if I had not felt my purse pretty heavy, I would not
have been likely to leave Corfu.

I had thus been playing the petty king with success for a week or ten
days, when, towards ten o’clock at night I heard the sentinel’s
challenge. My lieutenant went out, and returned announcing that an
honest-looking man, who spoke Italian, wished to see me on important
business. I had him brought in, and, in the presence of my lieutenant, he
told me in Italian:

“Next Sunday, the Papa Deldimopulo will fulminate against you the
‘cataramonachia’. If you do not prevent him, a slow fever will send you
into the next world in six weeks.”

“I have never heard of such a drug.”

“It is not a drug. It is a curse pronounced by a priest with the Host in
his hands, and it is sure to be fulfilled.”

“What reason can that priest have to murder me?”

“You disturb the peace and discipline of his parish. You have seduced
several young girls, and now their lovers refuse to marry them.”

I made him drink, and thanking him heartily, wished him good night. His
warning struck me as deserving my attention, for, if I had no fear of the
‘cataramonachia’, in which I had not the slightest faith, I feared
certain poisons which might be by far more efficient. I passed a very
quiet night, but at day-break I got up, and without saying anything to my
lieutenant, I went straight to the church where I found the priest, and
addressed him in the following words, uttered in a tone likely to enforce
conviction:

“On the first symptom of fever, I will shoot you like a dog. Throw over
me a curse which will kill me instantly, or make your will. Farewell!”

Having thus warned him, I returned to my royal palace. Early on the
following Monday, the papa called on me. I had a slight headache; he
enquired after my health, and when I told him that my head felt rather
heavy, he made me laugh by the air of anxiety with which he assured me
that it could be caused by nothing else than the heavy atmosphere of the
island of Casopo.

Three days after his visit, the advanced sentinel gave the war-cry. The
lieutenant went out to reconnoitre, and after a short absence he gave me
notice that the long boat of an armed vessel had just landed an officer.
Danger was at hand.

I go out myself, I call my men to arms, and, advancing a few steps, I see
an officer, accompanied by a guide, who was walking towards my dwelling.
As he was alone, I had nothing to fear. I return to my room, giving
orders to my lieutenant to receive him with all military honours and to
introduce him. Then, girding my sword, I wait for my visitor.

In a few minutes, Adjutant Minolto, the same who had brought me the order
to put myself under arrest, makes his appearance.

“You are alone,” I say to him, “and therefore you come as a friend. Let
us embrace.”

“I must come as a friend, for, as an enemy, I should not have enough men.
But what I see seems a dream.”

“Take a seat, and dine with me. I will treat you splendidly.”

“Most willingly, and after dinner we will leave the island together.”

“You may go alone, if you like; but I will not leave this place until I
have the certainty, not only that I shall not be sent to the ‘bastarda’,
but also that I shall have every satisfaction from the knave whom the
general ought to send to the galleys.”

“Be reasonable, and come with me of your own accord. My orders are to
take you by force, but as I have not enough men to do so, I shall make my
report, and the general will, of course, send a force sufficient to
arrest you.”

“Never; I will not be taken alive.”

“You must be mad; believe me, you are in the wrong. You have disobeyed
the order I brought you to go to the ‘bastarda; in that you have acted
wrongly, and in that alone, for in every other respect you were perfectly
right, the general himself says so.”

“Then I ought to have put myself under arrest?”

“Certainly; obedience is necessary in our profession.”

“Would you have obeyed, if you had been in my place?”

“I cannot and will not tell you what I would have done, but I know that
if I had disobeyed orders I should have been guilty of a crime:”

“But if I surrendered now I should be treated like a criminal, and much
more severely than if I had obeyed that unjust order.”

“I think not. Come with me, and you will know everything.”

“What! Go without knowing what fate may be in store for me? Do not expect
it. Let us have dinner. If I am guilty of such a dreadful crime that
violence must be used against me, I will surrender only to irresistible
force. I cannot be worse off, but there may be blood spilled.”

“You are mistaken, such conduct would only make you more guilty. But I
say like you, let us have dinner. A good meal will very likely render you
more disposed to listen to reason.”

Our dinner was nearly over, when we heard some noise outside. The
lieutenant came in, and informed me that the peasants were gathering in
the neighbourhood of my house to defend me, because a rumour had spread
through the island that the felucca had been sent with orders to arrest
me and take me to Corfu. I told him to undeceive the good fellows, and to
send them away, but to give them first a barrel of wine.

The peasants went away satisfied, but, to shew their devotion to me, they
all fired their guns.

“It is all very amusing,” said the adjutant, “but it will turn out very
serious if you let me go away alone, for my duty compels me to give an
exact account of all I have witnessed.”

“I will follow you, if you will give me your word of honour to land me
free in Corfu.”

“I have orders to deliver your person to M. Foscari, on board the
bastarda.”

“Well, you shall not execute your orders this time.”

“If you do not obey the commands of the general, his honour will compel
him to use violence against you, and of course he can do it. But tell me,
what would you do if the general should leave you in this island for the
sake of the joke? There is no fear of that, however, and, after the
report which I must give, the general will certainly make up his mind to
stop the affair without shedding blood.”

“Without a fight it will be difficult to arrest me, for with five hundred
peasants in such a place as this I would not be afraid of three thousand
men.”

“One man will prove enough; you will be treated as a leader of rebels.
All these peasants may be devoted to you, but they cannot protect you
against one man who will shoot you for the sake of earning a few pieces
of gold. I can tell you more than that: amongst all those men who
surround you there is not one who would not murder you for twenty
sequins. Believe me, go with me. Come to enjoy the triumph which is
awaiting you in Corfu. You will be courted and applauded. You will
narrate yourself all your mad frolics, people will laugh, and at the same
time will admire you for having listened to reason the moment I came
here. Everybody feels esteem for you, and M. D—- R—- thinks a great
deal of you. He praises very highly the command you have shewn over your
passion in refraining from thrusting your sword through that insolent
fool, in order not to forget the respect you owed to his house. The
general himself must esteem you, for he cannot forget what you told him
of that knave.”

“What has become of him?”

“Four days ago Major Sardina’s frigate arrived with dispatches, in which
the general must have found all the proof of the imposture, for he has
caused the false duke or prince to disappear very suddenly. Nobody knows
where he has been sent to, and nobody ventures to mention the fellow
before the general, for he made the most egregious blunder respecting
him.”

“But was the man received in society after the thrashing I gave him?”

“God forbid! Do you not recollect that he wore a sword? From that moment
no one would receive him. His arm was broken and his jaw shattered to
pieces.

“But in spite of the state he was in, in spite of what he must have
suffered, his excellency had him removed a week after you had treated him
so severely. But your flight is what everyone has been wondering over. It
was thought for three days that M. D—- R—- had concealed you in his
house, and he was openly blamed for doing so. He had to declare loudly at
the general’s table that he was in the most complete ignorance of your
whereabouts. His excellency even expressed his anxiety about your escape,
and it was only yesterday that your place of refuge was made known by a
letter addressed by the priest of this island to the Proto-Papa Bulgari,
in which he complained that an Italian officer had invaded the island of
Casopo a week before, and had committed unheard-of violence. He accused
you of seducing all the girls, and of threatening to shoot him if he
dared to pronounce ‘cataramonachia’ against you. This letter, which was
read publicly at the evening reception, made the general laugh, but he
ordered me to arrest you all the same.”

“Madame Sagredo is the cause of it all.”

“True, but she is well punished for it. You ought to call upon her with
me to-morrow.”

“To-morrow? Are you then certain that I shall not be placed under
arrest?”

“Yes, for I know that the general is a man of honour.”

“I am of the same opinion. Well, let us go on board your felucca. We will
embark together after midnight.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I will not run the risk of spending the night on board M.
Foscari’s bastarda. I want to reach Corfu by daylight, so as to make your
victory more brilliant.”

“But what shall we do for the next eight hours?”

“We will pay a visit to some beauties of a species unknown in Corfu, and
have a good supper.”

I ordered my lieutenant to send plenty to eat and to drink to the men on
board the felucca, to prepare a splendid supper, and to spare nothing, as
I should leave the island at midnight. I made him a present of all my
provisions, except such as I wanted to take with me; these I sent on
board. My janissaries, to whom I gave a week’s pay, insisted upon
escorting me, fully equipped, as far as the boat, which made the adjutant
laugh all the way.

We reached Corfu by eight o’clock in the morning, and we went alongside
the ‘bastarda. The adjutant consigned me to M. Foscari, assuring me that
he would immediately give notice of my arrival to M. D—- R—–, send my
luggage to his house, and report the success of his expedition to the
general.

M. Foscari, the commander of the bastarda, treated me very badly. If he
had been blessed with any delicacy of feeling, he would not have been in
such a hurry to have me put in irons. He might have talked to me, and
have thus delayed for a quarter of an hour that operation which greatly
vexed me. But, without uttering a single word, he sent me to the ‘capo di
scalo’ who made me sit down, and told me to put my foot forward to
receive the irons, which, however, do not dishonour anyone in that
country, not even the galley slaves, for they are better treated than
soldiers.

My right leg was already in irons, and the left one was in the hands of
the man for the completion of that unpleasant ceremony, when the adjutant
of his excellency came to tell the executioner to set me at liberty and
to return me my sword. I wanted to present my compliments to the noble M.
Foscari, but the adjutant, rather ashamed, assured me that his excellency
did not expect me to do so. The first thing I did was to pay my respects
to the general, without saying one word to him, but he told me with a
serious countenance to be more prudent for the future, and to learn that
a soldier’s first duty was to obey, and above all to be modest and
discreet. I understood perfectly the meaning of the two last words, and
acted accordingly.

When I made my appearance at M. D—- R—–’s, I could see pleasure on
everybody’s face. Those moments have always been so dear to me that I
have never forgotten them, they have afforded me consolation in the time
of adversity. If you would relish pleasure you must endure pain, and
delights are in proportion to the privations we have suffered. M.
D—- R—- was so glad to see me that he came up to me and warmly
embraced me. He presented me with a beautiful ring which he took from his
own finger, and told me that I had acted quite rightly in not letting
anyone, and particularly himself, know where I had taken refuge.

“You can’t think,” he added, frankly, “how interested Madame F—- was in
your fate. She would be really delighted if you called on her
immediately.”

How delightful to receive such advice from his own lips! But the word
“immediately” annoyed me, because, having passed the night on board the
felucca, I was afraid that the disorder of my toilet might injure me in
her eyes. Yet I could neither refuse M. D—- R—–, nor tell him the
reason of my refusal, and I bethought myself that I could make a merit of
it in the eyes of Madame F—- I therefore went at once to her house; the
goddess was not yet visible, but her attendant told me to come in,
assuring me that her mistress’s bell would soon be heard, and that she
would be very sorry if I did not wait to see her. I spent half an hour
with that young and indiscreet person, who was a very charming girl, and
learned from her many things which caused me great pleasure, and
particularly all that had been said respecting my escape. I found that
throughout the affair my conduct had met with general approbation.

[Illustration: 1c14b.jpg]

As soon as Madame F—- had seen her maid, she desired me to be shewn in.
The curtains were drawn aside, and I thought I saw Aurora surrounded with
the roses and the pearls of morning. I told her that, if it had not been
for the order I received from M. D—- R—- I would not have presumed to
present myself before her in my travelling costume; and in the most
friendly tone she answered that M. D—- R—–, knowing all the interest
she felt in me, had been quite right to tell me to come, and she assured
me that M. D—- R—– had the greatest esteem for me.

“I do not know, madam, how I have deserved such great happiness, for all
I dared aim at was toleration.”

“We all admired the control you kept over your feelings when you
refrained from killing that insolent madman on the spot; he would have
been thrown out of the window if he had not beat a hurried retreat.”

“I should certainly have killed him, madam, if you had not been present.”

“A very pretty compliment, but I can hardly believe that you thought of
me in such a moment.”

I did not answer, but cast my eyes down, and gave a deep sigh. She
observed my new ring, and in order to change the subject of conversation
she praised M. D—- R—– very highly, as soon as I had told her how he
had offered it to me. She desired me to give her an account of my life on
the island, and I did so, but allowed my pretty needlewomen to remain
under a veil, for I had already learnt that in this world the truth must
often remain untold.

All my adventures amused her much, and she greatly admired my conduct.

“Would you have the courage,” she said, “to repeat all you have just told
me, and exactly in the same terms, before the proveditore-generale?”

“Most certainly, madam, provided he asked me himself.”

“Well, then, prepare to redeem your promise. I want our excellent general
to love you and to become your warmest protector, so as to shield you
against every injustice and to promote your advancement. Leave it all to
me.”

Her reception fairly overwhelmed me with happiness, and on leaving her
house I went to Major Maroli to find out the state of my finances. I was
glad to hear that after my escape he had no longer considered me a
partner in the faro bank. I took four hundred sequins from the cashier,
reserving the right to become again a partner, should circumstances prove
at any time favourable.

In the evening I made a careful toilet, and called for the Adjutant
Minolto in order to pay with him a visit to Madame Sagredo, the general’s
favourite. With the exception of Madame F—- she was the greatest beauty
of Corfu. My visit surprised her, because, as she had been the cause of
all that had happened, she was very far from expecting it. She imagined
that I had a spite against her. I undeceived her, speaking to her very
candidly, and she treated me most kindly, inviting me to come now and
then to spend the evening at her house.

But I neither accepted nor refused her amiable invitation, knowing that
Madame F—- disliked her; and how could I be a frequent guest at her
house with such a knowledge! Besides, Madame Sagredo was very fond of
gambling, and, to please her, it was necessary either to lose or make her
win, but to accept such conditions one must be in love with the lady or
wish to make her conquest, and I had not the slightest idea of either.
The Adjutant Minolto never played, but he had captivated the lady’s good
graces by his services in the character of Mercury.

When I returned to the palace I found Madame F—- alone, M.
D—- R—- being engaged with his correspondence. She asked me to sit
near her, and to tell her all my adventures in Constantinople. I did so,
and I had no occasion to repent it. My meeting with Yusuf’s wife pleased
her extremely, but the bathing scene by moonlight made her blush with
excitement. I veiled as much as I could the too brilliant colours of my
picture, but, if she did not find me clear, she would oblige me to be
more explicit, and if I made myself better understood by giving to my
recital a touch of voluptuousness which I borrowed from her looks more
than from my recollection, she would scold me and tell me that I might
have disguised a little more. I felt that the way she was talking would
give her a liking for me, and I was satisfied that the man who can give
birth to amorous desires is easily called upon to gratify them it was the
reward I was ardently longing for, and I dared to hope it would be mine,
although I could see it only looming in the distance.

It happened that, on that day, M. D—- R—- had invited a large company
to supper. I had, as a matter of course, to engross all conversation, and
to give the fullest particulars of all that had taken place from the
moment I received the order to place myself under arrest up to the time
of my release from the ‘bastarda’. M. Foscari was seated next to me, and
the last part of my narrative was not, I suppose, particularly agreeable
to him.

The account I gave of my adventures pleased everybody, and it was decided
that the proveditore-generale must have the pleasure of hearing my tale
from my own lips. I mentioned that hay was very plentiful in Casopo, and
as that article was very scarce in Corfu, M. D—- R—- told me that I
ought to seize the opportunity of making myself agreeable to the general
by informing him of that circumstance without delay. I followed his
advice the very next day, and was very well received, for his excellency
immediately ordered a squad of men to go to the island and bring large
quantities of hay to Corfu.

A few days later the Adjutant Minolto came to me in the coffee-house, and
told me that the general wished to see me: this time I promptly obeyed
his commands.

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