Volume I Part 3 (2/2)
The 'burchiello' e saloon with a smaller cabin at each end, and roo square with a roof, and cut on each side by glazed ith shutters The voyage takes eight hours M Grimani, M Baffo, and my mother accompanied me I slept with her in the saloon, and the two friends passed the night in one of the cabins Mythe bed, and the rays of the rising sun, falling on my eyes, caused me to open them The bed was too low for h theonly the tops of the trees along the river The boat was sailing with such an even , so that the trees, which, one after the other, were rapidly disappearing froht, caused me an extreme surprise ”Ah, dear !” At that veryastonishhts were so busy about ”How is it,” I answered, ”that the trees are walking”
They all laughed, but h, told , the trees are not Now dress yourself”
I understood at once the reason of the phenomenon ”Then it may be,”
said I, ”that the sun does notfroood mother fairly screamed M Gririeved, and ready to cry M Baffo brought ain He rushed to ht, ive heed to your reasoning powers and let others laugh”
My reatly surprised, asked hiiveto answer her, went on sketching a theory in harence This was the first real pleasure I enjoyed in ht have been enough to degrade ; the weakness of credulity would have beconorance of the two others would certainly have blunted in e of a faculty which, perhaps, has not carried me very far in my after life, but to which alone I feel that I am indebted for every particle of happiness I enjoy when I look into myself
We reached Padua at an early hour and went to Ottaviani's house; his wife loaded st theht years, named Marie, and another of seven, Rose, beautiful as a seraph Ten years later Marie became the wife of the broker Colonda, and Rose, a few years afterwards, married a noblehters, one of edded to M Pierre Moncenigo, and the other to a noblee was afterwards nullified I shall have, in the course of events, to speak of all these persons, and that istheir names here
Ottaviani took us at once to the house where I was to board It was only a few yards from his own residence, at Sainte-Marie d'Advance, in the parish of Saint-Michel, in the house of an old Sclavonian wonora Mida, wife of a Sclavonian colonel My small trunk was laid open before the old woether with six sequins for six months paid in advance For this small sum she undertook to feed me, to keepthat it was not enough, she accepted these terly commanded to be always obedient and docile, and I was left with her
In this way did et rid of me
CHAPTER II
My Grandmother Comes to Padua, and Takes Me to Dr Gozzi's School--My First Love Affair
As soon as I was left alone with the Sclavonian woarret, where she pointed out ed to three young boys of e, who at that irl whose province it was to watch us and to prevent the e After this visit we caarden with permission to walk about until dinner-ti to say I had neither fear nor hope, nor even a feeling of curiosity; I was neither cheerful nor sad The only thing which grated upon h I had not the faintest idea either of beauty or of ugliness, her face, her countenance, her tone of voice, her language, everything in that woman was repulsive to me Her masculine features repelled me every time I lifted my eyes towards her face to listen to what she said to me She was tall and coarse like a trooper; her co and thick, and her chin gloried in a respectable bristly beard: to co half-way down her long chest; she irl, who did all the work of the house; the garden was a square of soreen appearance
Towards noon my three companions came back from school, and they at once spoke toe, but which I did not possess I did not answer them, but they were not baffled, and they at last prevailed upon me to share their innocent pleasures I had to run, to carry and be carried, to turn head over heels, and I allowed race until ere su beforefor my silver spoon and fork to which I was ranny The servant answered that the mistress wished to maintain equality between the boys, and I had to sub thus learned that equality in everything was the rule of the house, I went to work like the others and began to eat the soup out of the common dish, and if I did not complain of the rapidity hichat such inequality being allowed To follow this very poor soup, we had a small portion of dried cod and one apple each, and dinner was over: it was in Lent We had neither glasses nor cups, and we all helped ourselves out of the saraspia, which is rapes stripped of their fruit
Fro but water This way of living surprised ht to complain of it After dinner the servant tookpriest, Doctor Gozzi, ho at the rate of forty sous ato do was to teach st children of five and six years, who did not fail to turn e
On -house I had my supper, which, as a matter of course, orse than the dinner, and I could not ht of complaint should be denied me I was then put to bed, but there three well-known species of ver all over the garret, juht This is the way in which I began to feel misery, and to learn how to suffer it patiently The vermin, which feasted upon me, lessened my fear of the rats, and by a very lucky system of compensation, the dread of the rats made me less sensitive to the bites of the verht between the evils which surrounded
As soon as it was daylight I ran out of the wretched garret, and, after coht, I asked her to giveto look at, but she answered that I could only change hed at me when I threatened to complain to the mistress For the first tier, when I heardat me The poor wretches shared my unhappy condition, but they were used to it, and that makes all the difference
Sorely depressed, I went to school, but only to sleep soundly through thethe affair into ridicule atso sleepy The good priest, however, to ithout doubt Providence had guided me, called me into his private room, listened to all I had to say, saith his own eyes the proofs of ured my innocent skin, he took up his cloak, ith -house, and shewed the woreat astonishment, and threw all the bla curious to see my bed, I was, as much as he was, surprised at the filthy state of the sheets in which I had passed the night The accursed wo the servant, and said that she would discharge her; but the girl, happening to be close by, and not relishi+ng the accusation, told her boldly that the fault was her own, and she then threw open the beds of my companions to shew us that they did not experience any better treat, slapped her on the face, and the servant, to be even with her, returned the co that I could not enter his school unless I was sent to him as clean as the other boys The result for me was a very sharp rebuke, with the threat, as a finishi+ng stroke, that if I ever caused such a broil again, I would be ignominiously turned out of the house
I could not e of any other place but the house in which I had been born, in which I had been brought up, and in which I had always seen cleanliness and honest coh it did not seem possible that any blame could be attached to me At last the old shrew tossed a shi+rt inthe sheets, after which we had our dinner
My schoolave me a seat at his own desk, and in order to shew ave myself up to my studies; at the end of the first ra, the half-starvation system to which I was conde else, the air of Padua, brought me health such as I had never enjoyed before, but that very state of bloo health er which I was co rapidly; I enjoyed nine hours of deep sleep, unbroken by any drea at a well-spread table, and gratifyingI could realize in full the vanity and the unpleasant disappoint dreams! This ravenous appetite would at last have weakened me to death, had I not made up my mind to pounce upon, and to s, every kind of eatables I could find, whenever I was certain of not being seen
Necessity begets ingenuity I had spied in a cupboard of the kitchen sos; I devoured thees which were hanging in the chimney to be s detected, I was in the habit of getting up at night and of undertakingexpeditions under the friendly veil of darkness Every new-laid egg I could discover in the poultry-yard, quite warm and scarcely dropped by the hen, was a o as far as the kitchen of the school to eat
The Sclavonian wo unable to catch the thieves, turned away servant after servant But, in spite of allto steal, I was as thin as a walking skeleton
My progress at school was so rapid during four or five months that the master promoted me to the rank of dux My province was to examine the lessons of my thirty school-fellows, to correct their mistakes and report to the ht they deserved; but , for idle boys soon found out the way to enlist my sympathy When their Latin lesson was full of mistakes, they would buy ave s excited luttony, and, not satisfied with levying a tax upon the ignorant, I became a tyrant, and I refused well- the contribution I deer, the boys accusedme convicted of extortion, removed me from my exalted position I would very likely have fared badly after my dismissal, had not Fate decided to put an end to my cruel apprenticeshi+p