Volume I Part 4 (1/2)
Doctor Gozzi, as attached to me, called me privately one day into his study, and asked me whether I would feel disposed to carry out the advice he would giveabout my removal from the house of the Sclavonian wo hted at such an offer, he caused me to copy three letters which I sent, one to the Abbe Grimani, another to randa in Venice at that period there was no tiave a description of all nosticated -house and placed under the care of my school-master, as disposed to receive me; but he wanted two sequins a month
M Grimani did not answer me, and co myself to be ensnared by the doctor; but M Baffo went to consult with randmother, who could not write, and in a letter which he addressed to me he informed me that I would soon find myself in a happier situation And, truly, within a week the excellent old woman, who loveddown to my dinner She came in with the mistress of the house, and thebitterly, in which luxury the old lady soon joined ain In the presence of the Sclavonian wo her attention to the food, fit only for beggars, which I was compelled to s, I took her upstairs to shew her ood dinner after six -house keeper boldly asserted that she could not afford better for the amount she had received, and there was truth in that, but she had no business to keep house and to become the toriness, and who required to be properly fed
My grandmother very quietly intimated her intention to take s inthese preparations For the first tiiveness coet all previous unpleasantness
My grandmother took me to the inn, and dinner was served, but she could hardly eat anything in her astonish my food In the meantime Doctor Gozzi, to whom she had sent notice of her arrival, came in, and his appearance soon prepossessed her in his favour He was then a fine-looking priest, twenty-six years of age, chubby, modest, and respectful In less than a quarter of an hour everything was satisfactorily arranged between theood old lady counted out twenty-four sequins for one year of , and took a receipt for the same, but she kept me with her for three days in order to have , as the filthy state of my hair made it necessary to have it all cut off
At the end of the three days she took me to the doctor's house, so as to see herself to my installation and to recommend me to the doctor's mother, who desired her to send or to buy in Padua a bedstead and bedding; but the doctor having reht sleep with hiratitude for all his kindness, and we accoed to return to Venice
The fareat reverence for him, because, a peasant by birth, she did not think herself worthy of having a son as a priest, and still more a doctor in divinity; she was plain, old, and cross; and of his father, a shoe a word to anyone, not even during theon holidays, on which occasions he would spend his tiht as drunk as a lord and singing verses froood o to bed, and became violent if anyone atteave him sense and spirit, for when sober he was incapable of attending to the simplest family matter, and his wife often said that he never would have ood breakfast before he went to the church
But Doctor Gozzi had also a sister, called Bettina, who at the age of thirteen was pretty, lively, and a great reader of romances Her father and mother scolded her constantly because she was too often looking out of the , and the doctor did the sairl took at oncewhy, and little by little she kindled in my heart the first spark of a passion which, afterwards beca one
Six months after I had been an inmate in the house, the doctor found himself without scholars; they all went away because I had become the sole object of his affection He then deter boys as boarders; but two years passed before he ht h to open to ht me the violin, an accomplishment which proved very useful to me in a peculiar circuood time The excellent doctor, as in no way a philosopher, raphy of the ancient syste the poor doctor with theorems to which he could find no answer His habits, s connected with religion, although no bigot, he was of the greatest strictness, and, ad appeared difficult to his conception He believed the deluge to have been universal, and he thought that, before that great cataclysm, men lived a thousand years and conversed with God, that Noah took one hundred years to build the ark, and that the earth, suspended in the air, is firmly held in the very centre of the universe which God had created fro When I would say and prove that it was absurd to believe in the existence of nothingness, he would stop ood bed, a glass of wine, and cheerfulness at hoood jests or criticish at the folly ofnewspapers which, in his opinion, always lied and constantly repeated the sa was more troublesoht because it gives birth to doubt
His ruling passion was preaching, for which his face and his voice qualified hiation was almost entirely composed of women of whom, however, he was the sworn enemy; so much so, that he would not look them in the face even when he spoke to them Weakness of the flesh and fornication appeared to hiry if I dared to assert that, in my estimation, they were the es from the Greek authors, which he translated into Latin One day I ventured to reht to be translated into Italian because women did not understand Latin any more than Greek, but he took offence, and I never had afterwards the courage to allude any more to the matter
Moreover he praised me to his friends as a wonder, because I had learned to read Greek alone, without any assistance but a gra Lent, in the year 1736, my mother, wrote to the doctor; and, as she was on the point of her departure for St Petersburg, she wished to see me, and requested him to accompany me to Venice for three or four days This invitation set hiood co We were soon ready to leave Padua, and all the family escorted us to the 'burchiello'
My mother received the doctor with a ly beautiful, andto look her in the face, and yet called upon to converse with her She saw the dile sport about it should opportunity present itself I, in the meantime, drew the attention of everyone in her circle; everybody had known me as a fool, and was amazed at my improvement in the short space of two years The doctor was overjoyed, because he saw that the full credit ofwhich struck , which was not in harmony with my dark complexion, and contrasted most woefully with my black eyes and eyebrows She inquired from the doctor why I did not wear , it was easier for his sister to keep me clean
Everyone smiled at the simplicity of the answer, but the merriment increased when, to the question made by my mother whether his sister was married, I took the answer upon irl of Padua, and was only fourteen years of age My mother promised the doctor a splendid present for his sister on condition that she would let me wear my own hair, and he promised that her wishes would be co which uests began to play cards, with the exception of randmother's roons which I pretended to adht hi
At the supper-table, the doctor, seated next to my mother, was very aard He would very likely not have said one word, had not an Englishman, a writer of talent, addressed hi unable to lish, which caused much hilarity M Baffo, however, explained the puzzle by telling us that Englishmen read and pronounced Latin in the sae, and I re as much as ould be, if we pretended to read and to pronounce their language according to Latin rules The English old couplet, and gave it to rammatici, cur mascula nomina cunnus, Et cur fe it aloud, I exclaimed, ”This is Latin indeed”
”We know that,” said my mother, ”but can you explain it?”
”To explain it is not enough,” I answered; ”it is a question which is worthy of an answer” And after considering for apentameter:
'Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet'
This was my first literary exploit, and I may say that in that very instant the seed of my love for literary fame was sown in my breast, for the applause lavished upon lishman, quite amazed at my answer, said that no boy of eleven years had ever accomplished such a feat, embraced me repeatedly, and presented me with his watch My mother, inquisitive like a wo of the lines, but as the abbe was not any wiser than she was M Baffo translated it in a whisper Surprised at old watch and presented to ratitude, treated us to the most comic scene
Myher a coive her a couple of kisses, the easiest and the ood co coals, and so completely out of countenance that he would, I truly believe, rather have died than give the kisses He drew back with his head down, and he was allowed to reht
When we found ourselves alone in our room, he poured out his heart, and exclaimed that it was a pity he could not publish in Padua the distich and my answer
”And why not?” I said
”Because both are obscene”