Volume I Part 8 (2/2)
This rich harvest, in hts of beco a preacher, and I confidedhis assistance to carry it into execution This gaveat his house every day, and I iela, for whoela was virtuous She did not object to my love, but she wished me to renounce the Church and to marry her In spite of my infatuation for her, I could nother and courting her in the hope that she would alter her decision
The priest, who had at last confessed his admiration for my first sermon, asked me, some time afterwards, to prepare another for St
Joseph's Day, with an invitation to deliver it on the 19th of March, 1741 I composed it, and the abbe spoke of it with enthusiasm, but fate had decided that I should never preach but once in my life It is a sad tale, unfortunately for h to consider very a and rather self-conceited, I fancied that it was not necessary forthe author, I had all the ideas contained in my work classified in e of possibilities that I could forget what I had written Perhaps I ht not remember the exact words of a sentence, but I was at liberty to replace theood, and as I never happened to be at a loss, or to be struck dumb, when I spoke in society, it was not likely that such an untoward accident would befall st whom I did not know anyone who could intimidate me and cause me suddenly to lose the faculty of reason or of speech I therefore took, in order to impress it upon my memory which until then had never betrayed me
The 19th of March came, and on that eventful day at four o'clock in the afternoon I was to ascend the pulpit; but, believing hly e to denywith Count Mont-Real, as then residing with ed to be hter after the Easter holidays
I was still enjoying myself with my fine company, when the sexton of the church ca for me in the vestry
With a full stomach and my head rather heated, I took my leave, ran to the church, and entered the pulpit I went through the exordiu time; but scarcely had I pronounced the first sentences of the narration, before I forgot what I was saying, what I had to say, and in my endeavours to proceed, I fairly wandered from my subject and I lost myself entirely I was still more discomforted by a half-repressed murmur of the audience, as my deficiency appeared evident Several persons left the church, others began to s out of the scrape
I could not say whether I feigned a fainting fit, or whether I truly swooned; all I know is that I fell down on the floor of the pulpit, striking ainst the wall, with an inward prayer for annihilation
Two of the parish clerks carrieda word to anyone, I took my cloak and my hat, and went home to lock myself in my room I immediately dressedpriests, I packed a few things in a trunk, obtained sorandmother, and took my departure for Padua, where I intended to pass ht, and went to Doctor Gozzi's house, but I did not feel the slightest temptation to mention to hih to prepare ree, which I intended to take the following year, and after Easter I returned to Venice, wherewas out of the question, and when any attempt was made to induce me to renew my efforts, I manfully kept to ain
On the eve of Ascension Day M Manzoni introduced reat repute at Venice, and was nick-named Cavamacchia, because her father had been a scourer This nareat deal, she wished to be called Preati, which was her family name, but it was all in vain, and the only concession her friends would make was to call her by her Christian name of Juliette
She had been introduced to fashi+onable notice by the Marquis de Sanvitali, a nobleiven her one hundred thousand ducats for her favours Her beauty was then the talk of everybody in Venice, and it was fashi+onable to call upon her To converse with her, and especially to be adreat boon
As I shall have to mention her several times in the course of my history, my readers will, I trust, allow me to enter into some particulars about her previous life
Juliette was only fourteen years of age when her father sent her one day to the house of a Venetian nobleman, Marco Muazzo, with a coat which he had cleaned for his in which she was dressed, and he called to see her at her father's shop, with a friend of his, the celebrated advocate, Bastien Uccelli, who; struck by the romantic and cheerful nature of Juliette still ave her an apartment, made her study music, and kept her as his mistress At the time of the fair, Bastien took her with him to various public places of resort; everywhere she attracted general attention, and secured the adress in music, and at the end of six n an engageive her a 'castrato' part in one of Metastasio's operas
The advocate had previously ceded her to a wealthy Jeho, after giving her splendid diamonds, left her also
In Vienna, Juliette appeared on the stage, and her beauty gained for her an admiration which she would never have conquered by her very inferior talent But the constant crowd of adorers ent to worshi+p the Goddess, having sounded her exploits rather too loudly, the august Maria-Theresa objected to this new creed being sanctioned in her capital, and the beautiful actress received an order to quit Vienna forthwith
Count Spada offered her his protection, and brought her back to Venice, but she soon left for Padua where she had an engagement In that city she kindled the fire of love in the breast of Marquis Sanvitali, but the ht her once in her own box, and Juliette having acted disrespectfully to her, she slapped her face, and the affair having caused a good deal of noise, Juliette gave up the stage altogether She came back to Venice, where, made conspicuous by her banishment from Vienna, she could not fail to make her fortune
Expulsion from Vienna, for this class of women, had become a title to fashi+onable favour, and when there was a wish to depreciate a singer or a dancer, it was said of her that she had not been sufficiently prized to be expelled from Vienna
After her return, her first lover was Steffano Querini de Papozzes, but in the spring of 1740, the Marquis de Sanvitali came to Venice and soon carried her off It was indeed difficult to resist this delightful marquis! His first present to the fair lady was a su accused of weakness or of lavish prodigality, he loudly proclaimed that the present could scarcely make up for the insult Juliette had received from his wife--an insult, however, which the courtesan never admitted, as she felt that there would be huratitude her lover's generosity She was right; the admission of the blow received would have left a stain upon her charms, and how much more to her taste to allow those charure!
It was in the year 1741 that M Manzoni introduced inning to ht well-seasoned ad at her feet the incense of their flattery She was carelessly reclining on a sofa near Querini I was much struck with her appearance
She eyed me fro me, with the air of a princess, that she was not sorry to an then, in my turn, to examine her closely and deliberately, and it was an easy hted with at least twenty wax candles
Juliette was then in her eighteenth year; the freshness of her co, but the carnation tint of her cheeks, the vermilion of her lips, and the dark, very narrow curve of her eyebrows, i produced by art rather than nature Her teeth--ts of nificent pearls--made one overlook the fact that her e, and whether from habit, or because she could not help it, she seeauze, invited the desires of love; yet I did not surrender to her charers did not prevent e and too fleshy, and in spite of her carefully hiding her feet, I judged, by a telltale slipper lying close by her dress, that they ell proportioned to the height of her figure--a proportion which is unpleasant not only to the Chinese and Spaniards, but likewise to every man of refined taste
We want a tall women to have a small foot, and certainly it is not a modern taste, for Holofernes of old was of the saht Judith so charether I found her beautiful, but when I compared her beauty and the price of one hundred thousand ducats paid for it, Ite from nature a study of the charms which her dress concealed from my eyes
I had scarcely been there a quarter of an hour when the noisethe water heralded the prodigal marquis
We all rose fro, to quit his place on the sofa M de Sanvitali, a e, who had travelled much, took a seat near Juliette, but not on the sofa, so she was co her full front, while I had before only a side view of her face
After my introduction to Juliette, I paid her four or five visits, and I thought iven to the exa in M de Malipiero's draw-roo, when lutton with depraved tastes; that she had neither the fascination of sie of society, that she was deficient in well-bred, easytalents and that those were the qualities which a thorough gentleeneral approbation of his friends, but M de Malipiero kindly whispered to me that Juliette would certainly be informed of the portrait I had drawn of her, and that she would becohtly