Volume I Part 68 (2/2)
People wonder at the devout scoundrels who call upon their saint when they think themselves in need of heavenly assistance, or who thank hiine that they have obtained soood and right feeling, which preaches against Atheism
At the invitation of Charles, his aunt and his sister had gone to pay awife, and they returned with her Happiness never shone on atowards her, enquired froht Her only ansas to rush to her husband's arms It was the most artless, and at the saive Then turning her beautiful eyes towardsme her hand, she said,
”M Casanova, I am happy, and I love to be indebted to you forfrom my eyes, as I kissed her hand, told her better than words how truly happy I was htfully We then left for Mestra and Venice
We escorted the married couple to their house, and returned hoadin with the relation of our expedition This worthy and particularly learned reat profundity and others of great absurdity
I laughed inwardly I was the only one who had the key to the mystery, and could realize the secret of the comedy
EPISODE 5 -- MILAN AND MANTUA
CHAPTER XX
Slight Misfortunes Compel Me to Leave Venice--My Adventures in Milan and Mantua
On Low Sunday Charles paid us a visit with his lovely wife, who seemed totally indifferent to what Christine used to be Her hair dressed with powder did not please me as well as the raven black of her beautiful locks, and her fashi+onable town attire did not, in my eyes, suit her as well as her rich country dress But the countenances of husband and wife bore the stamp of happiness Charles reproached me in a friendly manner because I had not called once upon theence, I went to see them the next day with M Dandolo
Charles told me that his as idolized by his aunt and his sister who had become her boso, and of a disposition which enforced affection I was no less pleased with this favourable state of things than with the facility hich Christine was learning the Venetian dialect
When M Dandolo and I called at their house, Charles was not at home; Christine was alone with his two relatives The most friendly welcome was proffered to us, and in the course of conversation the aunt praised the progress hly, and asked her to let me see her copy-book I followed her to the next room, where she told me that she was very happy; that every day she discovered new virtues in her husband He had told her, without the slightest appearance of suspicion of displeasure, that he knew that we had spent two days together in Treviso, and that he had laughed at the well-iven hi a cloud in the heaven of their felicity
Charles was truly endoith all the virtues, with all the noble qualities of an honest and distinguished man Twenty-six years afterwards I happened to require the assistance of his purse, and found him my true friend I never was a frequent visitor at his house, and he appreciated my delicacy He died a fewhisin easy circuood positions, whowith their mother
In June I went to the fair at Padua, and e, as then studying mathenolo, but thinking it did not sound well, he changed it for that of Fabris He becaeneral under Joseph II, and died Governor of Transylvania This h fortune to his talents, would, perhaps, have lived and died unknown if he had kept his nae village of the Venetian Friuli He had a brother in the Church, aa deep knowledge of the world, had taken the naer brother had to assuht an estate with the title of count, becain as a country bunolo it would have injured hi his hearers of what is called, by the most conteed class, through an absurd error, does not adenius No doubt a tihtened, and therefore s, honour, and heroism can be found in every condition of life as easily as in a class, the blood of which is not always exempt from the taint of a misalliance
The new count, while he allowed others to forget his origin, was too wise to forget it hined his family name as well as the one he had adopted His brother had offered hi him perfectly free in his choice Both required an expenditure of one thousand sequins, but the abbe had put the amount aside for that purpose My friend had to choose between the sword of Mars and the bird of Minerva The abbe knew that he could purchase for his brother a company in the army of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, or obtain for him a professorshi+p at the University of Padua; for ifted with noble feelings and good sense, knew that in either profession talents and knowledge were essentials, and before reat success to the study of mathematics He ulti Achilles, who preferred the sword to the distaff, and he paid for it with his life like the son of Peleus; though not so young, and not through a wound inflicted by an arrow, but froht in the unhappy country in which the indolence of Europe allows the Turks to perpetuate that fearful disease
The distinguished appearance, the noble sentie, and the talents of Fabris would have been turned into ridicule in a nolo, for such is the force of prejudices, particularly of those which have no ground to rest upon, that an ill-sounding na in this our stupid society My opinion is thatname, or one which presents an indecent or ridiculous idea, are right in changing it if they intend to win honour, fame, and fortune either in arts or sciences No one can reasonably deny thes to nobody The alphabet is general property, and everyone has the right to use it for the creation of a word for an appellative sound But he enius, would not perhaps have reached posterity under his naive way so easily to their keen sense of ridicule and equivocation How could they have ienius? And D'Aleh fame, his universal reputation, if he had been satisfied with his name of M Le Rond, or Mr Allround? What would have become of Metastasio under his true name of Trapasso? What impression would Melanchthon have made with his name of Schwarzerd? Would he then have dared to raise the voice of a moralist philosopher, of a refors? Would not M de Beauharnais have caused soh and others to blush if he had kept his name of Beauvit, even if the first founder of his family had been indebted for his fortune to the fine quality expressed by that naure on the throne as the Bourbons? I think that King Poniatowski ought to have abdicated the naustus, which he had taken at the time of his accession to the throne, when he abdicated royalty The Coleoni of Bergae their nae their coat of arlory of their ancestor, the hero Bartholomeo
Towards the end of autumn my friend Fabris introduced me to a family in the midst of which the mind and the heart could find delicious food
That fa, love, and practical jokes were the order of the day Some of those jokes were rather severe ones, but the order of the day was never to get angry and to laugh at everything, for one was to take every jest pleasantly or be thought a bore Bedsteads would at night tuhosts were personated, diuretic pills or sugar-plu ladies, as well as co from the netherlands, and io rather too far, but such was the spirit anih I was not less inured than the others to the war of offence and defence, but at last there was such a bitter joke played upon ested to me another, the fatal consequences of which put a stop to the mania by which ere all possessed
We were in the habit of walking to a farue distant by the road, but the distance could be reduced by half by going over a deep and miry ditch across which a narrow plank was thrown, and I always insisted upon going that way, in spite of the fright of the ladies who always treh I never failed to cross the first, and to offer my hand to help theive thee, but suddenly, when I reached the ave way underto the general understanding, to join in the hter of all , for the joke was too bad, and everyone declared it to be so
Some peasants were called to the rescue, and with ed me out in the most awful state An entirely new dress, es,it, I laughed h I had already e In order to know the author of that bitter joke I had only to appear calm and indifferent about it It was evident that the plank had been purposely sawn I was taken back to the house, a shi+rt, a coat, a complete costume, were lent me, for I had coht anything with , and towards the evening I returned to the gay cory as myself, observed to uilt, because he took good care not to discover hi one sequin to a peasant woman if she could find out who had sawn the plank She contrived to discover the young man who had done the work I called on hiether with my threats, compelled hinor Deood and amiable man of between forty-five and fifty years, on whom I never played any trick, except in the case of a pretty, young servant girl wholed fro ood practical joke, but to obtain coe it was necessary that my trick should prove worse than the one he had played upon ination was at bay I could not find anything A funeral put an end to -knife, I went alone to the cerave of the dead man who had been buried that very day, I cut off one of the arms near the shoulder, not without some trouble, and after I had re-buried the corpse, I returned to my room with the arm of the defunct The next day, when supper was over, I left the table and retired tothe arm with me I hid myself under Demetrio's bed A short tiht out, and lies down I give hi myself at the foot of the bed, I pull away the clothes little by little until he is half naked He laughs and calls out,