The Complete Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

by Giacomo Casanova

  "Shall I write to Nina? Will writing be allowed here?"

  As I was puzzling my brains with these reflections, stretched on my bed (for I had no chair), I heard some disturbance, and on opening my window I saw, to my great astonishment, Passano being brought into the prison by a corporal and two soldiers. As he was going in, the rascal looked up and saw me, and began to laugh.

  "Alas!" I said to myself, "here is fresh food for conjecture. The fellow told Nina's sister that I should be sorry for what I had done. He must have directed some fearful calumny against me, and they are imprisoning him so as to be sure of his evidence."

  On reflection, I was well pleased at the turn affairs had taken.

  An excellent dinner was set before me, but I had no chair or table. The deficiency was remedied by the soldier who was in charge of me for the consideration of a duro.

  Prisoners were not allowed to have pen and ink without special permission; but paper and pencils were not included under this regulation, so my guard got them for me, together with candles and candlesticks, and I proceeded to kill time by making geometrical calculations. I made the obliging soldier sup with me, and he promised to commend me to one of his comrades who would serve me well. The guard was relieved at eleven.

  On the fourth day the officer of the guard came to me with a distressed look, and told me that he had the disagreeable duty of giving me some very bad news.

  "What is that, sir?"

  "I have received orders to transfer you to the bottom of the tower."

  "To transfer me?"

  "Yes."

  "Then they must have discovered in me a criminal of the deepest dye! Let us go at once."

  I found myself in a kind of round cellar, paved with large flagstones, and lighted by five or six narrow slits in the walls. The officer told me I must order what food required to be brought once a day, as no one was allowed to come into the 'calabozo', or dungeon, by night.

  "How about lights?"

  "You may lave one lamp always burning, and that will be enough, as books are not allowed. When your dinner is brought, the officer on duty will open the pies and the poultry to see that they do not contain any documents; for here no letters are allowed to come in or go out."

  "Have these orders been given for my especial benefit?"

  "No, sir; it is the ordinary rule. You will be able to converse with the sentinel."

  "The door will be open, then?"

  "Not at all."

  "How about the cleanliness of my cell?"

  "A soldier will accompany the officer in charge of your dinner, and he will attend to your wants for a trifle."

  "May I amuse myself by making architectural plans with the pencil?"

  "As much as you like."

  "Then will you be good enough to order some paper to be bought for me?"

  "With pleasure."

  The officer seemed to pity me as he left me, and bolted and barred the heavy door behind which I saw a man standing sentry with his bayonet fixed. The door was fitted with a small iron grating.

  When I got my paper and my dinner at noonday the officer cut open a fowl, and plunged a fork in the other dishes so as to make sure that there were no papers at the bottom.

  My dinner would have sufficed for six people. I told the officer that I should be much honoured by his dining with me, but he replied that it was strictly forbidden. He gave me the same answer when I asked if I might have the newspapers.

  It was a festival time for the sentinels, as I shared my meals and my good wine with them; and consequently these poor fellows were firmly attached to me.

  I was curious to know who was paying for my good cheer, but there was no chance of my finding out, for the waiter from the inn was never allowed to approach my cell.

  In this dungeon, where I was imprisoned for forty-two days, I wrote in pencil and without other reference than my memory, my refutation of Amelot de la Houssaye's "History of the Venetian Government."

  I was most heartily amused during my imprisonment, and in the following manner:

  While I was at Warsaw an Italian named Tadini came to Warsaw. He had an introduction to Tomatis who commended him to me. He called himself an oculist. Tomatis used to give him a dinner now and again, but not being well off in those days I could only give him good words and a cup of coffee when he chanced to come about my breakfast-time.

  Tadini talked to everybody about the operations he had performed, and condemned an oculist who had been at Warsaw for twenty years, saying that he did not understand how to extract a cataract, while the other oculist said that Tadini was a charlatan who did not know how the eye was made.

  Tadini begged me to speak in his favour to a lady who had had a cataract removed by the Warsaw oculist, only to return again a short time after the operation.

  The lady was blind of the one eye, but she could see with the other, and I told Tadini that I did not care to meddle with such a delicate matter.

  "I have spoken to the lady," said Tadini, "and I have mentioned your name as a person who will answer for me."

  "You have done wrong; in such a matter I would not stand surety for the most learned of men, and I know nothing about your learning."

  "But you know I am an oculist."

  "I know you were introduced to me as such, but that's all. As a professional man, you should not need anyone's commendation, you should be able to say, 'Operibus credite'. That should be your motto."

  Tadini was vexed with my incredulity, and shewed me a number of testimonials, which I might possibly have read, if the first which met my eye had not been from a lady who protested to all and singular that M. Tadini had cured her of amaurosis. At this I laughed in his face and told him to leave me alone.

  A few days after I found myself dining with him at the house of the lady with the cataract. She had almost made up her mind to submit to the operation, but as the rascal had mentioned my name, she wanted me to be present at a dispute between Tadini and the other oculist who came in with the dessert.

  I disposed myself to listen to the arguments of the two rival professors with considerable pleasure. The Warsaw oculist was a German, but spoke French very well; however, he attacked Tadini in Latin. The Italian checked him by saying that their discourse must be conducted in a language intelligible to the lady, and I agreed with him. It was plain that Tadini did not know a word of Latin.

  The German oculist began by admitting that after the operation for cataract there was no chance of the disease returning, but that there was a considerable risk of the crystalline humour evaporating, and the patient being left in a state of total blindness.

  Tadini, instead of denying this statement (which was inaccurate), had the folly to take a little box out of his pocket. It contained a number of minute round crystals.

  "What's that?" said the old professor.

  "A substance which I can place in the cornea to supply the loss of the crystalline matter."

  The German went off into a roar of laughter so long and loud that the lady could not help laughing. I should have liked to join them, but I was ashamed to be thought the patron of this ignorant fellow, so I preserved a gloomy silence.

  Tadini no doubt interpreted my silence as a mark of disapproval of the German's laughter, and thought to better matters by asking me to give my opinion.

  "As you want to hear it," said I, "here it is."

  "There's a great difference between a tooth and the crystalline humour; and though you may have succeeded in putting an artificial tooth into a gum, this treatment will not do with the eye."

  "Sir, I am not a dentist."

  "No, nor an oculist either."

  At this the ignorant rascal got up and left the room, and it was decidedly the best thing he could do.

  We laughed over this new treatment, and the lady promised to have nothing more to do with him. The professor was not content to despise his opponent in silence. He had him cited before the Faculty of Medicine to be examined on his knowledge of the eye, and
procured the insertion of a satiric article in the news on the new operation for replacing the crystalline humour, alluding to the wonderful artist then in Warsaw who could perform this operation as easily as a dentist could put in a false tooth.

  This made Tadini furious, and he set upon the old professor in the street and forced him to the refuge in a house.

  After this he no doubt left the town on foot, for he was seen no more. Now the reader is in a position to understand my surprise and amusement, when, one day as I peered through the grating in my dungeon, I saw the oculist Tadini standing over me with gun in hand. But he at all events evinced no amusement whatever, while I roared and roared again with laughter for the two hours his duty lasted.

  I gave him a good meal and a sufficiency of my excellent wine, and at the end a crown, promising that he should have the same treatment every time he returned to the post. But I only saw him four times, as the guard at my cell was a position eagerly coveted and intrigued for by the other soldiers.

  He amused me by the story of his misadventures since he had left Warsaw. He had travelled far and wide without making a fortune, and at last arrived in Barcelona, where he failed to meet with any courtesy or consideration. He had no introduction, no diploma; he had refused to submit to an examination in the Latin tongue, because (as he said) there was no connection between the learned languages and the diseases of the eye; and the result was that, instead of the common fate of being ordered to leave the country, he was made into a soldier. He told me in confidence that he intended to desert, but he said he should take care to avoid the galleys.

  "What have you done with your crystals?"

  "I have renounced them since I left Warsaw, though I am sure they would succeed."

  I never heard of him again.

  On December 28th, six weeks after my arrest, the officer of the guard came to my cell and told me to dress and follow him.

  "Where are we going?"

  "I am about to deliver you to an officer of the viceroy, who is waiting."

  I dressed hastily, and after placing all my belongings in a portmanteau I followed him. We went to the guardroom, and there I was placed under the charge of the officer who had arrested me, who took me to the palace. There a Government official shewed me my trunk, telling me that I should find all my papers intact; and he then returned me my three passports, with the remark that they were genuine documents.

  "I knew that all along."

  "I suppose so, but we had reasons for doubting their authenticity."

  "They must have been strange reasons, for, as you now confess, these reasons were devoid of reason."

  "You must be aware that I cannot reply to such an objection."

  "I don't ask you to do so."

  "Your character is perfectly clear; all the same I must request you to leave Barcelona in three days, and Catalonia in a week."

  "Of course I will obey; but it strikes me that the Catalonian method of repairing injustice is somewhat peculiar."

  "If you think you have ground for complaint you are at liberty to go to Madrid and complain to the Court."

  "I have certainly grounds enough for complaint, sir, but I shall go to France, and not to Madrid; I have had enough of Spanish justice. Will you please give me the order to leave in writing?"

  "That's unnecessary; you may take it for granted. My name is Emmanuel Badillo; I am a secretary of state. That gentleman will escort you back to the room where you were arrested. You will find everything just as you have left it. You are a free man. To-morrow I will send you your passport, signed by the viceroy and myself. Good day, sir."

  Accompanied by the officer and a servant bearing my portmanteau, I proceeded to my old inn.

  On my way I saw a theatrical poster, and decided to go to the opera. The good landlord was delighted to see me again, and hastened to light me a fire, for a bitterly cold north wind was blowing. He assured me that no one but himself had been in my room, and in the officer's presence he gave me back my sword, my great coat, and, to my astonishment, the hat I had dropped in my flight from the assassins.

  The officer asked me if I had any complaints to make, and I replied that I had none.

  "I should like to hear you say that I had done nothing but my duty, and that personally I have not done you any injury."

  I shook his hand, and assured him of my esteem.

  "Farewell, sir," said he, "I hope you will have a pleasant journey." I told my landlord that I would dine at noon, and that I trusted to him to celebrate my liberation in a fitting manner, and then I went to the post office to see if there were any letters for me. I found five or six letters, with the seals intact, much to my astonishment. What is one to make of a Government which deprives a man of his liberty on some trifling pretext, and, though seizing all his papers, respects the privacy of his letters? But Spain, as I have remarked, is peculiar in every way. These letters were from Paris, Venice, Warsaw, and Madrid, and I have never had any reason to believe that any other letters had come for me during my imprisonment.

  I went back to my inn, and asked my landlord to bring the bill.

  "You do not owe me anything, sir. Here is your bill for the period preceding your imprisonment, and, as you see, it has been settled. I also received orders from the same source to provide for you during your imprisonment, and as long as you stayed at Barcelona."

  "Did you know how long I should remain in prison?"

  "No, I was paid by the week."

  "Who paid you?"

  "You know very well."

  "Have you had any note for me?"

  "Nothing at all."

  "What has become of the valet de place?"

  "I paid him, and sent him away immediately after your arrest."

  "I should like to have him with me as far as Perpignan."

  "You are right, and I think the best thing you can do is to leave Spain altogether, for you will find no justice in it."

  "What do they say about my assassination?"

  "Why, they say you fired the shot that people heard yourself, and that you made your own sword bloody, for no one was found there, either dead or wounded."

  "That's an amusing theory. Where did my hat come from?"

  "It was brought to me three days after."

  "What a confusion! But was it known that I was imprisoned in the tower?"

  "Everybody knew it, and two good reasons were given, the one in public, and the other in private."

  "What are these reasons?"

  "The public reason was that you had forged your passports; the private one, which was only whispered at the ear, was that you spent all your nights with Nina."

  "You might have sworn that I never slept out of your inn."

  "I told everyone as much, but no matter; you did go to her house, and for a certain nobleman that's a crime. I am glad you did not fly as I advised you, for as it is your character is cleared before everybody."

  "I should like to go to the opera this evening; take me a box."

  "It shall be done; but do not have anything more to do with Nina, I entreat you."

  "No, my good friend, I have made up my mind to see her no more."

  Just as I was sitting down to dinner, a banker's clerk brought me a letter which pleased me very much. It contained the bills of exchange I had drawn in Genoa, in favour of M. Augustin Grimaldi. He now sent them back, with these words:

  "Passano has been vainly endeavouring to persuade me to send these bills to Barcelona, so that they may be protested, and you arrested. I now send them to you to convince you that I am not one of those who delight in trampling down the victims of bad fortune.

  "—Genoa, November 30th, 1768."

  For the fourth time a Genoese had behaved most generously to me. I was almost persuaded that I ought to forgive the infamous Passano for the sake of his four excellent fellow-countrymen.

  But this virtue was a little beyond me. I concluded that the best thing I could do would be to rid the Genoese name of the opprobrium which t
his rascal was always bringing on it, but I could never find an opportunity. Some years after I heard that the wretch died in miserable poverty in Genoa.

  I was curious at the time to know what had become of him, as it was important for me to be on my guard. I confided my curiosity to my landlord, and he instructed one of the servants to make enquiries. I only heard the following circumstance:

  Ascanio Pogomas, or Passano, had been released at the end of November, and had then been embarked on a felucca bound for Toulon.

  The same day I wrote a long and grateful letter to M. Grimaldi. I had indeed reason to be grateful, for if he had listened to my enemy he might have reduced me to a state of dreadful misery.

  My landlord had taken the box at the opera in my name, and two hours afterwards, to everyone's great astonishment, the posters announcing the plays of the evening were covered by bills informing the public that two of the performers had been taken ill, that the play would not be given, and the theatre closed till the second day of the new year.

  This order undoubtedly came from the viceroy, and everybody knew the reason.

  I was sorry to have deprived the people of Barcelona of the only amusement they had in the evening, and resolved to stay indoors, thinking that would be the most dignified course I could adopt.

  Petrarch says,—

  'Amor che fa gentile un cor villano'.

  If he had known the lover of Nina he would have changed the line into

  'Amor che fa villan un cor gentile'.

  In four months I shall be able to throw some more light on this strange business.

  I should have left Barcelona the same day, but a slight tinge of superstition made me desire to leave on the last day of the unhappy year I had spent in Spain. I therefore spent my three days of grace in writing letters to all my friends.

  Don Miguel de Cevallos, Don Diego de la Secada, and the Comte de la Peralada came to see me, but separately. Don Diego de la Secada was the uncle of the Countess A—— B—— whom I had met at Milan. These gentlemen told me a tale as strange as any of the circumstances which had happened to me at Barcelona.