THE STORY OF MY ESCAPE
FROM PRISONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE
CALLED
"THE LEADS."
(I Piombi)
Written in 1787 by Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt
published in 1788 under the author's personal direction.
One of two illustrations in the original edition.
Recipient: Papal Order of the Golden Spur, 1759.
First published 1788, Prague.
Translated from an original edition in French and annotated by John M. Friedberg, M.D.
copyright 1995-1998
After having finished my studies; having left the priesthood to Rome; having enlisted in the army and left it in Corfou; having undertaken a career as a lawyer and having quit in disgust; and after having seen all my beloved Italy, the two Greeces, Asia Minor, Constantinople and the most beautiful cities in France and Germany, I returned to my country in the year 1753 well informed, full of myself, giddy, loving pleasure, hating prudence; with opinions about everything; happy, hardy, vigorous and mocking; with a clique of friends of which I was the leader. Everything stupid, be it secular or sacred, was fair game. I partied night and day, gambled for high stakes and respected only my own "honor," the word constantly on my lips more out of pride than humility; and which I was prepared to defend from any stain if I had to violate every law in the way of my satisfaction and revenge for whatever seemed insulting or offensive to me.
I owed no one. I didn't disturb the peace. I steered clear of politics and the personal quarrels of others, and that's every virtue I possessed, enough I believed to protect me from any misfortune which, taking me by surprise, might have threatened a freedom I took to be inviolable. When, from time to time, I did glance at my own conduct, I never failed to find it above reproach. Because ultimately my libertine ways could at worst make me guilty to myself, and not a single regret clouded my conscience. I believed I had no other obligation than to be an honest man and I prided myself in having no need for a job or a title, and no desire to commit any of my free time or cramp my style with regular routines. I was entirely happy going my own way.
M.de Bragadino,11 magnanimous Senator, took care of me. His purse was mine. He loved my heart and my wit. Throughout his youth, he'd been a great libertine, a slave to every passion, a way of life brought to a cruel halt by a stroke which dropped him on death's doorstep, and brought him to his senses.
Sufficiently recovered 12 to hope to reach old age by means of a healthier regimen, he found no other resource than faith which alone can replace vice with virtue. He devoted himself completely. He thought he saw in me his own image and felt sorry for me. He used to say I was going so fast I would soon burn out and despite this expectation he never abandoned me. He always expected my passions to be glutted. But he didn't live long enough to see his wishes come true.
He was always giving me excellent moral instruction, to which I listened with pleasure and admiration and never dodged. That's all he asked of me. He gave me good advice and money, and what he didn't tell me was that he prayed incessantly to God to make me aware of my wayward conduct.
In March, 1755, I took an apartment in a widow's house on the wharf which the Venitians call the "Fondamente Nove," assuring M. de Bragadin that the new location was essential to my health, because the summer was coming and the heat of the inner city was intense. I needed to live somewhere exposed to fresh air and the north wind. This gentleman, who approved everything I really wanted, approved this move, satisfied with my promise to come to his Palazzo for dinner every day.
The real reason I left his palace was to be close to a girl I was in love with. The details of that intrigue have nothing to do with this story so I spare the reader.13
July 25, fifteen minutes before sunrise, I left the Erbaria to go to bed. The is a well known spot on the Grand Canal just below the Rialto Bridge, so-called because it's the market for herbs, fruits and flowers.14 The fashionable men and women who have spent the night in the pleasures of the dinner table or the passions of the gambling tables always take a walk there, before going home to bed.
(from a guidebook - no place looks more like its postcards than Venice, which is, after all, the home office; the "veduttas" or "view" as a memento was invented in Venice.)
"What's new on the Rialto?" Wm. Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice
"Unbridled capitalism might flourish on the Rialto, but the Doge's Palace was close cousin to the Kremlin." - JH Plumb: The Italian Renaissance. Houghton Miflin. 1961.
This promenade shows how a people's character can change. The Venitians of old, discrete in politics and gallantry, were replaced by a new generation for whom the reigning fashion is to make no mystery of anything. This spot offers a good look, but that's only a pretext. One goes to the Erbaria more to be looked at, and the women love it more than the men. Everyone let's it all hang out. Flirtation is out of the question because of the wasted makeup and finery. The new day breaks and no one notices. It's the end of the day before. Each man, each woman must inspect the evidence. The men affect a bored look of abused good will. The women just have to show off the wreckage of last night's makeup and hairdo treated so disrespectfully. Everyone must appear exhausted and display their need to get themselves to bed. I never missed this parade, playing the game, usually with no special purpose.
San Giorgio Maggiore at dawn, church/monastery by Palladio, begun 1565
At that hour, everyone should have been fast asleep at my place. It was quite a surprise to see the door of my house open. My surprise was greater still when I saw the lock broken. I go in and the whole family is standing there, my hostess distraught after an extraordinary visit which had turned the whole place upside down. Terribly frightened, she tells me that an hour before daybreak, Mr. Big (that's the official title of the Chief Archer of the Republic) had beaten down the door on the street side and had come in with his squad and made a meticulous search of the house, especially my apartment which was inspected in every corner. After a lot of vain searching, he told her that the morning before someone had delivered a trunk and that he knew the trunk was full of smuggled salt. She then showed him a trunk, full not of salt, but of clothes from Count Securo, a friend of the family, who had sent it from the country. Mr. Big, after inspecting the trunk, left. I assured my hostess I would obtain complete satisfaction on her behalf and, without the slightest anxiety, I went to bed.
I got up at noon to go to dinner at Signor di Bragadino's where I laid out the facts and asserted my need to procure appropriate satisfaction for this woman, because the law guarantees protection of all honest households. I said that at least the misguided minister should lose his job.
The wise old man, after listening to me most attentively, told me he would give me his answer after dinner. We spent a couple of hours quite cheerfully with two other Noblemen, as religious and pious as he, though younger. They too were dear friends and just as concerned as he was for my interests. The close attachment of these three respectable personages to me was cause for raised eyebrows by those who observed it. People gossiped as if it were some strange phenomenon behind which must lurk something sinister, because people couldn't understand how the character of these three could be compatible with mine, or how mine could conform to theirs - them all eternity and virtue, me all worldly vice.
Wicked tongues invented infamous explanations. This thing, it was said, can't be natural. Slander got mixed in. Surely there was some mystery under the surface which must be exposed. I learned twenty years later that they were having us followed and the best spies of the Tribunal of the State Inquisitors were charged with discovering the hidden explanation of this unlikely and monstrous union.
Signor di Bragadino, directly after dinner, coolly said to me, without any other witnesses than the two Noblemen, that instead of thinking how to take revenge for the insult to my hostess, I ought to be thinking of getting somewhere safe. He said that the trunk full of salt was bogus evidence planted by Mr. Big who was out to get me. It was true he spoke only from conjecture, but having once had a seat on the Tribunal, he recognized the modus operandi of arrests he used to order. He told me he had arranged a four-oar gondola in which I must leave immediately for Fusina where I would take the post to Florence and then wait until he wrote that it was safe to return.
At the conclusion of his sage discourse, he gave me a roll of 100 Sequins. Overflowing with respect and gratitude, I begged his pardon a thousandfold if I didn't heed his advice. I told him that not feeling guilty, I had nothing to fear from the Tribunal's justice.
He said that this particular Tribunal might well know more about me, and recognize crimes in me of which I might well believe myself innocent and that in the meantime, the best thing for me would be to accept the 100 Sequins and go.
I then took the position that a man can't be a criminal without knowing it and that I would be making a mistake if by fleeing I were to give an indication to the State Inquisitors of a guilty conscience which might only confirm their suspicions. I added that silence being the soul of this great Magistrate, it would be impossible after my departure to ever determine if I had reason to flee and that I couldn't take this course of action without paying an eternal farewell to my homeland, since nothing could assure me that I would be able to return and live free of the very fears which might impel me to leave now.
That said, I embraced him. I didn't want the money he offered and I begged him not to make me nervous with his anxieties.
"At least do me the pleasure," said he, "of not going to bed at your place tonight."
I ignored that advice as well, which was a big mistake. The appeal came from the goodness of his heart. And it was for the most frivolous of reasons that I ignored it. That very day happened to be the Feast of Saint James for whom I was named, and the next day everyone took off the holiday of Saint Anne, the name of the girl I loved at that particular time. I had written her that we would lunch together at Castello's.
Earlier that same day, the tailor had brought me a taffeta suit bordered with silver lace personally designed by my beloved. It didn't occur to me to have to sacrifice this rendezvous to a prudent precaution on the part of my well intended benefactor. I wasn't mean or ungrateful, just dazed and susceptible to pleasure, which is always magnified by anticipation. A date like that at that age is something very important. "Amere et sapere, vix deo conceditur,"15 is an axiom whose truth I only recognized recently in Vienna.
When I took leave of Signor di Bragadino he laughed and said it was possible we would never see each other again. These words shocked me, but it was he who, afraid of having said too much, brought me out of my astonishment by saying like the stoic that he was:
"Go away, go away my son, 'sequere deum, fata viam inveniunt.' 16
The fact of the matter is, it was the last time I saw him although he lived ten years after my escape. I embraced my two friends who stood there stupefied. Committed to getting up early the next day, I went straight home and to bed.
(Good spot to listen to Antonio Vivaldi, Venetian Violinist and Composer, 1678-1741 )
Daybreak, July 26, 1755, Mr. Big entered my bedroom. Waking up, seeing him and hearing his question, took but a moment. He spoke my name asking if he were mistaken because it was the first time he ever saw me. I said he wasn't mistaken.
"Give me," said he, "every bit of writing you have, whether by you or others. Then get dressed and come with me."
I asked who sent him and he replied he was obeying the orders of the Tribunal. I then let him take my papers, which his men were stuffing in a bag, and without opening my mouth again, I got dressed.
What strikes me is that I shaved, did my hair, put on a lace shirt and my fancy suit more like a man going to a wedding or a ball than to jail. I did this all mechanically, because the next day, thinking about it, I couldn't figure out how it happened. Mr. Big never let me out of his sight. He let me complete my toilet and when he found me ready, told me I had to produce all bound manuscripts and turn them over to him. That's how I began to catch on to a few things. I showed him a pile of published books on top of which were four manuscripts.
Two months before that, a Venetian who had been a jeweler, made my acquaintance by offering to sell me a very pretty diamond ring, cheap. While at my home, he saw my books on magic. Two or three weeks later, he came back to say that someone who wished to remain anonymous, would give me a thousand Ducats if I wanted to sell the books, but that he needed to inspect them first. This offer was attractive so I told him I'd have no problem entrusting him with the books for twenty four hours. Two weeks later he asked to borrow them and returned them the next day saying the person found them to be forgeries. A week after that I was arrested and these same books were being asked of me by Mr. Big. I drew certain inferences and made certain conjectures without coming to any definite conclusions. What I subsequently learned was that the Venetian was a spy for the Tribunal.17
Lady with an Ermine, by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1483
Leaving my room, I was surprised to see thirty or forty Archers. They did me the honor of thinking they needed this many to take me, whereas two would have been enough according to the axiom "ne Hercules quidem contra duos."18 It is noteworthy that in London, where everyone is brave, they only need one man to arrest another, and in Venice, my homeland, where generally everyone is a coward, they need thirty. I believe this is because a coward forced to attack, is more frightened than the person attacked and the person attacked, for the same reason, can be more courageous. In fact, in Venice, one often sees people resisting arrest who are overcome only by sheer numbers.
Mr. Big made me get into a gondola where he sat down next to me, having kept no more than four men and sending the others away. The gondola arrived at his place where he made me enter a room, and after offering me coffee - which I refused - left me waiting alone. I spent nearly four hours, overcome the whole time by a peaceful fatigue, interrupted every fifteen minutes by the need to empty my bladder - an extraordinary phenomenon - because the heat was excessive, I hadn't drunk, and I hadn't had anything the day before except an ice-cream at nightfall.
In spite of all this, I filled two huge chamber pots with urine. The shock of arrest was like a powerful drug. Since that time, I've had similar experiences, but never again diuretic. I leave this medical mystery to the physicians. Nevertheless, it would seem that just at the very same time my terrified mind was showing signs of the collapse of its faculty of thought, my body, as if in a winepress, was ridding itself of a good part of the fluids whose circulation supports brain function. That's how a shock can cause sudden death, by separating brain from blood.
At the sound of the Bells 19 from the Campanile of St. Marks, Mr. Big entered and said he had an order to put me in I Piombi. I followed him. We got into another gondola and, after a detour through tiny canals, we entered the Grand Canal and hove to at the prison dock.
After going up several stairs, we crossed a famous enclosed bridge which connects the prisons with the Ducal Palace over the canal named the "Rio de Palazzo." On the other side of the bridge we went through a gallery and entered a second room where I was presented to a man dressed in a nobleman's robe who gave me the once-over and said:
"E quello; mettelo in deposito."20
This personage was the Secretary of the Seigniors of the Inquisition, the Circumspect Domenico Cavalli, who apparently was ashamed of speaking Venetian in my presence. He declared my arrest in Tuscan.
Mr. Big 21 turned me over to the guard of I Piombi who, followed by two men, made me climb two stairways, file down one gallery, then another separated by a locked door, then yet another, which at the end had another locked door. On the other side, I found myself in a big filthy ugly attic, 36 feet long, 12 wide, well lit from a dormer window. I thought the attic was my cell but I was wrong. The guard grasped a huge key, opened a heavy door, reinforced with iron, three and a half feet high, with a round hole in the middle 8 inches in diameter. He ordered me in.
garrotting
As he was opening this door, I was staring at an iron gadget nailed to one of the bulkheads, shaped like a horseshoe, one inch thick and five inches across from one to the other of the parallel ends. I was wondering what it could possibly be when the guard said smiling:
"I see, Signor, that you would like to know what this device is for. When Their Excellencies order a strangulation, one has the condemned man sit on a stool, his back to the collar, and one places the head in a way that the device embraces half the neck. Then one end of a silken scarf is threaded through this hole to a ratchet. One cranks the ratchet until the condemned has rendered his soul to Our Father, and God be praised, the Confessor never leaves his side. Until he's dead."
"That's really ingenious," I replied. "And I bet, Signor, that you're the one who has the honor of ratcheting."
He didn't answer.
Being five foot, nine, I had to stoop over to enter and he bolted and locked the door behind me. He then asked me through the grill what I would like to eat and I answered that I hadn't yet given it enough thought. He left, shutting all the doors.
Giovanni Piranesi (1720-1778)
(did series of Carceri, prison scenes, much admired by the Surrealists. Piranesi was born in Venice. I don't know if he ever met Casanova, 5 years his junior.)
Man Ray (1890-1978)
(Surrealist.The woman's face is his.)
Stunned, I rested my elbows on the sill of the grill. It was two feet square, criss-crossed with iron bars an inch in diameter, forming sixteen squares, five square inches each. It would have allowed enough light if a quadrangular roof timber,22 one and a half feet wide and attached to the wall just below the dormer window, didn't block any direct light from entering the attic. With my head bowed, I toured my frightful cell, only five feet high. I found, almost by groping, that it formed three fourths of a square two Toises 23 on each side. Next to the door was an alcove that could have contained a bed. But I found no bed, no bench, no table and no furniture at all except a bucket for natural purposes and a plank secured to the wall, a foot wide and four feet off the floor. That's where I lay my beautiful silk cloak and suit and my hat with the Spanish tip and white feather so unhappily debuted. The heat was extreme.
Sad and dreamy, I rested my elbows on the only spot I could. Unable to see through the dormer window, I could see the light from it illuminating the attic and especially the rats, as fat as rabbits, strolling about. These hideous animals, the sight of which I abhorred, came right up to my bars without any sign of fear. I quickly shut the hole in the door with an interior shutter. Their visits made my blood run cold. My head resting on my arms still crossed breast-high on the window ledge, I fell into the deepest reverie and spent eight hours in silence, without moving.
I heard 9 PM sound and started getting nervous. I'd seen no one. No one had come to see if I needed food. No one had brought me a bed, a chair or even some bread and water. I didn't have much of an appetite but it seemed to me they wouldn't necessarily know that. Never in my life had I such a bitter taste in my mouth. Nonetheless, I clung to the idea that by the end of the day, somebody would appear. But when I heard 10 PM, I threw a fit - screaming, kicking, raving and ranting, the whole useless racket inspired by my unique situation.
After more than an hour of this frantic exercise, seeing no one, having not the slightest excuse to so much as imagine anyone even heard my commotion, enveloped by shadows, I closed the shutter, fearing rats might leap and squeeze through the grill and into my cell. I threw myself full length on the plank, a handkerchief over my face. Such cruel abandonment appeared unreasonable. But it certainly looked like they'd left me to die.
The question of what I could possibly have done to warrant such cruel treatment didn't take very long because I found no grounds for my arrest. In my capacity as a great libertine, an insolent speaker and a dedicated hedonist who thought only of enjoying life, I couldn't find myself guilty. And in spite of this, I was treated as if I were guilty of something.
I spare the reader all the petty details which rage, fury and despair made me say and think, regarding the despotism which was oppressing me. Despite the black anger and grief which devoured me, and the hard plank on which I lay, I fell asleep. I needed to. And when one is young and healthy, nature knows how to obtain what we need, with or without our consent.
I was awakend by the clock striking midnight, a frightful awakening to be yanked from the oblivion and illusions of sleep. I couldn't believe I'd spent three hours without having once felt bad, without moving, asleep on my left side. I reached for my handkerchief which I was sure was there. Groping with my hand, I was horrified to find another hand, cold as ice! Like an electric shock, I was jolted from head to toe. My hair stood on end. Never, in all my life, had I been seized with such fear and I wouldn't have thought myself capable of it.
I spent a good three or four minutes paralyzed physically and mentally. Coming to, I allowed myself to believe that the hand I had touched was a figment of my imagination. Confident in this assumption, I again reached out to the spot and found the same hand. I squeezed, recoiled, and gave a piercing scream. I shuddered. But, still master of my sanity, I concluded that while I was sleeping someone put a body next to me, because I was certain that when I fell asleep on the plank I was alone.24
At first, I imagined the corpse was some innocent unfortunate, perhaps one of my friends, who'd been strangled and placed before my eyes so that I'd find him on waking up, to teach me a lesson. This really got me angry. For the third time, I reached for the hand, seized it, squeezed it and fully intended to get up and drag the cadaver to my side to certify the atrocity. Rolling over to rest on my left elbow, the hand I was squeezing came to life, withdrew, and I realized to my amazement that I was holding none other than my own crippled and swollen left hand with my right. It lacked motor function, sensation, and vital heat, a direct consequence of the soft sweet bed on which I reposed.
This comical adventure didn't cheer me up. It fed my darkest thoughts. I realized I was in a place where lies appeared true and reality appeared false; where judgment lost half its usefulness and where unbridled imagination could carry away a victim's reason to fanciful hopes or fearful despair. Immediately I was on my guard, and, for the first time in my life, at the age of thirty, I turned to philosophy, a few seeds of which, never needed or nurtured before, lay dormant in my soul. I believe that most men die without ever thinking.
I sat there until 6 AM sounded. The shadows of the new day appeared. The sun would rise at 7:15. I was impatient to see daylight. An intuition which I took to be infallible, assured me I'd soon be home. I burned with a desire for revenge which I didn't even try to repress. I saw myself at the head of a mob which would pulverize the government and I wasn't content to order executioners to massacre my oppressors. I would butcher them personally.
Such is man. It doesn't occur to him that such thoughts aren't the product of reason, but of anger, its archenemy.
I didn't have to wait as long as I expected for a good reason to control my temper. At 8:30 the profound silence of the place, a living hell, was broken by the scraping of bolts in the vestibule of the corridor leading to my cell. I saw the guard at the grill. He asked me "if I'd had enough time to think of what I wanted to eat."
I answered, ignoring his baiting, that I wanted rice soup, boiled beef, a roast, some fruit, bread, wine and water. The lout was surprised he didn't hear the usual complaints. A minute went by and seeing that I wasn't saying more, and his pride keeping him from asking if there was anything else, he went off, only to re-appear fifteen minutes later to say he was surprised I hadn't asked for a bed and necessities because I was kidding myself if I thought I was only in for a night. I answered it would be my pleasure were he to bring me whatever he thought necessary.
"Where," he asked, "shall I go to get it?"
I told him to go to my place and bring everything. Then he gave me a bit of paper and a pencil. In writing, I requested a bed, shirts, stockings, bathrobes, hats, combs, pants, an armchair, table, mirror, razors and the books Mr. Big had found on the night table. Also, paper and pens and ink. After I'd read my list to him aloud (he was illiterate), he told me to cross off the paper, desk, mirror and razors because all that was forbidden by the Institution, and he asked me for money to buy the dinner I ordered. I gave him one of the three Sequins I had in my possession. I heard him leave a half hour later. In that time, I later learned, he served seven other prisoners who were detained there, each in solitary, incommunicado, without any knowledge of the names or status of others overtaken by the same misfortune.
Toward noon, this man appeared in the attic with five Archers who served State Prisoners (the title with which we were honored). He opened my cell to bring in the furniture I ordered and my dinner. He put the bed in the alcove and my dinner on the little table. He gave me an ivory spoon which he had bought with my money saying that knives and forks were forbidden, as were any metal tools and that he was only leaving me belt buckles because he thought they were all made of stone. He told me to order what I wanted to eat the following day because the only time he got up here was once a day at dawn. He concluded by saying that his "Illustrious Signor Secretary" had crossed off my list every book I ordered and said he would send reading material more suitable to my circumstances.
I asked him to thank the gentleman on my behalf for the private room. He replied he would do so, but solitary was no joking matter. I would soon realize they put people in solitary to make imprisonment more painful. He was right and I learned this a few days later. I realized that a man with nothing to do, locked up alone in the half-dark, where he can't call to anyone or see anyone except the guard who brought him nourishment once a day, is really in hell. The company of a murderer or a madman, a gangrenous invalid or a bear or a tiger is preferable to this kind of solitude. It causes despair. But only those who have been there can appreciate it.
After the guard's departure, in order to see a bit of daylight and so as not to eat in the dark, (because all artificial light was forbidden), I placed my table near the hole where a little light filtered from the dormer window. I hadn't eaten in forty eight hours, but I could swallow no more than the rice. I spent the day in my armchair, furious, suffering only boredom, looking forward to the next day and already getting used to the idea of the so-called suitable reading material which had been promised.
I spent the night awake due to the noise of the rats bounding about the attic, and the clocktower of Saint Marks which seemed to be striking in my cell. A kind of torture which few of my readers will appreciate and which caused me intolerable distress, were the millions of fleas which had at my body ecstatically, avid for my blood, piercing my skin with insatiable appetite. These insects were giving me convulsions and nerve spasms. They were poisoning my blood.25
At dawn, the guard appeared, made my bed, swept and cleaned. When the Archers gave me water to wash my hands, the guard could see I wanted to leave my cell and advised me this wasn't permitted. I saw two books which I abstained from opening to prevent any reflexive show of disdain. After putting the food down and slicing two lemons, he left.
Scarcely tasting my tepid soup, I put the books against the light from the hole and I found I'd have no problem reading. One of the books was called the Mystical City by Sister Maria de Jesus of Agreda.26 I'd never heard of it. The second was by a Jesuit whose name I've forgotten. It concerned the establishment of a direct worship of the heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Of all the human organs it was specifically the heart which we should worship. This struck me as an exceptionally ignorant and irritating idea because the myocardium seemed to me no more or less respectable a viscera than the lungs.
Lorenzo, the guard, from Casanova, the movie, 1987.
The Mystical City caught my attention. In this book are to be found the extravagant fantasies of the overheated imagination of a devout, melancholy, Spanish virgin locked up in a Convent. All the monstrous and chimerical visions are dignified as "revelations." Lover and most intimate friend of the Virgin Saint, she had received an order from God himself to write the life of the Divine Mother.
The Holy Spirit had supplied the words which no one could have read anywhere else. She began the story not at the moment of her birth, but with her own most immaculate conception in the belly of Saint Anne.
This nun, Maria of Agreda, was Mother Superior of a convent at Cordeličeres, founded by herself. After narrating in detail all that the mother of God did during the nine months before her birth, she reported that at the age of three years she was sweeping the house, assisted by nine hundred domestics, all angels sent by God, and personally overseen by their prince, the Archangel Michael. Michael came and went, back and forth, from her to God and from God to her as a personal go-between.
What is most impressive in this book is the sincere faith the fanatical author extends to her own inventions. Nothing's made up. Everything is recorded in total sincerity. These are visions of a sublime brain which, without a shadow of humility, drunk on God, truly believed to be revelations dictated by the Holy Spirit. This book was published with the permission of the Inquisition. I couldn't get over it. Far from reinforcing or exciting my faith and religious zeal, it tempted me to regard as fantasy everything mystical and dogmatic.
The character of this book has certain consequences. A more gullible reader or one more attracted to miracles, is at risk of turning into a visionary graphomaniac like this virgin. The need to keep busy with something led me to spend a week on this masterpiece of an exalted plagiarist. I didn't mention it to the stupid guard, but I couldn't take it anymore. As soon as I'd fall asleep, I was overcome by a plague with which this book infected my brain, already weakened by melancholy and foul nutrition. My extravagant dreams made me laugh when I woke up and recalled them. I had a strong impulse to write them down, and if I had the means, I might well have created a work up there in the attic even crazier than that which Sr. di Cavalli had sent me.
Ever since that time, I've noticed how mistaken are those who attribute great force to free will. It's all relative. The man who would honestly study himself will find very little inside except weakness. I've seen that although men rarely go mad, it is nevertheless easy to do. Our judgment is like cannon powder which quick to ignite, never explodes unless someone detonates it, or a drinking glass which never breaks unless one breaks it. The book by this Spanish woman is exactly what's needed to drive a man crazy. But one must administer the poison when he's in prison, alone, with nothing to distract him.
In 1767, on the way from Pamplona to Madrid, my carriage stopped for dinner in a town in old Castille which was so ugly I just had to ask its name. Oh how I laughed when I was told it was Agreda! It was there that the head of this mad Saint gave birth to a Masterpiece which, if I hadn't had to do with S. de Cavalli, I would never have read.
An old priest showed me the place where Sister Maria had actually written. Her father, her mother and her sister had all been made Saints. He told me and it was true, that Spain had solicited Rome for canonization along with the blessed Pallafox.27 It was perhaps the Mystical City which gave father Malagrida28 his writing skills, enabling him to write the life of Saint Anne which the Holy Spirit also dictated to him. But the Jesuit had to suffer martyrdom as one last good reason for canonization so that the entire production could be reunited in their former splendor.
At the end of a week I was broke. The guard demanded to know where to go to get more money and I slowly answered "nowhere." What really got to this greedy windbag was my silence.
The next day, he told me the Tribunal was awarding me fifty soldi per day, for which he was responsible and for which he must give me an accounting each month. He would make use of it for my expenses as I directed. I told him to bring me the Leyden Gazette twice a week and he answered that wasn't permitted. These fifty soldi per day were more than I needed since I couldn't eat more than that. The extreme heat and the diet made me languish. These were the dog days29 of summer and the rays of the sun falling full force on the lead roof created an oven. The sweat ran off my body and coursed in rivulets over the floor bifurcating to the right and left of my armchair, where it seemed I got some relief stark naked.
A duel over the Rio di Palazzo
At the end of two weeks without a bowel movement, I finally went and was sure I was dying from the most intense pain I'd ever experienced. I was stricken with hemorrhoids and I haven't really been cured of them since. These less-than-cherished souvenirs, which flare up from time to time, bring back memories. If purgatives don't cure our illnesses, at least they permit us to acquire new ones. They make a big deal of this malady in Russia these days, to the point of complimenting those who suffer attacks. That very same day, violent shivering announced the onset of fever. I stayed in bed all the next day and said nothing.
But the day after that, when the guard discovered my dinner untouched for the second time, he demanded to know how I was feeling.
"Just fine," I replied. He then gave a speech emphasizing the benefits his prisoners got when sick, how the Tribunal provides doctors, medications and a surgeon all free of charge, and that it was a mistake not to give him the order because he was sure I was sick. I remained silent, in spite of which he came back three hours later without his henchmen, a candle in his hand, followed by a grave and imposing figure which had to be the doctor.
I was in a feverish crisis and for the third day in a row my blood was boiling. The doctor asked me questions and I said that with doctors as with confessors, I only spoke in private. He told the guard to leave but he didn't so the doctor left with the guard after informing me I was at grave risk of dying. As a matter of fact, I was so enraged I wasn't concerned about living. I even took some satisfaction in the possibility that my death would demonstrate the inhumane behavior of those cruel enough to put me in such a place.
Four hours later, I heard the noise of the bolts and I saw the same doctor, carrying the candle himself, the guard waiting outside. I was extremely weak and enjoying a real rest. Very sick people are exempt from the torments of boredom. I felt some comfort seeing the guard remain outside. I couldn't stand the man ever since his explanation of the iron collar.
Within fifteen minutes I told the doctor everything. He told me if I wanted to recover my health I had to get over my depression and I assured him he had only to write a prescription and give it to the only apothecary who could fill it. I exaggerated the nefarious effects of the heart, or rather the book on the heart of Jesus and of the Mystical City which, in the heat of my fevers was making my mind stray in delirium. He gratified me by agreeing that these books were the cause, not only of the fever, but of the hemorrhoids.
bloodletting
He assured me he wouldn't give up on me, and then left after personally preparing a large lemonade which he set beside me, urging me to sip it frequently. I spent the night still prostrate, still dreaming mystical extravaganzas. In the morning, two hours later than usual, I saw the doctor with the guard and a surgeon who immediately let blood from my arm. He left me a medication to take in the evening, and a bottle of light bouillon. He told me he'd obtained permission to move my bed into the attic, where it was cooler, a favor which appalled me because of the rats which I abhorred more than death. He had no reply to my refusal but what really consoled me, and what really put this doctor in my good graces, was that he threw out the two books and gave me, in exchange, Boethius.
Without even knowing this author I had great expectations. But I couldn't begin to read until two weeks later. To know the real value of Boethius you need to read him in my situation. No one, either before or since, has succeeded in providing such a balm to afflicted souls. Compared to him30 Seneca shrinks.
Several barley water enemas cured me in a week of the fever and calmed down that other cruel indisposition. And a week after that my appetite returned. At the beginning of September I was feeling fine. I had no other real problems than the extreme heat, the fleas and the boredom because I couldn't be reading Boethius all day long. The guard said I could go out of the cell to wash and walk around while his men made my bed and swept, the only means of controlling the accursed vermin which were living off my blood.
This brisk five minute walk each morning in the attic soon became an essential privilege. Maybe it had been ordered by the Secretary, or perhaps it was an arbitrary decision on the guard's part if it was true it wasn't allowed. The fact is he didn't give me this permission until the 1st of September, when, having rendered his accounting of the money left after expenses for August, he found himself indebted to me for twenty or thirty pounds.
I told him to take the money and donate it for Masses in my name. He thanked me as if he himself were the priest who was going to say them. In seeing my pious act rewarded with the permission for a walk where I could stand upright, I continued to pay for Masses each month. But I never saw a receipt from the priest who was supposed to have received my charity. The best my guard had been able to do was keep the money for himself and thank God in my name.
I went along in an optimistic frame of mind, flattering myself every day that I would be sent home. I never went to bed without a kind of certainty that the next day they would come to tell me I was free. But when, continuously frustrated in my expectation, It occurred to me that they may have set a term on my sentence, I decided that it couldn't be later than the last day of September, since on that day the reigning Inquisitors ended their year.
What made me think this was that no one had ever come to see me: not a judge, not a secretary. No one came to examine me, to convince me I deserved this punishment. It seemed to me that to have neglected the obligation of an examination meant that my judges knew I hadn't done anything and therefore would have nothing to say and therefore were only holding me for appearances, to protect their reputation, and therefore would order me freed at the end of their terms.
Aerial View
I even felt capable of forgiving them the harm they had done me because once they made the mistake of locking me up, they had to keep me at least nine or ten weeks or otherwise they would have given the world reason to judge them mistaken or incompetent. I was sure to get out at the latest October 1, unless they'd forgotten me, which I couldn't contemplate, or were leaving me to their successors who wouldn't have known what to do with me, because they couldn't have any idea of the slightest crime on my part. I found it impossible that they had condemned me and sentenced me because, according to my theory, that couldn't happen without discussing it with me, without telling me.
The right to know one's sentence as well as one's crime is an incontestable right of every criminal, a right by which, our religion teaches, even God Himself abides on Judgment Day. Such was my reasoning and such is the reasoning of all prisoners who don't feel like criminals. In such circumstances one imagines what one wants to be inevitable as Aristotle said: "Il miser suole - dar facile credenza a quel che vuole"31
And Seneca, in one of his tragedies, put it even more elegantly: "Quod nimis miseri volunt - hoc facile credunt."32
My reasoning didn't accord with the rules of the Tribunal which are distinct from those of all other tribunals on earth. Ours makes no claim to civility. When the Tribunal proceeds against a delinquent, it is already certain of his guilt. What need is there to discuss it with him? And when the Tribunal has condemned someone, what need is there to give him the bad news? His consent isn't necessary, better to let him hope. If one were to tell him his sentence, that wouldn't diminish his time in jail by an hour. A smart man never tells anyone his business, and judging and condemning are the business of the Tribunal, and the guilty parties needn't get involved.
Casanova, played by Richard Chamberlain, is portrayed in an appearance he was never granted, before the Council of X. From Casanova, the movie, 1987.
I was partially aware of these practices. But there are all kinds of things on earth that we can't really claim to know without knowing by experience. If among my readers, there are any to whom these practices appear unjust, I forgive them because that's really how it looks. But the reader must understand that on the part of an institution such practices are just, or at least necessary, because a tribunal couldn't exist without them. Those who hold to them most tenaciously are the Senators chosen from among the most qualified and respected for their virtue. Elected to fill the eminent positions, they must swear to do what their predecessors have prescribed and they never fail, except occasionally by dying. Only seven or eight years ago I was witness to the last breath of one of them, a most honest man, who was obliged to strangle a firebug who had been terrorizing Murano. This Senator, who had a good heart and a judicious soul, didn't feel in control of anything. He didn't dare to believe he was a State Inquisitor. He used to say: "I serve the Tribunal." I believe he had a kind of veneration for the table and three chairs.
A haunting melody.
In 1782, I had a disagreeable experience, the consequence of a most gratifying revenge. I obtained satisfaction without breaking any laws33.
Unfortunately, I alienated the entire Nobility which made common cause and forced me to voluntarily bid an eternal "adieu." Without this strong incentive, I never would have had the strength to leave my country. I was so hooked on all the material delights that a man can procure there that, like a pig, I was wallowing deliciously. And that's how men sometimes do good unto others without the slightest intention.
Toward the end of September, I spent the night unable to close my eyes, impatient to see the day appear, the day I felt sure I would be returned home. But the day came, Lorenzo came and said nothing new. I had spent five or six days in a rage, in despair. I believed that it was possible that for reasons unknown to me, they'd decided to keep me there for the rest of my life. This frightful idea made me laugh; because I knew how I could get out soon, once I had made up my mind to put my life at stake.
"Deliberata morte ferocior." 34
It was then, at the beginning of November, that I conceived a plan for getting out by force from a place where I was being held by force. This became my only thought. I began searching, devising, examining a hundred means to accomplish what others before me had attempted, but which none had brought to fruition.35
At the same time an accident occurred one morning which made me aware of the miserable condition of my soul. I was standing in the attic, looking up toward the dormer window. I could see the big beam. Lorenzo was coming out of my cell with two of his men, when I saw the enormous beam not just shake but twist to the right and then back with a slow, disjointed movement. Almost losing my balance, I realized the shaking was an earthquake and the men noticed it as well. Silently I rejoiced in the phenomenon. Seconds later, the same movement recurred and I couldn't prevent the following words from escaping my mouth:
"Un' altra, un' altra, gran Dio, ma piu forte!" 36
The Archers, doubly frightened by what seemed to them the dangerous impiety of a desperate and blaspheming maniac, fled in horror. Thinking it over later, I had instantly calculated the long odds on the collapse of the Ducal Palace and the longer odds that I would walk away uninjured and free on the beautiful pavement of Saint Marks, and I had welcomed the wager. Enthusiastically. That's how desperate I was. The temblor came from the same earthquake which flattened Lisbon. 37
Video frame obtained on the "Secret Tour" of I Piombi, first week in September, 1997. One guidebook said all the interior cells have been torn down ?and re-built - only "I trave" - the big beam above, looked quite as Casanova described it. I didn't see any garrotte. But the light from the small window...
Cosa strana! - the guide said Giacomo made it all up, "soap opera" were her words, and that he was probably bought out by Bragadino and others. I would have gone anyway but now I must see for myself. So, a trip across town to the Campo di Frari - try finding that in a hurry - and the Archivi di Stati located there, and helpful friendly custodians and presto pronto there before my eyes the Inquisitor's handwriting, not exactly acknowledging the escape but dutifully recording that one Lorenzo Baldassano was condemned in June of 1757 to ten yers in the pits - the below sea level prisons Casanova describes - for his negligence in allowing the escape of Giacomo Casanova and Father Balbi...a picture of this will be scanned in and added to this page or a footnote just as soon as the official photocopy arrives in the mail...damani?
To prepare the reader to understand my escape from such a place, I have to describe the location. These prisons are positively what one calls the attic of the Great Palace. The roof is covered with neither slate nor brick, but with plates of lead three feet square giving the name I Piombi to the prisons. One can't enter except through the Palace doors or through the lovely prison building where I was brought in across a bridge they call the Bridge of Sighs, which I've already mentioned. One can't get to these cells without passing through the room where the State Inquisitors assemble. The Secretary has the only key, which the guard of I Piombi must return to him immediately after he has served the inmates each morning. They do this at daybreak because any later, the Archers all coming and going would be too conspicuous in a place full of those who have business with the chiefs of the Council of Ten who meet each morning in the adjoining room called La Bussola, through which the Archers must pass.
The prisons under the eaves are divided along the two walls of the Palace. Three of the cells face west, of which mine was one, and four face east. The gutter along the roof of those facing West is over the courtyard of the Palace. Those on the East are perpendicularly above the Canal di Palazzo. On this side the cells are very bright and you can stand upright, qualities lacking in the cell where I was and which they call Il Trave, the "big beam." The floor of my cell is positively right on top of the ceiling of the Hall of the Inquisitors of State, where they almost always meet at night, after the daily meeting of the Council of X, of which all three are also members.
I had a pretty good idea of the layout. From what I could tell, the only route which could possibly succeed was through the floor. But I needed tools, quite a trick in a place where all commerce with the outside is forbidden, where no visits are permitted, nor exchange of letters with anyone. I couldn't consider confiding in one of the Archers, especially since I had no money for bribes. In certain hours of fury, I rolled about in my head the idea of escaping by killing the guard and his two shadows who came to make my bed. But without a weapon, I saw no way of doing that other than strangling them with my bare hands, assuming their cooperation in the executions. One Archer was always outside the first door, which he wouldn't open until those who wished to get out gave him the password. Otherwise, he was ready to run at the slightest noise.
My only pleasure was to ruminate chimerical schemes all with the goal of getting out without getting killed. I was always reading Boethius, but I needed an escape plan and Boethius wasn't helping. I thought about it all the time, because I was convinced that I could only find a way by the power of thought.
I believe to this day that if a man gets it in his head to accomplish any project, and if he concentrates on nothing else than that, he must succeed no matter what difficulties. A man could become Grand Vizier, he could be Pope, he could overthrow a Monarchy, as long as he acts at the right moment, because the man whose timing is unlucky can't achieve anything. And without the help of luck one can't hope for success. It's a matter of counting on Fortune and at the same time defying her setbacks - a calculus of the greatest subtlety.
Halfway through November, the guard told me that Mr. Big had a detainee on his hands and that the new Secretary, the circumspect Pietro Businello, had ordered him to put the prisoner in the worst cell and consequently they were putting him with me. The guard assured me he had told the secretary that I regarded solitary as a blessing and he had commented that in four months I must have become wiser than that. This news didn't bother me nor did the announcement of the change in Secretary. This Signore Businello was a good man I had known in London, a Venetian. But I pretended indifference to both bits of information.
An hour after Terza, I heard the hissing of bolts and I saw Lorenzo followed by two Archers leading a handcuffed young man in tears. They locked him in with me and went off without a word. I was on my bed in the little alcove where he couldn't see me. His surprise amused me. Having the good fortune to be five feet tall, he was standing upright looking attentively at my armchair which he believed was there for him. He saw Boethius on the sill. He wiped his tears, opened the book but put it down disappointed to discover it was in Latin.
He made the rounds of the cell and, astonished to find clothes, he came quickly to the alcove where a feeble light permitted him to see the bed. He put his hand on mine, which he withdrew apologizing when he heard the sound of my voice. I told him to sit down and the reader can imagine that introductions didn't take long. He told me he was a native of the village of Vicence and that his father, although a poor coachman, had sent him to school where, having learned to write, he found himself at the age of eleven, ready to enter a wigmaker's shop. In four years he had learned to prepare wigs and do hair well enough to go to work for Signore the Count Marchesini as a valet.
He told me, sighing deeply, that two years later, the only daughter of the Count returned from the convent and in combing her beautiful hair he fell in love with her as she did with him.
Neither one being able to resist the violence of their passions, they exchanged promises of marriage and then gave free reign to nature, by means of which the young countess, who was 18, got pregnant.
A most loyal servant, an elderly woman, discovered the criminal pregnancy of her mistress. After extracting a detailed confession, she informed the girl that she felt obliged by conscience to tell all to her father, the Count. The guilty girl had assured the old woman that the very next week she'd tell him herself by way of her Confessor and on this condition the old lady promised silence.
The young man went on to tell me how the lovers rejected the useless step of informing the Count and decided to elope and run off to Milan and live happily ever after. His girlfriend had already hidden a sum of money and some diamonds from her mother, and they were about to leave together at nightfall when the Count called him in and gave him a letter to deliver to a personnage in Venice.
He told how the Count had spoken to him in such a calm and friendly way he had no reason to suspect subterfuge. He hadn't the time to go to his room to get his coat, and hadn't said goodby to his beloved except in passing, assuring her he would return the next day, hearing which she fainted.
He'd arrived in Venice in less than eight hours. He'd taken the letter to the adressee and he'd received a reply. He went to a hostel to eat intending to depart immediately afterward for Vicence, but coming out of the tavern the Archers arrested him and put him under guard where he'd been up to the moment they led him here where he now found himself.
He was a good looking young man, sincere, honest and in love to a fault. All he could think of was the fate of the young Countess which worried him more than his own. He asked me in tears if he could regard her as his wife, and grew desperate when I reminded him she wasn't. He argued his case with arguments taken from the Law of Nature and which seemed to him holy and all powerful. I think he considered me a bit strange because I told him that nature can only lead men to commit stupidities. He thought they would be back to bring him something to eat and a bed, but I disabused him of this and I was on the mark.
I gave him some food but he couldn't swallow. He talked about his mistress all day long, crying continuously. I felt enormously sorry for him. The poor girl was more than exonerated in my opinion. If the State Inquisitors had been invisibly present in my cell to hear all this poor boy said I'm sure, even today, they would have not only released him, but married him to the girl regardless of law or custom.
I gave him my straw mattress, for I didn't want a young man in love in my bed. He couldn't grasp the enormity of his error, nor the Count's need that he be secretly punished to assure the honor of the family.
The next day they brought him his own straw mattress and an allowance of fifteen soldi awarded as charity by the Tribunal. I told the guard that my dinner would suffice for two and he should employ what the Tribunal awarded the boy to celebrate three more Masses per week. He willingly accepted this responsibility, congratulated the boy that he was with me, and ordered him to respect me. Then he said we could walk half an hour in the attic while he was serving the other prisoners. I accepted this generosity and found the walk excellent for my health and essential for my escape plans, which had ripened in eleven months.
I saw several old pieces of furniture strewn on the floor, to the right and left of two chests and in front of a great pile of notebooks. I took five or six of the notebooks to amuse myself reading. They were trial transcripts, all criminal, which I found most entertaining - a new kind of reading for me. There were leading questions, creative answers regarding the seduction of virgins, and accounts of forbidden flirtations on the part of governors, confessors, schoolmasters and students. Some went back two or three centuries, and their quaint style gave me several agreeable days.
Amidst the furniture on the floor I saw a warming pan, fire shovel, crockery and a pewter enema syringe. I judged that some illustrious prisoner must have merited the distinction of using these items. I also saw an old iron bolt, heavy and straight, thick as my thumb and a foot and a half long. I didn't touch anything. The time wasn't ripe for picking.
One fine morning, toward the end of the month, my roommate was taken away. They condemned him to a prison called Il Quattro, or the "Fours." These are within the walls of the Prison Building and also belong to the State Inquisitors. The prisoners who are sent there have the privilege of calling the guards when they need them. Il Quattro are dark but they allow lamps because everything is marble and they aren't afraid of fire.
A long time later I learned they kept the boy there five years, and then sent him to Cerigo, which was formerly Cytherea, an island belonging to the Republic of Venice, situated at the tip of the Archipelago, the most remote of all the territories of the Great Council. Those guilty of gallantry above their station are banished to Cerigo to end their days.
This island is the land of Venus according to mythology and it is ironic that the Vanities chose it for the land of exile for the black sheep of the Venutian family. Worshippers of old went there to render homage by giving free reign to pleasure. I rounded the cape of this island in the year '43, on the way to Constantinople, and went ashore to witness the suffering which nevertheless doesn't keep the breeze from wafting the fragrances of flowers and herbs, or the climate from being the sweetest, or the Muscatel from being more highly esteemed than that of Cyprus, or every one of the women from being beautiful, or the inhabitants from burning with love to the last moment of their lives.
Every two years, the Republic sends a nobleman entitled the Provider who, in need of providing above all for himself, never fails to live up to his title. I have never been able to learn if the boy died. He was good company and I realized this when, all alone again, I fell into depression.
I retained the privilege of walking a half hour in the attic. I examined everything there. One chest was full of beautiful paper, small boxes, goose quills without points and balls of twine. The other was nailed shut. A fragment of black polished marble, an inch thick, six long and three wide, attracted my attention. I took it without any specific plan and placed it under my clothes in the cell.
A week after the boy left, Lorenzo told me it looked like I was getting another roommate. Lorenzo, who at heart was nothing but a braggart, began to get impatient that I never appeared curious about anything. His duty was to discretion and he couldn't show off his reticence if I never asked any questions. He imagined I wasn't curious and I assumed he didn't know anything. His vanity wounded, and to show me I was wrong, he began without invitation to gossip.
He told me that he thought I would be receiving all the new visitors, because the other six cells already contained two people each, none of whom were candidates for lI Quattro.
After a long pause and seeing that I wasn't asking what difference that makes, he told me that in Il Quattro there were all sorts of people mixed together. Their sentences, although unknown to them, had been written. He went on to tell me that those who, like myself were here in I Piombi, entrusted to him, were all persons of the greatest distinction, and guilty of crimes which the inquisitive couldn't even guess.
"If you only knew, Signor, who shares your fate! You would be astonished, for it is true what they say, you are a man of great wit. I'm sorry if wit has nothing to do with your treatment here....you understand....fifty soldi per day, now that's something.....they give three pounds to one Nobleman, and I think I ought to know, because it passes through my hands."
Here he composed his own elegy, entirely of negatives. He told me he wasn't a thief. He wasn't brutal or mean. He wasn't a liar or a traitor or a drunkard. And he wasn't greedy like all his predecessors. He told me that if his father had sent him to school he would have learned to write, and he aspired at least to become Mr. Big since S.E. Andre Dicdo who was taking his turn as State Inquisitor held him in high esteem. He said he had a 24 year old wife and it was she who prepared my food. He told me that I would have the pleasure of receiving all new arrivals, but each for only a few days. Once the Secretary extracts from their own mouths what he needs to know he would send them to their destination, or to Il Quattro or to some fort or, if they were foreigners, he would escort them into exile.
"The clemency of the Tribunal, my dear Signor, is without comparison. There is no other in the world which provides for its prisoners with such kindness and amenities. You find it cruel that you aren't permitted to write or receive visits and that's a very silly idea because writing and receiving visits are a waste of time. It's easy for you to say that you have nothing else to do, but the guards can't say the same."
That was more or less the first harangue with which this butcher honored me, and which really intrigued me. I realized that I might have easily gotten a guard less stupid and even more cruel. I had several occasions to exploit his stupidity.
The next day they brought me the new playmate whom they treated the first day like they had treated the young valet. I realized that I should keep an extra ivory spoon ready for such unannounced guests.
This man, to whom I immediately revealed myself, bowed deeply, intimidated not so much by my size as by my beard which was now 4 inches long. I had gotten used to it like a Capuchin Friar. Lorenzo often loaned me his scissors to do my toenails, but it was forbidden to cut my beard under great penalties that kept me from disobeying.
The newcomer was a man of fifty, as big as me, a bit stooped and thin, with a large mouth and long teeth, little nut-brown eyes, long red eyebrows, round black wig and dressed in a gray cloak and who, in spite of accepting my dinner, played coy. He didn't say a word to me the entire day and I acted the same. But, he changed his methods the next day. Very early that day, they brought his bed and some linen in a bag.
My first poor roommate, if not for me wouldn't have been able to change his shirt. The guards said to this man that he'd screwed up not putting some money in his pocket, because the Secretary had ordered that he be brought only water and government issue bread called biscotto. My man sighed and said nothing. When we were alone, I said he could eat with me and the vile miser kissed my hand and spoke as follows:
"My name is Sgualdo Nobili. I am the son of a farmer who sent me to school, where I learned to write and who then died leaving me his tiny house and the little bit of land it was on. My country is Frioul, one day's travel past Udine. A flood called the Corno which often damaged my small property, made me leave ten years ago and sell my property and establish myself here in Venice. I got 8,000 Venetian pounds for it in beautiful Sequins. It was my understanding that in the capitol of this glorious Republic, every honest person enjoys freedom, and an ambitious man with capital like mine could live very well here, without exhausting himself, as a pawnbroker."
"Confident in my frugality, my judgment and my know-how, I was determined to pursue this very calling. I rented a small house on the Regio Canal. I furnished it and lived all alone without a housekeeper, cooking for myself. I lived peacefully for two years and grew richer by 2,000 pounds, although wishing to live well, I had to spend a thousand for my upkeep. I was sure of being 20 times richer in a short time. One day, a Jew begged me to lend him two Sequins on two well bound Latin books between which I found an Italian book entitled La Saggezza di Caron. I've never liked reading. I never read anything but Christian doctine. But I swear to you that this Saggezza, which I read, demonstrated how mistaken it is not to acquire some enlightenment through reading."
"This book, Signor which perhaps you never heard of, is the best book ever written. When you read it you'll never have to read another because it contains everything you need to know. It purges you of biases contracted from infancy. It liberates you from anxiety about the future. It opens your eyes to everything and above all, it gives you a true road to happiness and profound wisdom. If you ever get out of here, get this book and you'll love me forever. If anyone tells you it's forbidden, treat him as a sot."
With that speech, I knew my man. I knew the book although I wasn't aware it had been translated. But is any book not so honored in Venice? Charron was a friend of Montaigne, and believed he had transcended his model. He has never enjoyed the slightest critical approval because, like a quack doctor, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He threw together several ideas Montaigne tossed off, unpublished by the great man subject to editing. Charron, priest and theologian, judiciously improved them. Charron was never read and was left in the dust. The stupid Italian translator not only didn't realize that "Saggezza" is an obsolete term, a poor synonym for Saviezza. He should have said Sapienza. Charron was dumb enough to give his book the title of the book of Solomon. My roommate went on:
"Liberated by Charron from certain scruples and of all former misapprehensions, I made out so well in six years I was master of 9,000 Sequins. You shouldn't be astonished by that because there's big money in this town. Gambling, debauchery and sloth corrupt and indebt everyone and those who are smart know how to profit from the dissipation of fools."
"It was three years ago that Count Roberto Seriman, knowing my reputation as a businessman, made my acquaintance and begged me to take 500 Sequins from him, invest them and give him half the profits. He didn't ask more than a simple IOU in which I promised to remit the original amount on demand. At the end of the first year, I gave him 75 sequins which is 15% and he gave me a receipt. But, he was unhappy. He was wrong because his money hadn't brought in anything. I always negotiated with my own. The second year, out of pure generosity, I gave him 15% again and we had words such that he asked me for restitution of the full amount."
"I told him I would subtract from the total the 150 Sequins I'd already paid. He got furious, went off and the next day named me defendant in an out-of-court demand for the restitution of the entire sum. A skillful lawyer took my case and was able to procrastinate two more years without a decision."
"Three months ago, they made a settlement offer which I turned down and fearing violence, I approached Abbey Giustiniani, who obtained permission from the Duke Montelegra, Spanish Ambassador, for me to live over the white line, where one is protected from all surprise. I was willing to return Count Seriman's money but I was claiming the 100 Sequins in legal expenses I incurred as a consequence of his lawsuit. My attorney was with me a week ago along with the Count's, and I showed them 250 Sequins in a purse which I was prepared to give them then and there and not a Soldi more. They both left, fed up."
"Three days later Signor Giustiniani informed me that the Ambassador thought it wiser to allow the State Inquisition to send in its men to carry out an arrest. I didn't know that could be done. I awaited the visit courageously having safely hidden all my money. I would never have believed the Ambassador would permit them to carry me off bodily as they did. At daybreak Mr. Big came to my place and demanded 350 Sequins. When I told him I hadn't a soldi, he put me in his gondola and here I am."
After this narration, I had several thoughts regarding this greedy knave they'd thrust in my presence. I found his detention just and the Ambassador praiseworthy for turning him over. The man stayed in bed the entire three days they left him with me. It's true he was claiming a great chill. He amazed me the whole time with speeches quoting Charron. It was then that I recognized the truth of the proverb:
Guardiati da colui che non ha letto che un libro solo. I heartily cursed Charron and all usurers.
The fourth day, an hour after Terza, Lorenzo came to open the cell and ordered the miserly Nobili to come downstairs to talk with Signore Secretary. I was shown out by Lorenzo to leave Nobili alone and in less than 15 minutes he appears wearing my shoes instead of his own. Naturally, I wondered why, but in I Piombi one does nothing without reflection. I didn't say anything and they went downstairs. They left my cell door open and locked and bolted all the others.
Half an hour later, they're back and Nobili's in tears. Lorenzo gave me a good laugh by ordering me to return all the money this man gave me. Nobili entered the cell and left again immediately holding his shoes in his hands from which he took two little bags of Sequins which he carefully bore away, preceeded by Lorenzo, to the Secretary. They came back and the usurer put on his shoes, a good deal lighter now, and his buckles. He took his cloak and hat and went off with Lorenzo who locked me back in. The next day, Lorenzo had his clothes moved out and told me that as soon as the Secretary got the money he put the miser at liberty. I heard nothing more about him. I never did know what means the Secretary employed to get him to admit he had the money with him. Perhaps he threatened him with torture which is still useful, as a threat.
New Years Day 1756, I got new clothes. Lorenzo brought me a housecoat lined with fox, made of silk and stuffed with cotton and a big muff made of bear skin to keep my feet warm in the brutal cold, as extreme as the heat in August. Giving me all this, he said that by order of the Secretary I would have six Sequins a month at my disposal to order all the books I wanted and periodicals as well and the gift was from Signor di Bragadino.
I asked Lorenzo for his pencil and a piece of paper and I wrote:
"I am grateful to the mercy of the Tribunal and the goodness of Signor di Bragadino."
You would have had to be in my place to understand the feelings this episode awoke in my heart. At the core of my being, I forgave my oppressors and almost gave up the idea of revenge. So basically good is man, so terribly can he be beaten and demeaned by misfortune.
But moods which take flight so readily quickly crash. In spite of the books which I promptly acquired, my project was always in my mind, as was every object I came across during the little walk I was allowed each morning in the attic.
Lorenzo told me that Signor di Bragadino personally appeared on his knees before the State Inquisitors to plead permission to convey some tokens of his loyal friendship, if I remained among the living, and they granted his request.
One morning my gaze rested on the long iron bolt on the floor with the other old household items. I considered it as a potential weapon for offense and defense. Hiding it in my suit, I took it back to my cell. Alone, I carefully examined it. Noticing its nice point, I saw it would make an excellent pike, good for everything. I took the black marble, the first of my petty larcenies, and it was a perfect whetstone. After rubbing one end of the bolt on the stone for a very long time, I was able to polish an edge.
Intrigued by this unusual work, I was excited with the hope of possessing an item which could be hidden, and encouraged at the prospect of success in fashioning a weapon without the proper tools. Heartened and emboldened even by the difficulties which I encountered - I had to rub the bolt in nearly pitch darkness on the window ledge with only my left hand to hold it firm and without oil to lubricate the iron I wanted to sharpen. I had only my saliva and I worked fifteen hours filing eight pyramidal surfaces bringing them to a fine point. Each facet was one and a half inches long. They formed an octagonal point, nicely proportioned, and one couldn't have asked more of a good machinist.
You can't imagine the pain, the boredom I endured and the patience I had to have for this disagreeable task without any other tool than a whetstone. It was a kind of torment "quam siculi non invenere tyranni." I couldn't move my right arm and my shoulder appeared to have expired. The palm of my hand was one huge sore of broken blood vessels. In spite of my pain, I didn't stop working. I wanted to see it perfect. Taking pride in my work, and without having decided just how I would use it, I thought I would hide it somewhere it would be safe from any search. I thought of putting it in the straw of my armchair but not near the top where anyone lifting the cushion would have seen its outlines. Instead, I turned the armchair upside down and I pushed it entirely within and so well that to find it one would have to know it was there.
Thus was God preparing the essentials for an escape which might be improbable but not impossible. I confess myself proud of my creation, but I can assure the reader that my vanity isn't based on my accomplishments - since luck played a big part - but on my judgment that the thing was possible, and my courage to try it.
After three or four days of reflection on the best use for my bolt now turned pike, stout as a cane and 20 inches long, whose beautiful sharpened tip proved it isn't necessary to steel the iron to sharpen it, I realized I had only to make a hole in the floor of my cell, beneath my bed.
I was sure that the room below had to be the one where I'd seen M. de Cavalli. I was also sure that they would unlock this room every morning and I'd be able to drop into it from above as soon as the hole was ready. I would use my bedsheets as a kind of cord, securing the upper end to a bedpost. Once in the room I would hide myself under the great table of the Tribunal all morning, until I saw the door open. I would leave before they could follow me and I would get myself to safety. I thought it likely that Lorenzo left an Archer in the room as guard, and in that case, I would have killed him immediately by plunging my pike in his throat. Everything was well rehearsed mentally, but the problem was that the hole wasn't about to be dug in a day, or a week. I anticipated that the strong flooring could be double or triple and could take one or two months and consequently it was necessary to find a means to prevent the Archers from sweeping my cell during this time, which might have raised their suspicions, the more so since it was I who had demanded daily sweeping to reduce the flea population. They would have found the hole while sweeping and I had to be certain that this didn't happen. It was winter and I wasn't tormented by the fleas anyway.
I began by ordering that they not sweep anymore, without giving any reason. A few days later, Lorenzo asked me why I didn't want them to sweep and I said it was because the dust they stirred up was going to my lungs, giving me a cough and possibly fatal consumption.
"We will throw," said he, "water on the floor."
"Not at all," said I, "for the moisture can produce congestion of the blood."
He said nothing. But a week later, he didn't ask permission to sweep, he ordered it. He even made the Archers carry out my bed on the pretext of cleaning everywhere. He even lit a candle. I watched them do it with an air of indifference. It was obvious his suspicions were behind this move.
The next day I thought of a way to reinforce my scheme. I pricked my finger and bled into my handkerchief, and waited for Lorenzo in bed. I told him my cough was getting worse and I was spitting up blood and needed a doctor. The next day, the doctor, persuaded or otherwise, ordered a bloodletting and wrote a prescription. I told him the cause of my illness was Lorenzo's cruelty in sweeping despite my plea. He reproached Lorenzo and the boob swore he thought he was doing me a favor. Then he swore again, that should I remain there ten years, he'd never sweep again.
I replied coldly that they should sweep during flea season. The doctor related the case of a young man who had just died several days before of a pulmonary infection for no other reason than he wished to learn the trade of hair curling. The doctor was convinced that powder and dust once breathed in, are never exhaled. I laughed to myself hearing the good doctor agree with me. The Archers present at this consultation were also delighted to learn all this, so as to include among their charitable acts that of never again sweeping anyone's cell except those they wished to mistreat.
After the doctor left, Lorenzo demanded my forgiveness assuring me that all the other prisoners were doing just fine, in spite of the fact that their chambers (that's what he called them) were swept every day. He announced that he would enlighten them immediately upon this important point, for as a Christian, he regarded all of us as his children. The bloodletting was good for me. It made me sleep and cured the spasmodic contractions which were terrifying me. After that I had myself bled every forty days.
I'd won a big point but it was not yet time to begin my work. The weather was so cold that my hands couldn't grasp the pike without freezing and sticking to it. If I had worked with gloves, I would have worn out a pair a day, and if anyone had seen one they would have suspected something. This undertaking demanded foresight and determination to avoid all that could be easily avoided, as well as boldness and daring in extricating oneself from that which, even when foreseen, happened anyway. Miserable the man who must act under such constraints. But a judicious political calculus instructs us: to win all one must risk all.
The eternal nights of winter were devastating. I was obliged to spend nineteen mortal hours in shadow and, on foggy days which aren't rare in Venice, the light from the hole didn't even illuminate my book. Unable to read, I fell a bit too far into thoughts of escape and a brain continuously obsessed with the same thought courts folly. I considered the ultimate happiness would be to have an oil lamp and my satisfaction was great when, after having thought about a ruse to procure one, I believed I'd found a way.
It consisted in making a lamp by acquiring the necessary ingredients. I needed some kind of a vessel, wicks of string or cotton, oil, touchstone, a lighter, matches, and amadou. The vessel would be the small earthenware dish I kept after breaking, which had been used to bring me fried eggs in butter.
I got hold of some oil by saying that the usual oil with which they seasoned my salad was bad, which, in fact, it was. They had no difficulty buying me oil from Lucque and bringing salad every day which I didn't eat, to save the oil. I extracted enough cotton from my quilt to make wicks by drying and spinning it, and so well spun I was amazed I knew how. I pretended to have a terrible toothache and told Lorenzo to bring some pumice stone, a treatment he knew nothing about. I told him he could use flintstone and he should soak it in vinegar for a day. It would have the same effect applied to the tooth and relieve the pain.
Lorenzo replied as I expected, that the vinegar he'd already brought was excellent and I should soak the stones myself and promptly gave me two or three flintstones he had in his pocket. A steel buckle attached to my pants would be an excellent lighter. All that remained were the matches and the amadou, providing which really put me to work. But as a result of thinking it over, I found both and it took some luck.
I had an attack of a scurfy skin eruption, which from time to time overwhelmed me causing a most uncomfortable itch all over my body. I begged Lorenzo to take a note to the doctor in which I requested prompt treatment. The next day he brought the answer, that he had run by the Secretary:
"Diet and four ounces of sweet almond oil, and it will be cured; or else an application of safflower oil, but this can be risky."
Tickled pink, I almost lost my composure.
"I could care less," I replied, "about the danger. Buy me the safflower oil ointment and bring it tomorrow or give me some safflowers. I have butter here and will make the ointment myself. I'll need some matches too."
From his bag he took all that he had and gave them to me. Great God! How easy it is to be consoled when one is in distress!
I spent two or three hours thinking what I could substitute for the amadou, the only ingredient still lacking, and which I couldn't think of a single pretext for procuring. Just as I began to despair, I remembered having ordered my tailor to line the armpits of my taffeta suit with amadou and then cover it with waxed cloth to prevent the sweatstains which, ordinarily and mostly in summertime, soil all suits in exactly this spot. My suit, which I hadn't worn four hours and hadn't stained was here, right in front of my eyes. My heart was pounding. The tailor might have forgotten my order. I didn't dare get up right away to take the two steps and see if the amadou was there. It was the only material missing for my total happiness and I was afraid I wouldn't find it and would pay too high a price in disappointment.
Finally I had to brace myself. I approached the plank and there was my suit. Suddenly I felt weak and unworthy of such Divine Grace. Dropping to my knees, I prayed to God in his infinite goodness to have made the tailor not forget my instruction. After this ardent prayer, I spread out my suit, pulled out the threads and the waxed cloth and there was the amadou.
My joy was complete. It was only natural that I gave thanks to God, since I went looking for the amadou confident of his beneficence, and with heartfelt devotion. With regard to the power of Grace, I have never felt as silly as I do thinking of that prayer I made to the Almighty when I went looking for the amadou. I would never have made such a prayer before going to jail and I wouldn't make it today. But deprivation of bodily freedom stupefies the higher faculties. One must pray to God to obtain indulgences, not miracles which overturn nature. If the tailor hadn't put the amadou in the armpits, I certainly wouldn't have found any; and if he did, I would. The thrust of my first prayer to God ought to have been:
"Seignior, make me find the amadou even if the tailor didn't put it there, and if he did put it there, make it not disappear."
Theologians would find this prayer pious, saintly and reasonable because it was based on the force of faith and they would be right just as I was right, not being a Theologian, to find such miracles absurd. Nor do I need to be a sublime theologian to find God's grace justified. I thanked the Almighty that the tailor hadn't forgotten and my gratitude was justified by an altogether pragmatic philosophy.
As soon as I had the amadou, I filled a casserole with oil and put in a wick and lit it. What a pleasure! What satisfaction I took in my accomplishment and in breaking a rule as cruel as any I know. There were no more nights for me. Goodby salads. I like them but I didn't miss them. It seemed to me that oil is only made to shed light and it seemed an abuse of good fortune to use it for anything else. I decided to begin taking up the floor on the first Monday of Lent because during the excitement of Carnival I had to worry about guests.
It was a good precaution. On Carnival Sunday, 29 February, 1756, at noon, I heard the sound of locks and I saw Lorenzo followed by a very fat man whom I recognized immediately as Gabriel Schalon, a Jew famous for his skill in getting money from young men in trouble. We knew each other. We exchanged seasons' greetings. This man's company didn't thrill me but one must be patient. They locked him up. He told Lorenzo to go to his house and bring him his dinner, a bed and everything necessary. Lorenzo replied they would discuss it in the morning.
This fellow, uneducated, talkative and stupid except for his trade, began by congratulating me on being singled out above all others for his company. My only reply was to offer him half my dinner, which he refused saying it wasn't Kosher and that he would wait for some soup from home. He said it wasn't likely that he would be left without bed or board, a man like himself, if they didn't intend to send him home soon. I told him they did the same to me and he replied that there was a considerable difference between him and me.
He explained that the State Inquisitors must surely have been mistaken in ordering his capture. He figured they were already aware of their mistake, and embarrassed. I agreed and told him that it was even possible they intended to give him a pension, because far from deserving prison, the State owed him a lot. He liked my thinking because he was a genius in domestic business affairs, and as a courtier he had given some very useful advice to the five wise presidents of the Chamber of Commerce.
"This will make your day because, on my word of honor, a month won't go by before I get you out of here. I know who to talk to and how."
I replied that I counted on him. It was necessary to allow free rein to this imbecile's propositions because he absolutely believed them. He wanted to tell me, without my asking, what they were saying about me and he irritated me by reporting what they were saying in the worst circles. I picked up a book to distract myself, but he wouldn't let me read. His passion was talking, about himself.
I didn't dare light the lamp and in the darkness he decided to accept some bread and Cypriot wine I couldn't resist offering, as well as my mattress, which became the bed for all new arrivals. The next day, they brought a bed and some linen and some Kosher food. I bore this burden nearly three months, because the Secretary of the Tribunal, before sending him to Il Quattro , had need to speak to him several times to clarify his dealings and to force him to cancel certain illegal contracts which were too much in his favor.
He confessed to me having bought some annuities from His Honorable Domenico Michiel which couldn't have belonged to the seller until after the death of his father, the Chevalier Antonio Michiel. He added that while it was true the seller had lost 100 percent it was necessary to consider that the buyer would have lost everything if the son died before the father.
When I realized this guy wasn't going anywhere soon, I decided to light the lamp. He assured me he wouldn't say anything to anyone, but the blabbermouth only kept his word until he left. He told Lorenzo, but it didn't matter. This man's company devastated me - I couldn't work on my project. Proud, boastful, cowardly, sometimes desperate and dissolving in tears, he tried to get me to commiserate with him about the negative effect of his detention on his reputation. I told him that with regards to his reputation he had nothing to fear, and he thanked me, taking my sarcasm as a compliment.
I amused myself one day by logically proving that his main vice, greed, was such that if the Inquisitors wanted to keep him in jail for life they had only to promise him payment in advance. I got him to agree that for a certain amount of money he would remain in jail voluntarily for awhile, but only to cover his losses. I then got him to admit that for a certain amount plus some "x" he'd stay in for life. Far from finding this shameful, he laughed at the prospect. He was a Talmudic scholar like all Jews today and he feigned a great attachment to his religion as a result of his studies. Looking at my life and my fellow human beings, it is apparent that what men believe is truly essential in religion are the rituals.
Extremely fat, he never moved from his bed and at night he had insomnia. I always slept well enough. It occurred to him to wake me up from the deepest most restful sleep. I asked him bitterly why he had woken me and he said he couldn't sleep and would I do him the favor of chatting awhile so that perhaps some sweet repose might come to his aid.
Overwhelmed with indignation, I didn't answer right away; but as soon as I could talk with a civil tongue, I told him I was convinced that his insomnia was a true torment and I pitied him, but that if it ever again occurred to him to wake me up as a cure for insomnia, depriving me of the greatest good nature allowed in my miserable circumstances, I would spring from my bed and strangle him. He didn't answer. It was the last time he pulled that trick.
I don't think I really would have strangled him, but I know that I was sorely tempted. A man who sleeps peacefully in prison is not imprisoned while sweetly asleep, where slaves don't exist any more than kings reign. It follows that whoever wakes a prisoner is like an executioner who comes to deprive him of his freedom and plunge him back into misery. Add to that, a sleeping prisoner dreams of being free and the illusion takes the place of reality. I congratulated myself over and over for not having begun my work before this man's arrival. He absolutely insisted on sweeping. I pretended the sweeping made me sick and the Archers wouldn't have carried out his order if I had opposed it; but it was in my interest to appear agreeable.
On Ash Wednesday, Lorenzo told us that after Terza, Signore the Secretary would come up to pay a visit which he traditionally pays to all the prisoners before Easter, not so much to put at ease the souls of those wishing to receive the Holy Sacrament, but to find out if they have anything to say against the Guard:
"Which doesn't worry me a bit," says Lorenzo, "because you have nothing against me to say."
Then he told us to dress formally, because that was the etiquette. He told me that if I wished to worship Easter, I had only to give him the order. I told him to send me a Confessor.
Then I got myself dressed to the hilt, and the usurer did the same while taking formal leave of me because he felt certain that the Secretary would set him free as soon as he had spoken with him. He confessed his intuition was infallible and I congratulated him on it. The Secretary arrived. They opened the door and the Jew went out. He threw himself on his knees and I heard loud cries and moans. Five or six minutes later, he was back and Lorenzo said it was my turn. I made a deep bow to his Reverence Signore di Businello and then did nothing more than look straight at him - not a movement and not a word. This mute interview lasted as long as my comrade's. Finally the Secretary made a slight inclination of his head, about a half inch, and went off.
I returned immediately to change into my fur lined coat because the cold was killing me. The Minister of the Tribunal must have needed all his strength to keep from laughing at me because, dressed so gallantly, with an 8 month beard and wild hair I would have made the most dour of men laugh. The Jew was astonished that I hadn't said anything and wasn't convinced that I wasn't more eloquent with my silence than he with his cowardly cries. A prisoner in my situation in the presence of his judge shouldn't open his mouth except to answer questions.
The following day a Jesuit came to hear my confession and on Saturday a Priest from Saint Marks administered the Holy Eucharist. My confession seemed too short to the Priest who saw fit to scold me several times before giving absolution. He asked me if I prayed to God and I replied that I prayed from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn, even while eating, even while sleeping because everything happening in my soul, in my heart and in my agitation could only be, under the circumstances, a continual prayer in the eyes of divine wisdom. I told him that my impatience and even the wanderings of my imagination were prayers. This Jesuit, a missionary and personal confessor to a famous elderly Senator, was a man of letters, devout, discrete, author of several pious and notable works, an Inquisitor of State. Grinning, he rebutted my specious discourse on prayer with a metaphysical doctrine which didn't square with mine. I would have refuted it if, skilled as he was in his craft, he hadn't had the talent to stun me and crush me to the size of a flea by a kind of prophecy:
"Since we taught you the religion you espouse, practice it our way and know that you will never get out of here until the day of your Patron Saint."
After these words, he gave me absolution and left. The impression his words made on me is incredible. No matter what I did they stuck in my mind. I mentally reviewed every Saint in the Almanac.
Saint James of Campostello, whose name I bear, would naturally have to be regarded as my Patron Saint, but how could I believe it since was it not precisely on the day of the Festival of Saint James that Mr. Big broke down my door? If I was supposed to be praying to my patron saint, it seemed to me the Jesuit should have told me which one it was. I decided it was up to me to pick. Searching the Almanac, I fixed my choice on the nearest neighbor, Saint Mark. Saint George came before him, a saint of some reknown, but I figured I should have more confidence in the Evangelist, because as a Venetian I had more claim to his protection. Thus I diligently addressed my prayers to him but his holiday passed and I was still there. So I appealed to the other Saint James whose holiday is celebrated with Saint Philippe's, but that date passed without any prayers granted. Then, with great devotion, I turned to the saintly wonder-worker, Saint Anthony, whose tomb I had visited a thousand times during my student days in Padua, and again my hopes were dashed. I went from one Saint to the next and little by little, insensibly, I got used to being frustrated and the fervor of my prayers diminished, but not the desire nor determination to escape.
This happy moment did arrive, as the reader will see, on my Patron Saint's Day, because if I have a Patron that was his holiday. I never knew his name and it doesn't matter: I am no less grateful to him. The prophecy of the Jesuit was borne out - I regained my freedom on All Saint's Day, one of whom had to be mine.
As soon as I was alone, I set to work with the greatest haste. I needed to finish and get out of there before they brought me another guest who might want them to sweep. I pulled out the bed, lit the lamp, threw myself down, pike in hand. After spreading a towel alongside to collect the splinters, I was ready to chisel with the tip of the bolt. It was a matter of destroying the board by jabbing it with the iron. At the outset the chips were no bigger than a kernel of wheat. Subsequently they got bigger.
The board was made from larch, sixteen inches wide. I began attacking its joint to the next board. There was neither nail nor metal and my work was going smoothly. After six hours I knotted my towel and set it aside to empty the next day behind the pile of notebooks at the back of the attic. The chips formed a volume four or five times greater than the cavity from which they were extracted. The arc might have been 30 degrees or one twelfth of a circle, its diameter approximately ten inches and I was very pleased with my work. I put the bed back in its spot and the next day, I was able to empty the towel unseen. It looked like I wouldn't have to worry that the chips might be discovered.
The second day, beneath the first board I found another, two inches thick and apparently identical to the first. Having had no unfortunate visits but driven by the fear of them, I accomplished in three weeks the total destruction of three boards, beneath which I found the paving-stone inlaid with bits of marble which in Venice they call terazzo marmorin. It's the standard flooring for apartments and all homes in Venice except those owned by the poorest people. Even the great lords preferred terazzo to parquet. I was quite demoralized to find that my bolt wouldn't bite into it. In vain did I lean and push: the point kept slipping. This problem was discouraging.
Then I remembered Hannibal who, according to Titus Livius, was constructing a road over the Alps, breaking rocks with hatchets after tenderizing them with vinegar, a story I had found unbelievable, not only because I doubted the strength of the vinegar but because of the prodigious quantity they would have needed. I suspected that Hannibal had succeeded with hatchets (acetta ), and not vinegar (aceto ), no doubt a careless copying error on the part of the first transcriber of Titus Livius. All the same, I poured a bottle of strong vinegar into the hole and the next day, whether due to the vinegar or greater patience on my part, I saw that I would succeed, because it wasn't a matter of breaking tiny morsels of marble but of pulverizing the cement holding everything together, using the point of the pike, and I was quite pleased to find that the greatest resistance was on the surface. In four days I destroyed the entire pavement without damaging my point: the luster of its facets was lovelier than ever.
Under the marmorin I found another board, as I expected. It had to be the last; that is to say, the first from bottom to top of any ceiling with beams. I dug out this board with great difficulty because my hole was now ten inches deep. Ceaselessly I called upon God's mercy. Intellectuals who say God's mercy isn't good for anything don't know what they're talking about. I know that after praying to God I always felt more energy. What more is needed to demonstrate the utility of prayer? It is argued that this empowerment is a natural effect of matter reinforced with confidence alone and that this happens without God getting involved. Those who have a religion really have resources which non-believers don't. The former understand very little about it, but the latter know nothing at all. Let's move along.
June 25, festival day celebrated only by the Republic of Venice in memory of the amazing appearance of the Evangelist Saint Mark in the symbolic form of a winged lion in the Ducal Chapel toward the end of the eleventh century, an event which demonstrated to the wisdom of the Senate that the time had come to say "thank you, it's been nice to know you" to Saint Theodore whose credit hadn't been good enough for promotion and to take as its Patron the Saintly Disciple, sent by God to Saint Paul or, according to Eusebius, Saint Peter.....on this very day of Saint Mark, at 3 in the afternoon, stark naked and soaked in sweat, I was stretched out on my belly working in the hole where, to see inside I had lit the lamp.
I was struck with terror hearing the crack of the doorlatch in the first corridor. What a moment! I blow out the lamp. I leave my pike in the hole. I throw in my towel. I get up and hastily put together the planks and sawhorses for my bed in the alcove. I throw straw and mattress on top and with no time to put on the sheets I fall down on it as if dead, just at the very moment Lorenzo was opening the door to my cell. If I had delayed a single second Lorenzo would have discovered me. As it was, he was about to walk right over me if I hadn't called out. At my cry he leaped back all stooped in the doorway saying emphatically:
"My God! I beg you, Signor, it's burning hot in here, like a furnace! Get up and thank God who is sending you excellent company. Enter, enter illustrious lord."
This lout doesn't care that I'm naked. Here comes his most illustrious, dodging me, while not knowing what I was doing, I grab the sheets, I throw them on the bed, but I can't find a single shirt or nightshirt which decency demanded. The new arrival thought he had gone to hell. I hadn't yet been able to see his face. I heard a desolate voice cry out:
"Where am I? Where are they putting me? It's so hot! What a stench! Who's in here?"
Lorenzo then called me aside, telling me through the bars to get dressed and come out in the attic. First he told the new guest that he had an order to go to his house and bring him a bed and whatever he might want and until his return he could take a walk in the attic with me and that in the meantime he would leave the cell door open to rid it of the stench, which was only oil. What a surprise to hear him say "only oil!" In fact the stench was coming from the lamp which I had extinguished without snuffing. Lorenzo left no doubt about it: he knew everything. The Jew had told him everything. Was I ever pleased that he couldn't tell him more! I conceived, on the spot, the idea of a tip for Lorenzo.
After putting on another shirt, pants, stockings and a light jacket, I went out. The new prisoner was writing out a list of what he wanted. It was he who spoke first on seeing me: "So there's Casanova..." and I immediately recognized him for the Count Abbey Tommaso Fenaroli, a Bressano about twenty years older than me, of noble bearing, rich enough and beloved in all the best company. He came over to embrace me and when I told him he was the last person I expected to run into up here, he couldn't restrain his tears which got mine going. He finished giving his orders and we were alone.
The first thing I said to him was to do me a big favor by declining an offer I would make to move my bed. The second request that I made was that he not ask them to sweep. I promised to tell him the reasons at our leisure. In the meantime, I confessed that the stench he smelled came from a lamp I possessed unbeknownst to anyone. I had blown it out without snuffing the smoke from the wick, having no time due to his unexpected arrival. He promised me all that I desired and declared himself happy to have been put in with me. He told me that no one knew my crime and everyone tried to guess what it was.
Some were saying I'd made myself head of a new religion and that the State Inquisitors had locked me up on orders from the Ecclesiastical Inquisitors. Others were saying that Mme Lucia Pisani had gotten the Chevalier Antonio Mocenigo to persuade the Tribunal to have me arrested because I was corrupting the religion of her three sons. The oldest of her sons is today the Priest of Saint Mark's, and the other two others have both served on the Council of Ten. Other people said the Consul Antonio Condulmer, State Inquisitor at the time of my detention, and Godfather of Teatro San Angelo, had me locked up for disturbing the peace because I used to hiss during the comedies of Abbot Chiari who was part of the vendetta against Marco Antonio Zorzi, head of the Goldoni School. It was alleged I was going to kill the Abbot if they hadn't locked me up.
All these accusations had some basis which made them plausible but they were all inventions. I didn't worry enough about religion to think of organizing a new one. The three sons of Mme Pisani, were high-spirited and more likely to seduce than to be seduced, and M. de Condulmer would have too much to do if he wanted to lock up everyone who heckled Chiari.
And as far as this Abbot, it was true that I'd said I would go to Padua and kill him, but Father Origo, illustrious Jesuit, calmed me down by implying that I could avenge myself of his satire in a bad novel, but in no other way than a good Christian is permitted. He told me to go sing the Abbey's praises in the cafes he frequented. I followed his advice and I found sweet revenge. As soon as I said something good about Chiari, everyone, mocking my panegyric, uttered stinging criticisms of him. I became an admirer of the profound political wisdom of Father Origo.
Toward evening, they brought the bed, armchair, linen, scented water, a good dinner and several bottles of wine for M. the Abbot, who couldn't eat a bite. Not me. In the nine months I was there, this was the first good meal I'd had. They left my bed there where it was. They didn't sweep. They showed us back in and we were alone.
I began by pulling the lamp from the hole, and the towel which had fallen into the casserole and soaked up all the oil. That made me laugh. An inconsequential accident occurring for reasons which could have been tragic was enough to give me the giggles. I put everything in good order. I cleaned the casserole which was full of terrazzo. I got it going again and we could see each other clearly. I greatly amused my dear companion by telling him the details of the construction of my lamp. We spent the night without sleeping, not so much because of the million fleas which were eating us but the hundred interesting conversations which never ended. But when he saw I was curious to know by what unfortunate adventure I found myself in his esteemed company, here's what he had no hesitation relating and which I think I can now publish after 32 years of silence,
"Yesterday, at 8 PM we got into a gondola, Mme Allessandri, the Count P. Martinegro and arrived in Fusina at 9. We were in Padua at midnight to see the opera and departed immediately afterward. During the second act, my evil genius inspired me to go to the gambling tables where I saw the Count de Rosenberg, Viennese Ambassador and, nearby, Mme R. whose husband is due any day to go to the same Viennese Court in the capacity of Venitian Ambassador. I made a silent bow to Signor who wasn't masked, and I complimented Mme L'Ambassadrice and I was going to leave when M. de Rosenberg said out loud:"
'You are most fortunate to be able to speak to such a lovely lady! It's in moments like this that the high office I represent turns the most beautiful country in the world into a galley. Tell her, I pray you, that I know her and that the laws which keep me from speaking to her here won't be in force at the Viennese Court, where I will see her next year and where I will lay siege to her...'
" Mme R. who saw that the Count was talking about her, signaled to me and asked me laughing what he'd said. I repeated the compliment to her and she directed me to answer that she was accepting his declaration of war and that time would tell which of the two would have at the other more skillfully."
"I didn't think I was committing a crime in repeating this answer. I was only conveying a compliment. I lost a few Sequins at Faro and rejoined my group. After the opera we went out for chicken and returned here. It was 2 PM. I went straight home to sleep until 8 PM. But a man brought me a letter which ordered me to be at La Bussola at 7 PM to hear what the Circumspect Pietro Businello, Secretary of the Council of X, had to say to me."
"Astonished by this order, never a good omen, and quite upset at having to obey it, I presented myself at the prescribed hour in the presence of the minister who, without saying a single word, ordered that I be deposited here. That's the whole story."
Nothing could be more innocent than his crime; but there are laws in the world which can be violated innocently and the transgressors are no less guilty for that. I complimented him on knowing his crime, on the crime itself and on the manner of his arrest and, because his crime was very slight, I told him he would only be here with me a week and that after a little scolding, they would tell him to go spend six months at home in Brescia. The Abbot said he sincerely did not believe that they would leave him here a week. That's how a man, not feeling guilty, can't conceive that he should be punished. I let him fool himself, but my prediction came true. I was determined to be good company in order to ease the great suffering his detention was causing him. I sympathized so well with his misfortune I totally forgot my own the entire time he spent with me.
The next morning, at daybreak, Lorenzo brought coffee and, in a huge basket, dinner for Count Abbot who couldn't conceive how one could suppose that a man would have an appetite at such an early hour. While the other prisoners were being served, the two of us strolled in the attic; then we were locked up. Losing patience with the fleas, the Abbot asked why I didn't want them to sweep. I couldn't tolerate the idea that he thought me a pig or my skin any less sensitive than his own. I showed him everything, and even had him look. He was visibly abashed at having forced me, so to speak, to reveal such an important secret. He encouraged me to work to finish the hole during the day if possible, and offered to lower me himself and pull up the rope afterward, since he personally wasn't interested in aggravating his crime by escaping.
I showed him my plans for a device by which I was sure I could get down and pull the sheets which served as a rope after me. It consisted of a little stick attached at one end to a long string. My sheet was attached to both feet of the bed by means of this stick; the control string would be long enough to reach the floor of the Inquisitor's Chambers, where, as soon as I was on my feet, I could have pulled everything down to me. He had no doubt this would work and complimented me. Such a precaution was all the more indispensable because, if the sheets were left dangling, they would have been staring Lorenzo in the face as he crossed the Hall on his way upstairs. He certainly would have looked for me, found me and arrested me again. My noble companion grew convinced that I should probably suspend my work for awhile, not only because I might get caught but because it would cost Lorenzo his life. The truth is, I would have persevered if it cost the lives of all 40 Archers. Patriotism fails in the mind of a man in jail.
My good spirits didn't keep my dear roommate from attacks of depression. He was in love with Mme Alessandri and he ought to have been happy, but the happier a lover is the more miserable when torn from the object of his desires. He sighed heavily and in spite of himself, tears welled up in his eyes, and he had to admit that the cause of his sighing wouldn't exis