I have always maintained that a stupid servant is more dangerous than a a bad one, and a much greater plague, for one can be on one's guard against a wicked person, but never against a fool.
You can punish wickedness but not stupidity, unless you send away the fool, male or female, who is guilty of it, and if you do so you generally find out that the change has only thrown you out of the frying-pan into the fire.
I speak with feeling.
This chapter and the two that followed it had already been written. I had filled them with all the particulars of my adventures, but which I must now abridge, for my silly servant has taken the three chapters for her own purposes.
She excused herself saying that the sheets of paper were old, written upon, covered with scribbling and erasures, and that she had taken them in preference to nice, clean paper, thinking that I would care much more for the last than for the first.
I flew into a violent passion.
It was a foolish passion, and therefore well matched to the occasion. The poor girl had acted from good intent, but her judgement misled her.
I reproached her. I explained. I demonstrated, with all the force of wounded authorship, that she was a fool of the first order.
She refuted all my arguments by the most complete silence.
At last anger, having made me ridiculous long enough, released me. Passion never keeps me long under its sway. I am quick to burn, but not slow to cool.
'Irasci, celerem tamen et placabilem esse.'
There was nothing to do but to resign myself, and, although not yet in the best of tempers, I went to work.
What I am going to write will probably not be so good as what I had composed when I felt in the proper humour, but my readers must be satisfied with it they will, like the engineer, gain in time what they lose in strength.
I went ashore at Orsera while our ship took in ballast, for a vessel does not travel well when she is too light.
I was walking about when I remarked a man who was looking at me very attentively.
As I had no dread of any creditor, I thought that he was interested by my fine appearance; I could not find fault with such a feeling, and kept walking on, but as I passed him, he addressed me:
"Might I presume to enquire whether this is your first visit to Orsera, captain?"
"No, sir, it is my second visit to this city."
"Were you not here last year?"
"I was."
"But you were not in uniform then?"
"True again; but your questions begin to sound rather indiscreet."
"Be good enough to forgive me, sir, for my curiosity is the offspring of gratitude. I am indebted to you for the greatest benefits, and I trust that Providence has brought you here again only to give me the opportunity of making greater still my debt of gratitude to you."
"What on earth have I done, and what can I do for you? I am at a loss to guess your meaning."
"Will you be so kind as to come and breakfast with me? My house is near at hand; my refosco is delicious, please to taste it, and I will convince you in a few words that you are truly my benefactor, and that I have a right to expect that you have returned Orsera to load me with fresh benefits."
His face was earnest, his manner respectful, and his eyes had none of the wandering brightness of madness. Still, I could not guess what part I had played in his happiness.
As I could not make him out, I fancied that he wanted to make me purchase some of his refosco, and I accepted his invitation.
We went up to his room, where he begged me to sit and left me for a few moments to order breakfast.
I looked about me. The room smelled of wine, vinegar, old linen, and a sharp medicinal odour. On a table near the window lay lancets, cups, bandages, probes, and other small surgical instruments.
When my host returned, I pointed to the table.
"You are a surgeon?"
"Yes, captain; I have been practising surgery in this place for twenty years, and in a very poor way, for I had nothing to do, except a few cases of bleeding, of cupping, and occasionally some slight excoriation to dress or a sprained ankle to put to rights. I did not earn even the poorest living."
He poured the refosco himself, with reverence.
"But since last year a great change has taken place; I have made a good deal of money, I have laid it out advantageously, and it is to you, captain, to you (may God bless you!) that I am indebted for my present comforts."
"To me?"
"To you."
"But how so?"
He leaned across the table, lowered his voice, and smiled.
"In this way, captain. You had a connection with Don Jerome's housekeeper, and you left her, when you went away, a certain souvenir which she communicated to a friend of hers, who, in perfect good faith, made a present of it to his wife."
I lifted my glass and said nothing.
He added, "This lady did not wish, I suppose, to be selfish, and she gave the souvenir to a libertine who, in his turn, was so generous with it that, in less than a month, I had about fifty clients."
I put down my glass and burst out laughing.
The surgeon did not laugh. He looked at me with shining gratitude.
"The following months were no less fruitful," he continued. "and I gave the benefit of my attendance to everybody, of course, for a consideration. There are a few patients still under my care, but in a short time there will be no more, as the souvenir left by you has now lost all its virtue."
He clasped his hands.
"You can easily realize now the joy I felt when I saw you; you are a bird of good omen. May I hope that your visit will last long enough to enable you to renew the source of my fortune?"
I laughed heartily, but he was grieved to hear that I was in excellent health.
He recovered himself, however, with professional courage.
"You are well now," he said, "but you are going to a country where damaged goods are plentiful. On your return, you may not be so fortunate. Remember me. No one knows better than I how to draw out the venom left by the use of such bad merchandise."
He begged that I would depend upon him, and not trust myself in the hands of quacks, who would be sure to palm their remedies upon me. I promised him everything, and, taking leave of him with many thanks, I returned to the ship.
I related the whole affair to M. Dolfin, who was highly amused.
We sailed the following day.
On the fourth day, beyond Curzola, a storm came upon us which very nearly cost me my life.
The chaplain of the ship was a Sclavonian priest, ignorant, insolent, and coarse. I had mocked him more than once, whenever occasion invited me, and he had repaid my wit with the hatred proper to wounded stupidity. He had naturally become my sworn enemy.
When the storm was at its height, he took his place on the quarter-deck with a book in his hand. The sky was black, the sea broke white around us, and the ship laboured between rocks and foaming water. The sailors, instead of obeying orders, had begun to cry out, cross themselves, and stare at the clouds as if heaven had opened its menagerie.
The priest saw devils there.
He pointed at them with his book, shouted his exorcisms into the wind, and named every spirit of hell for the benefit of men who were already plunging into terror.
The effect was disastrous. The sailors, believing themselves lost, howled instead of working. Some clung to ropes without pulling them. Others dropped to their knees.
I saw the rocks. I saw the breakers. I saw, above all, that the priest was doing more harm than the storm.
I climbed into the rigging and called down to the sailors cheerfully.
"To your work! There are no devils in those clouds and that the priest who pretends to see them is a fool."
The priest turned on me at once, but I did not wait for his answer. I seized a rope, lent my hands where I could, and shouted again that our safety lay in active means, not in exorcism.
Some heard me. Too few obeyed.
The chaplain raised his voice higher than mine.
"Atheist!" he cried. "Atheist!"
That word, in a storm, has more force than reason. The sailors looked at me with fear now mixed with anger. The priest understood his advantage and used it well.
For two days the wind continued to beat us. The waves struck the vessel as if they meant to break her plank by plank. We ate little, slept less, and heard death in every crash of water against the hull.
During all that time, the knave contrived to persuade the sailors who listened to him that the hurricane would not abate as long as I was on board.
Filled with that belief, one of the sailors decided to help Providence by murdering me.
I was standing at the far end of the forecastle when he came behind me and struck me with both hands. The blow was so sudden and violent that I lost my footing and went over the side.
I should have been irretrievably lost, but the point of an anchor hanging against the ship caught in my clothes. There I remained, suspended between the hull and the waves, with death below me and iron above me.
Never was an anchor better named.
Several men rushed forward, seized me, and dragged me back on deck. I had scarcely recovered my breath when a corporal pointed out the sailor who had pushed me.
"There is the man."
I took up a stout stick and went to him.
He tried to retreat. I did not allow it. I beat him with all the strength that fear, rage, and the love of life could lend me. He howled under the blows, and his cries brought the sailors running.
The priest came at their head in a furious rage.
The sailors rushed towards me and I would have been torn to pieces if the soldiers had not taken my side.
Then the commander and M. Dolfin came on deck.
They saw at once that reason had little authority over such men. The chaplain accused me, shouted, gestured at the clouds, and filled the sailors with fresh terror. To calm the rabble, the commander and Dolfin were forced to promise that I would be put ashore at the first opportunity.
Even that did not satisfy the priest.
He demanded that I give him a certain parchment which, he said, I had bought from a Greek at Malamocco before sailing.
I had no recollection of it, but it was true.
I laughed and gave it to M. Dolfin.
Dolfin handed it to the fanatic chaplain.
The priest called for a pan of live coals from the galley, held the parchment up for everyone to see, muttered his prayers, and made an auto-da-fe of the document.
The sailors crowded round.
The unlucky parchment blackened, curled, opened, curled again, and twisted on the fire for half an hour.
That was enough.
The chaplain pointed to its movements and cried miracle. The sailors crossed themselves and were convinced that it was an infernal manuscript given to me by the devil.
The man who sold me that parchment had promised that it would secure to its happy owner the love of all women.
I hope the reader will do me the justice of believing that I I had no faith whatever in amorous philtres, talismans, or amulets of any kind: I had purchased it only for a joke.
You can find throughout Italy, in Greece, and generally in every country the inhabitants of which are yet wrapped up in primitive ignorance, a tribe of Greeks, of Jews, of astronomers, and of exorcists, who sell their dupes rags and toys to which they boastingly attach wonderful virtues and properties; amulets which render invulnerable, scraps of cloth which defend from witchcraft, small bags filled with drugs to keep away goblins, and a thousand gewgaws of the same description.
These wonderful goods have no marketable value whatever in France, in England, in Germany, and throughout the north of Europe generally, but, in revenge, the inhabitants of those countries indulge in knavish practices of a much worse kind.