Two days later, our night's work began to be talked about.
The young woman's husband was a weaver by trade, and so were his two companions. The three men joined together and carried a complaint to the Council of Ten.
The complaint was written with admirable candour. It contained the truth, but the most criminal part of that truth was covered by one circumstance which must have brought a smile even to the grave faces of the judges, and afterwards amused the whole city: the plaintiffs declared that the eight masked men had not rendered themselves guilty of any act disagreeable to the wife.
It went on to say that two of the masked men had carried the woman away to such and such a place, where, about an hour later, the other six had joined them. From there, the whole party had gone to the Two Swords, where they spent an hour drinking.
The lady, according to the complaint, had been handsomely entertained by the eight masked men. After that, she had been escorted home and politely asked to excuse the joke played upon her husband.
The three plaintiffs, meanwhile, had been left on the island of San Giorgio and had not been able to escape until daybreak. When the husband finally reached his house, he found his wife quietly asleep in bed.
She had informed him of all that had happened; she complained of nothing but of the great fright she had experienced on account of her husband, and on that count she entreated justice and the punishment of the guilty parties.
That complaint was comic throughout, for the three rogues shewed themselves very brave in writing, stating that they would certainly not have given way so easily if the dread authority of the council had not been put forth by the leader of the band.
The document produced three different results.
First, it amused Venice.
Second, all the idlers of Venice went to Saint Job to hear the account of the adventure from the lips of the heroine herself, and she got many presents from her numerous visitors.
Third, the Council of Ten offered five hundred ducats to anyone who gave information that would to the arrest of the perpetrators of the practical joke, even if the informer belonged to the band, provided he was not the leader.
That reward would have made us tremble, had our leader not been Balbi.
He was a patrician.
That single fact calmed me. I knew very well that even if one of us had been vile enough to sell the secret, the tribunal would have hesitated to act. To arrest us would have meant implicating a nobleman, and in Venice justice walked carefully when it came near a patrician door.
There was no cowardly traitor amongst us, although we were all poor; but fear had its effect, and our nocturnal pranks were not renewed.
Three or four months later, the Chevalier Nicolas Iron, then one of the inquisitors, astonished me by telling me the whole story, with the names of every actor.
He did not say whether one of our companions had spoken, and I did not ask. I had no desire to know which road the secret had taken. It was enough to see, once again, the true spirit of an aristocracy in which the supreme law is solo mihi: for me alone.
Towards the middle of April 1746, M. Girolamo Cornaro, eldest son of the Cornaro della Regina family, married a daughter of the Soranzo di San Polo house.
I had the honour of being present at the wedding … as a fiddler.
I played the violin in one of the numerous bands engaged for the balls which were given for three consecutive days in the Soranzo Palace.
On the third night, or rather an hour before dawn, when the dancing was nearly over, fatigue overcame me. I left the orchestra abruptly and went down the stairs.
At the door, I saw a senator in his red robes about to enter a gondola.
As he drew his handkerchief from his pocket, a letter fell to the ground.
I picked it up and reached him just as he was stepping down.
"Your excellency has dropped this."
He took the letter, thanked me warmly, and asked where I lived.
I told him.
"Come with me," he said. "I shall have you set down at your house."
I accepted gratefully and sat beside him in the gondola.
A few minutes later, he moved uneasily.
"Rub my left arm," he said. "It is so numb that I cannot feel it."
I took the arm and rubbed it with all my strength.
"The numbness is spreading," he whispered.
His voice had changed.
"All along the left side. I am dying."
Fear seized me.
I opened the curtain, took the lantern, and looked at him. His face had lost its colour. His mouth was drawn to one side. His eyes were already wandering away from me.
I understood at once that he had suffered an apoplectic stroke.
"Land at once!" I shouted to the gondoliers. "We need a surgeon."
The gondola struck the steps. I jumped out and found myself on the very spot where, three years earlier, I had taught Razetta so forcible a lesson. There was no time for recollection. I ran to the first coffee-house and asked for a surgeon.
They pointed out a house.
I rushed there, knocked with all my strength, and at last the door opened. I dragged the surgeon almost from his bed and made him follow me in his dressing gown to the gondola.
The senator lay nearly senseless.
The surgeon opened a vein. I tore my shirt to make the compress and bandage.
When the bleeding was done, I ordered the gondoliers to row with all possible speed.
We reached Santa Marina.
The servants were roused from sleep. Together we lifted the senator from the gondola and carried him to his bed, where he lay almost dead.
I took command as if the house had belonged to me.
I sent a servant at once for a physician. He came quickly, examined the senator, and ordered a second bleeding, which had the agreeable effect of approving the first, prescribed by necessity and performed under my direction.
Thinking I had a right to watch the sick man, I settled myself near his bed to give him every care he required.
An hour later, two noblemen arrived, friends of the senator. They came separately, each with the same pale face and anxious haste. The gondoliers had already told them what they knew, which was very little, and had added that I knew more.
They loaded me with questions which I answered.
They did not know who I was, and did not like to ask me; whilst I thought it better to preserve a modest silence.
The senator did not move. Only his breathing told us he had not yet left the world. Fomentations were applied without pause.
A priest had also been sent for, and was of very little use under such circumstances, as he seemed to be there only to see him die.
All visitors were sent away on my advice.
Only the two noblemen and I remained in the sick room. At noon, dinner was served there, and we ate in silence.
That evening, one of the two friends said to me,
"Sir, if you have any business to attend to, you may go. We shall both pass the night here, on a mattress near him."
"And I, sir," I answered, "will remain near his bed in this arm-chair, for if I went away the patient would die, and he will live as long as I am near him."
The sentence had the effect I expected.
They looked at one another in astonishment.
I had spoken less as a man than as an oracle, and men in anxiety are always ready to respect a mystery. I had no certainty, of course; but I felt that confidence, boldly expressed, might strengthen their courage, and perhaps my own.
We had supper.
During the little conversation that followed, I learned that the sick senator was M. de Bragadin, the only brother of the procurator of that name.
He was celebrated in Venice not only for his eloquence and his great talents as a statesman, but also for the gallantries of his youth.
He had been very extravagant with women, and more than one of them had committed many follies for him. He had also gambled and lost heavily.
His brother was his bitterest enemy.
The man had convinced himself that Bragadin had tried to poison him. He had accused him before the Council of Ten, which, after eight months of inquiry, had declared him not guilty, but that just sentence, although given unanimously by that high tribunal, had not had the effect of destroying his brother's prejudices against him.
de Bragadin, who was perfectly innocent of such a crime and oppressed by an unjust brother who deprived him of half of his income, spent his days like an amiable philosopher, surrounded by his friends, amongst whom were the two noblemen who were then watching him; one belonged to the Dandolo family, the other was a Barbaro, and both were excellent men.
As for Bragadin, he was handsome, learned, cheerful, and naturally kind. He was then about fifty.
The physician attending him was named Terro.
By some train of reasoning peculiar to himself, he believed he could cure the senator by applying a mercurial ointment to his chest. No one objected.
The remedy acted quickly.
Too quickly.
The two friends rejoiced, but I was frightened. In less than twenty-four hours, the patient's brain seemed violently excited. His face grew flushed, his breathing troubled, his body restless.
Terro declared that he had expected this effect.
"Tomorrow," he said, "the medicine will act less upon the brain. Its beneficial power will then diffuse through the whole system and restore the proper equilibrium of the fluids."
The words sounded learned enough to satisfy everyone but me.
At midnight, Bragadin was burning with fever. His agitation had become fearful. I went near, watched him closely, and found that he could scarcely breathe.
That decided me.
I woke his two friends.
"Gentlemen," I said, "unless this fatal ointment is removed at once, he will die."
I did not wait for permission.
I uncovered his chest, tore away the plaster, and washed the skin carefully with lukewarm water.
The effect was immediate.
In less than three minutes, his breathing freed itself. The struggle left his face. His body relaxed, and he fell into a quiet sleep.
Delighted with such a fortunate result, we lay down again.