CHAPTER IX.
THE MADHOUSE, AND ITS INMATES.
Zambullo surveyed, by turns, with much curiosity, the several rooms and the unfortunate creatures they contained; and while he was reflecting on the scene thus presented to his eyes, the Devil said to him: "There they are, my master! You see insanity in every form there;—men and women, laughing idiots and raging maniacs, locks grey with age, and cheeks which still retain their bloom. Well! now I will tell you what has turned their heads: we will go from room to room, but will begin with the men.
"The first whom you observe, and who appears so violent, is a political fanatic of Castile. He is a proud citizen of Madrid, in the heart of which he was born; and he is more jealous of the honour of his country than was ever citizen of ancient Rome. He went mad with chagrin at reading in the gazette, that twenty-five Spaniards had suffered themselves to be beaten by a party of fifty Portuguese.
"His neighbour is a licentiate, who was so anxious to obtain a benefice, that he played the hypocrite at court during ten long years; and whose brain was turned by despair at finding himself constantly overlooked among the promotions: his madness, however, is not without its advantage; seeing that he at present imagines himself to be Archbishop of Toledo. And what if he deceive himself? His pleasure is none the less: indeed, I think, that he is so much the more to be envied; since his error is a golden dream, which will only end with his life, and he will not be called to account in the other world for the application of his revenues in this.
"The next in rotation is a ward, whom his guardian declared to be insane, that he might have the uncontrolled use of his property: the poor youth has become really mad from rage at his unjust confinement. After the minor, comes a schoolmaster, who lost his wits in search of the paulo post futurum of the Greek verb; and, then again, we have a merchant, whose reason was shipwrecked with a vessel that belonged to him, although it had stood the shock of two bankruptcies which had before threatened to engulph him.
"The person who is lodged in the next room is the ancient captain Zanubio, a Neapolitan cavalier, who came to establish himself in Madrid, and whom jealousy has settled where he is: you shall hear his history.