While thus engaged in studying ways and means, Signor Zini broke rudely in upon my meditations. Possessed with the desire to obtain our dwelling for his own, he divulged the secret of my visit, and exposed what I had said to him in terms of his own choosing. My belief is that his communication amounted to this:—unless the hot-headed impetuous young fellow, who had come to treat with him, were brought to reason, and compelled to sign the contract, he refused to disburse two shillings.
I was in my upper chamber, studying as usual, and talking with my brother Almorò about his wretched schooling, when my mother appeared one day. Something of philosophical severity in her toilette, something imposing in her manner, which concealed, however, an internal irritation, proclaimed the gravity of her mission. She addressed herself pointedly to me, with the features of a judge rather than a mother, and began a long narration of the straits to which we were reduced. She said that, God be blessed, she had been inspired and assisted to discover six hundred ducats in the hands of a benevolent merchant, which would be placed immediately at her disposal upon such and such conditions. The notary was ready to engross the necessary deeds; and she begged me to declare what I thought about this special providence.
At the bottom of her heart I read Signor Zini's act of treason, and saw that I was lost. However, I answered respectfully that a contract of this kind struck me as anything but providential; still my father had full power to do what he thought fit, without rendering an account of his actions to his sons. She flamed up, and cried with a threatening air that my consent was also needed; she could not believe that I should be so rash and headstrong as to prevent a plan which would relieve my father and the family in our present painful circumstances. I could have uttered several truths without a wish to wound; but certain truths, once spoken, wound incurably. Therefore, I contented myself with observing that I was ready to shed my blood for my father, but that I could not assent to a contract so humiliating and ruinous, the last of a whole series dictated by suicidal policy. People who understood economy were in the habit of calculating and making provision for the future, not of selling or mortgaging their property to meet embarrassments created by their own extravagance. The latter course was rapidly bringing our whole family to the workhouse. Under a disastrous financial system our income had been reduced to three thousand ducats; yet I could not comprehend how we were in such straits as she had described. When people were unable to maintain a decent state in the capital, they could live at ease in the country at one-third of the same cost. Houses ought to be let, and not sold. Still my father had the power to make any contract he thought right; only I did not believe him capable of forcing me to give consent against my will and judgment.
The gestures of submission, respect, and supplication with which I accompanied this speech had no power to mollify the pungency of its significance. My mother rose, with her arms akimbo, and inquired who it was I meant to blame for our misfortunes. Instead of telling the bitter and irrefutable truth, I said that I only blamed fate and the misfortunes themselves. "I reckon," she replied with a smile of fury, "that you will give in your adhesion." "Indeed I shall not," was my answer; and the profound bow with which I spoke these words had the appearance of impertinent irony, although God knows I did not mean it. This was enough to fan the smothered flames into a Vesuvius in eruption. My mother bent her stormy brows upon me—upon the sixth finger of her maternal hands—and broke into the following declamation. "From the moment of my return she had prophesied, like Cassandra, that I should turn the household upside down. She did not know me for one of her own children. The intimacy of a certain friend to whom I had attached myself was ruining the family, as it had ruined me. (Poor innocent generous Signor Massimo!) If I had behaved well during my three years' service, his Excellency Quirini would certainly have rewarded me with some good military situation. As it was, my excursion into Dalmatia had been a source of burdensome expense. I had led a vicious life there ... she knew ... she did not mean to speak ... but ... enough ... and my debt of two hundred ducats to Massimo was merely a sum lost by me at basset."
Now this debt had not yet been paid, and had therefore been of no inconvenience to my family. Such extravagant accusations took me by surprise; and the reader will now perceive the reason of the accounts which I rendered in a former passage of these Memoirs. I should perhaps have flown into a fury alien to my real nature, if these reproofs had been based on truth. The wounding allusion to Signor Massimo nearly roused me, but I preserved my self-control. It was clear that my mother had been deeply prejudiced and cruelly instigated against me. The consciousness of my innocence and a sense of duty made me stand before her rigid and mute as a statue. With an impulse of affection, maternal as it seemed, my mother took my brother Almorò by the arm, and gazing at me with contempt, which strove to be compassionate, she addressed these words to him: "Come away, my dear boy; let us leave that madman to the error of his ways!" Then she turned her back and led him from the room, as though she were saving an innocent creature from some fearful danger.
Convinced by this tragi-comedy that I was the victim of a family cabal, I saw no other course open but to resume my commission as a cadet of cavalry. I left my room, went downstairs, and found all the family (except my father) assembled in commotion, listening to the commiserations of their usual friends enraged against me. It had been proclaimed aloud that I had called them all thieves, retorted against my mother with scandalous and impious audacity, and betrayed my determination to make myself the tyrant of the household. Even my three sisters, who had urged me into opposition, showed themselves sulkily scornful; and though I might have exposed them before the whole company, I did not deign to do so. Confirmed in my resolve to leave Venice for Dalmatia, I buckled on my sword, wasted no words about my intention, and repaired to the Riva dei Schiavoni, to see if I could find a ship for Zara. There I discovered that a trabacolo would set sail in four or five days. The captain was a certain Bernetich. I took down his name, and, wrapped up in my own dark thoughts, spent all that day in exile, wandering far from home.
On my return, I noticed that, though everybody wore a crabbed face against me, something had happened to their satisfaction. Signor Zini, it appeared, was willing to execute the contract without requiring my consent. I did not know that my brother Francesco had left a power of attorney to act for him in Gasparo's hands. With voices of triumph they all exclaimed together that the great sacrifice was to be solemnly and legally performed next day. I did not care to inquire how things had been brought to this conclusion; but putting on as cheerful a face as possible, I went to keep my poor father company as usual for a few hours in the evening.
It will be as well at this point to describe the topography of our house. It was originally built for two separate residences, with double entrances upon the street and water-side, two staircases and two cisterns. At the time when it was planned, the Gozzis formed two families, which were afterwards reduced to one. We occupied the lower floor and some apartments in the highest storey. The second floor was let for 150 ducats a year to an honest iron-monger called Uccelli; but this portion of the mansion had also been sold upon my father's life, by one of those contracts which were only too frequent in our family, for the sum of 1200 ducats to his Excellency the Procuratore Sagredo.
I did all in my power to avoid the least allusion to the painful scenes of the preceding day; but my dear father kept gazing earnestly at me, and shedding tears from time to time. In vain I tried to inspire him with happier thoughts. Would that I could banish all recollection of that night, which was one of the most sombre, the most painful, in the whole course of my existence. Paralysed and dumb for seven long years, he yet retained his mental faculties in their full vigour. Summoning all his force, by signs and stammerings and tears, he made it only too clear how much he suffered from the miserable straits to which the family had been reduced. He also continued to express his sympathy with me for my dislike to sign the projected contract. To my surprise and grief, he intimated that I had only a brief time to wait; his swift approaching death would restore to us the upper dwelling, which had been sold upon his life, and which was much better than the one we occupied. This inarticulate but eloquent discourse ended in a flood of tears. Deeply moved to the bottom of my heart, I strove to tranquillise his mind, and direct his thoughts from such afflicting topics. I perceived that no pains had been spared to make me odious in my father's eyes, and that this had been done without the least regard for his infirmity. Yet I did not attempt to justify my conduct, and said nothing about my firm resolve to leave home. His departure for Friuli had been fixed on the third day after this fatal evening, and I mentally decided to set out for Dalmatia two days later on. My assumed cheerfulness, and the merry turn I gave to all those dismal subjects of reflection, seemed to tranquillise him. Then he tried to lift himself from his arm-chair, as though to get to bed. I helped to raise him, but he tottered more than usual, and sank with his knees toward the ground. I took him in my arms to keep him from falling. Agonising moment! It was clear that a last stroke of apoplexy was carrying away my father from my arms. In a loud voice and with perfect articulation he pronounced the words: "I am dying!" They fell like lead upon my heart, with such cruel force that I nearly dropped. My mother, who was present, fled from the room. I called aloud for aid. Servants hurried in; one of these I dispatched for medical assistance, while the others helped me to place my poor dear father, now quite incapable of any movement, on his bed. A physician, Doctor Bonariva by name, had him bled at once. But nothing could be done to save his life. Assisted by Don Pietro Pighetti, now Canon of S. Marco, in the last religious duties of our creed, he displayed all the signs of Christian resignation and intelligence; and after eight hours of oppression, toilsome suffering, and the pangs of death, my unhappy parent closed his eyes upon the vast obscurity in which his family was plunged.