The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the Second

Оглавление

Gozzi Carlo. The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi; Volume the Second

XXXI

XXXII., XXXIII., XXXIV

(i.)

(ii.)

(iii.)

XXXV

XXXVI

XXXVII

XXXVIII

XXXIX

XL

XLI

XLII

XLIII

XLIV

XLV

XLVI

XLVII

XLVIII

XLIX

L

LI

LII

LIII

LIV

LV

LVI

LVII

LVIII

LIX

LX

LXI

LXII

LXIII

LXIV

LXV

PIETRO LONGHI,

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Отрывок из книги

[Gozzi having been accused by his adversary Gratarol of hypocrisy and covert libertinism, wished to make a full confession of his frailties to the world, while the witnesses of his life and conversation were still alive, and his statements could be challenged. With this object he related three love-passages of his early manhood. To omit these altogether from his Memoirs would be tantamount to doing him a grave injustice, since they were meant to illustrate his sentiments upon the delicate question of the relation between men and women in affairs of the heart. They are not, however, suited to the taste of the present century, being dictated with a frankness and a sense of humour which remind us of our own Fielding. Their tone is wholesome and manly, but some of their details are crude. It is the translator's duty in these circumstances to subordinate literary to ethical considerations. Repeating the stories, so far as possible, in Gozzi's own language, he must supply those parts which he feels bound to omit by a brief statement of fact. The portions of this chapter which are enclosed in brackets contain the translator's abstract. The rest is a more or less literal version of the original text.]

In order to relate the trifling stories of my love-adventures, I must return to the period of my early manhood. I ought indeed to blush while telling them, at the age which I have reached; but I promised the tales, and I shall give them with all candour, even though I have to blush the while.

.....

Certainly she must have had plenty of work to finish; for I observed her every day seated at the same window sewing with melancholy seriousness. While shunning, so far as this was possible, the danger of conversing with her, my poor heart felt it would be less than civil not to speak a word from time to time. Accordingly we now and then engaged in short dialogues. They turned upon philosophical and moral topics – absurdities in life, human nature, fashion. I tried to take a lively tone, and entered upon some innocent witticisms, in order to dispel her gloom. But I rarely succeeded in waking a smile on her fair lips. Her replies were always sensible, decorous, ingenious, and acute. While debating some knotty point which admitted controversy, she forgot to work, left her needle sticking in the stuff, looked me earnestly in the face and listened to my remarks as though she were reading a book which compelled her to concentrate her mind. Flattering suggestions filled my head. I sought to extinguish them, and grew still more abstemious in the indulgence of our colloquies.

More than a month had passed in this way, when I noticed, on opening a conversation of the usual kind, that the young woman gazed hard at me and blushed a little, without my being able to assign any cause for her blushes. A few indifferent sentences were exchanged. Still I perceived her to be restless and impatient, as though she were annoyed by my keeping to generalities and not saying something she was waiting for. I did not, and really could not, make it out. I might have imagined she was expecting a declaration. But she did not look like a woman of that sort, and I was neither bold nor eager enough to risk it. At length I thought it best to remark that I saw she had things to think over, and that I would not infringe upon her leisure further. I bowed, and was about to take my leave. "Please, do not go!" she exclaimed in some distress, and rising at the same time from her chair: "Did you not receive, two days ago, a note from me in answer to one of yours, together with a miniature?" "What note? What answer? What miniature?" cried I in astonishment: "I know nothing about the matter." "Are you telling the truth?" she asked, turning pale as she spoke. I assured her on my honour that I did not know what she referred to. "Good God!" she said with a sigh, and sinking back half-fainting on her chair: "Unhappy me! I am betrayed." "But what is it all about?" continued I, in a low voice, from my window, truly grieved to be unable to assist her. Ultimately, after a pause of profound discouragement, she rose and said that in her position she had extreme need of advice. She had obtained her husband's permission to go that day after dinner to visit an aunt of hers, a nun, on the Giudecca. Therefore she begged me to repair at twenty-one o'clock to the sotto portico by the ponte storto at S. Apollinare.[4] There I should see, waiting or arriving, a gondola with a white handkerchief hung out of one of its windows. I was to get boldly into this gondola, and I should find her inside. "Then you will hear all about the circumstances in which my want of caution has involved me." This she spoke with continued agitation. "I have no one but you to go to for advice. If I deserve compassion, do not fail me. I believe enough in your discretion to confide in you." With these words she bowed and rapidly retired.

.....