Towards the end of the carnival my mother wrote to Abbot Grimani that it would be a scandal if his lordship found me lodged under the roof of an opera dancer.
Grimani, whose virtue was easily alarmed after the fact, decided I must be housed more "respectably."
Grimani took counsel with the Abbé Tosello. Between them they devised a remedy: they would send me to a clerical seminary.
They settled everything without telling me a word, and Tosello undertook the delicate task of announcing the verdict and extracting my consent.
He came to me armed with sentences and metaphors.
He spoke of "retreat," of "holy recollection," of "a sanctuary for your vocation," all wrapped in the kind of rhetoric that tries to sugar-coat a dose known to be bitter.
I let him go on until his adjectives began to chase one another in circles, then I burst out laughing.
"You may send me wherever you please," I said. "I am ready."
The good man stared as if I had stolen his peroration.
Their plan, viewed in a calm light, was absurd.
For at the age of seventeen, and with a nature like mine, the idea of placing me in a seminary ought never to have been entertained.
But as a dutiful disciple of Socrates, I held to my maxim. If I felt no invincible repugnance, I would follow where fate pointed.
Since the idea amused rather than repelled me, I accepted it at once and even grew curious to see how such a place would try to tame me.
I informed Grimani that I was prepared to accept anything, on one condition: that Razetta should have no hand in the matter.
He promised; he did not keep his word when I left the seminary.
I never decided whether his kindness made him stupid or his stupidity made him kind. All the Grimanis seemed kneaded from the same dough.
The cruellest trick Dame Fortune plays on an intelligent young man is to place him under the protection of a fool.
A few days later, dressed as a seminarian by Abbe Tosello's careful hands, I was taken to Saint-Cyprian of Murano and presented to the rector.
The church of Saint-Cyprian is served by monks of the order founded by the blessed Jerome Miani, a Venetian nobleman who turned his pride into discipline.
The rector received me with open arms and moist eyes.
His words were full of unction; his look was full of doubt.
As he spoke of grace, recollection, regularity, I fancied I could hear the unspoken phrase: to put an end to your irregular life.
The suspicion pricked my dignity.
"Reverend father," I said, "I do not think anyone has the right to punish me."
"No, no, my son," he replied quickly. "I meant only that you will be very happy with us."
They proceeded to prove it.
They showed me three vast halls where a hundred and fifty seminarians walked or studied. Then a row of classrooms.
Then the refectory with its long tables. Then the dormitory with its two lines of beds. Lastly gardens reserved for play hours.
They spoke of order, brotherhood, piety, and did their best to persuade me that nothing in the world could be happier than to live shut up there except perhaps the regret I should feel when the bishop came to remove me.
To console me for this future sorrow, they added that I would remain only five or six months.
Their zeal entertained me.
I had never seen so many serious faces labour to convince a man that confinement was a privilege.
I entered the seminary at the beginning of March.
I prepared myself for this new life by spending the previous night between my two little friends, Nanette and Marton.
They soaked their pillows with tears, clung to me as if I were going to the galleys, and asked again and again how I could submit so quietly.
Their aunt and good M. Rosa were no less astonished.
The day before entering the seminary, I went to deposit my papers with Madame Manzoni.
They filled a large parcel; I placed it in her keeping for fifteen years.
The old lady -now ninety and as lively as a woman half her age- received me with her usual bright smile.
"You will not last a month in that seminary," she said.
"I beg your pardon, madam," I replied. "I am glad to go, and I intend to stay until the bishop arrives."
She shook her head.
"You do not know yourself, my son, nor the bishop. You will not remain long with him either."
The Abbé took me to the seminary by gondola.
We had not reached San Michele when a violent nausea seized me.
The boat rocked gently; my stomach did not.
The Abbé ordered us ashore, flustered.
An apothecary nearby dosed me with mint-water, and the attack passed as suddenly as it had come.
Its cause was no mystery to me.
I spent the previous night offering too many sacrifices on the altar of love.
Anyone who has known the double torment of devotion and impending separation -one's mistress in one's arms and the dread of losing her for good- will understand the agitation of those hours.
Each embrace persuaded me it was the last. Each certainty drove me to seek one more.
By dawn I had exhausted both my strength and my incense.
Yet I could not resist the impulse to make one final offering, even when I had none left to give.
The priest delivered me to the rector, who handed my luggage to a lay brother.
I followed them to the dormitory, placed my cloak and hat on the bed assigned to me, and it was decided that I was not to sleep among the adults.
"Too young," the rector explained, though I matched many of them in height.
He did not add what I knew too well -that I refused to shave.
Vanity persuaded me that the down on my face left no doubt of my youth.
It was ridiculous, of course; but when does man cease to be so? We get rid of our vices more easily than of our follies.
Tyranny has not had sufficient power over me to compel me to shave myself; it is only in that respect that I have found tyranny to be tolerant.
The rector clasped his hands behind his back.
"To which school do you wish to belong?" he asked.
"To the dogmatic, reverend father. I wish to study the history of the Church."
"I will introduce you to the father examiner."
"I am doctor in divinity, most reverend father," I replied, "and do not want to be examined."
"It is necessary, my dear son," he said, already leading the way. "Come with me."
This necessity appeared to me an insult.
For a moment anger rose; then another spirit, far more agreeable -mischief- whispered in my ear the best way to mystify them.
If they wished to examine me, they would have their examination.
The examiner questioned me in Latin. I answered in Latin also … very bad Latin.
Solecisms flowered in every sentence. Declensions collapsed. Conjugations wandered.
The poor man stared at me as at a masterpiece of ignorance and finally declared that I must be placed in a lower class of grammar.
His verdict delighted me.
I found myself among twenty young urchins of about ten years, who, hearing I was doctor in divinity, began chanting:
'Accipiamus pecuniam, et mittamus asinum in patriam suam'.
(Let us take the money, and send the donkey back to his country.)
Their laughter echoed through the hall, and I found the sound surprisingly pleasant. Mischief, after all, is good company at any age.
Our play hours afforded me great amusement.
My dormitory companions -all of them already in the philosophy class- treated me as a sort of tolerated inferior.
When they spoke of their own sublime discourses, they laughed if I appeared to be listening attentively to their discussions which, as they thought, must have been perfect enigmas to me.
I had no wish to disabuse them.
Their contempt supplied me with daily comedy.
I did not intend to betray myself, but an accident, which I could not avoid, forced me to throw off the mask.
One morning, as we came back from mass, I met Father Barbarigo from the Convent of the Salute in Venice, my former master in physics.
He recognized me at once and greeted me with real warmth.
"Well, my friend," he asked, "what science are you studying here?"
"Grammar, Father," I replied.
He laughed, thinking it a jest. The rector, who had joined us, did not laugh.
I left them together and went off to my class as if nothing were amiss.
An hour later I was summoned.
The rector received me with a face that tried to be calm and did not quite succeed.
"Why did you feign such ignorance at the examination?" he asked.
"Why," I answered, "were you unjust enough to compel me to the degradation of an examination?"
He looked annoyed.
Without another reproach he took me by the arm and led me straight to the dogmatic school.
My dormitory companions, deep in their "sublime" debates, were struck dumb when they saw me enter and take my place among them.
At playtime that afternoon they formed a circle around me.
The boy they had mocked as a dunce had become, by a single adjustment of the rector's mind, their equal.
Their jeers turned into offers of friendship which I was happy to accept.