The rector inspected the dormitory himself, paced the length of it, questioned my unfortunate bedfellow first -naturally assuming the greater guilt belonged to the one found in the wrong bed- then questioned me.
Nothing in my answers could link me to the extinguished lantern.
At last he ordered us to dress and go to mass.
When we were ready, he returned. His voice had softened, but not his judgment.
"You are both guilty," he said, "of scandalous connivance. And it is proved by the fact of the lantern having been wilfully extinguished. I am disposed to believe that the cause of all this disorder is, if not entirely innocent, at least due only to extreme thoughtlessness; but the scandal given to all your comrades, the outrage offered to the discipline and to the established rules of the seminary, call loudly for punishment. Leave the room."
We stepped between the two doors of the dormitory and we were seized at once.
Four servants bound our hands behind us and marched us to the classroom.
Before the great crucifix they forced us to our knees.
The rector gave a single nod.
The men obeyed it with enthusiasm.
Seven or eight blows fell on each of us—sticks or ropes, I could not tell. I endured them in silence, as did my companion.
When they untied my hands, I stood, bowed slightly to the rector, and asked:
"Reverend Father, may I write two lines at the foot of the cross?"
Surprised, he ordered ink and paper to be brought. I wrote:
"I swear before God that I have never spoken to the seminarist found in my bed. Being innocent, I protest this unjust violence. I shall appeal to the justice of His Lordship, the Patriarch."
My comrade in misery signed beside me.
Then I turned to the pupils gathered around us and read the declaration aloud.
"If any of you can say otherwise," I added, "speak."
They answered at once, all together: we had never been seen speaking to each other; no one knew who had put out the lamp.
The rector left the room under a storm of hisses and muttered curses.
Authority does not enjoy hearing its own injustice named.
He sent us to prison nonetheless in separate cells under the roof.
Within an hour I had my bed, my trunk, and my books and meals were brought regularly.
On the fourth day, the Abbé Tosello arrived with orders to take me back to Venecia.
I asked if he had untangled the affair.
"I questioned everyone," he said. "I saw the other seminarist. I believe you are both innocent. But the rector refuses to admit his error, and I see no remedy."
In seminaries as elsewhere, the hardest doctrine to teach a superior is that he may be wrong.
I stripped off the seminary habit and put on my old Venetian clothes. While a servant carried my trunk to the boat, I followed the Abbé to the Grimani gondola that had brought him.
We left Murano with as much ceremony as a parcel being returned to sender.
On the way, the Abbé gave the boatman orders to land my luggage at the Grimani palace. Then he turned to me:
"I am also charged to tell you that, should you dare present yourself there, the servants have orders to turn you away."
He put me ashore near the Jesuits' convent with no money, no lodging, nothing but what I wore.
I went straight to Madame Manzoni and begged a dinner.
She laughed until the tears ran, delighted to see her prophecy fulfilled so promptly.
After eating, I went to seek counsel from M. Rosa, to see whether the law might shield me from the tyranny of my enemies.
When he had heard the whole story, he promised to draw up that very evening, at Madame Orio's house, an extra-judicial act on my behalf.
I went there at once, eager both for his paper and for the faces of my two charming friends.
Their joy at seeing me reappear out of exile was as lively as I could wish, and my account of my seminary adventures astonished them almost as much as my presence.
Rosa arrived, made me read the draft of his act -still in his own hand, the notary not having had time to engross it- and promised it would be ready in proper form the next day.
I left Madame Orio's to sup with my brother François, who lodged with a painter named Guardi.
He too was suffering under the Grimani tyranny. I promised to set him free of it as soon as I had loosed my own chains.
Towards midnight I returned to Nanette and Marton, who were waiting for me with their usual impatient tenderness.
I must confess, to my shame, that sorrow is a poor ally to love.
A fortnight's absence and abstinence ought to have made me ardent; instead I was heavy, distracted.
They were more distressed by my unhappiness than by my coldness, and their pity was sincere.
I did my best to cheer them, assuring them my misfortunes would soon end, and that we should make up for lost time.
Morning found me with an empty purse and no idea where to go.
I took refuge in St. Mark's Library and stayed there until noon, studying the bindings rather more than the books.
I left with the modest intention of dining again at Madame Manzoni's.
A soldier stopped me on the square.
"A gentleman wishes to speak to you," he said, pointing to a gondola.
"Let him come out," I answered.
The soldier smiled slightly.
"He has a friend nearby who will bring you by force if you prefer noise."
I had a great dislike to noise or to anything like a public exhibition.
The soldiers were unarmed; I could easily have resisted, and no one would have arrested me as this sort of seizure was not lawful in Venecia.
But the thought did not even occur to me.
Sequere Deum was at work again; I felt no resistance rising in me.
There are moments when a brave man has no courage, or thinks it beneath him to display it.
I stepped into the gondola.
The curtain drew back and I saw my evil genius: Razetta, seated beside an officer.
The two soldiers took their place in the prow.
I recognised at once the Grimani gondola.
Without a word, it left the landing-stage and headed toward the Lido.
No one spoke to me; I kept my silence as well.
After half an hour on the water we stopped before the small entrance of the fortress of St. Andrea, at the mouth of the Adriatic; the very spot where, on Ascension Day, the Bucentaur comes when the doge weds the sea.
The sentinel called the corporal. We disembarked.
The officer who had escorted me presented me to the major and handed him a letter.
The major read it, folded it again, and turned to his adjutant, M. Zen.
"Take him to the guard-house."
A quarter of an hour later my escorts had gone.
Zen returned alone, placed three livres and a half in my hand, and informed me that I would receive the same amount each week. It was the pay of a private.
I did not storm or plead; the indignation went inward.
Toward evening I asked that some food be bought for me -pride sits badly on an empty stomach- and then stretched myself on a hard camp bed among the soldiers.
Sleep refused to share it.
The Sclavonians sang coarse songs, chewed garlic, smoked a harsh, acrid tobacco, and washed it down with a wine from their country, as black as ink, which nobody else could swallow.
At daybreak the governor of the fortress, Major Pelodoro, sent for me.
"In making you pass the night in the guard-house," he said, "I merely obeyed an order from Venecia, from the secretary of war. Now, Reverend Sir, my further orders are only to keep you a prisoner in the fort, and I am responsible for your remaining here. I give you the whole of the fortress for your prison. You shall have a good room in which you will find your bed and all your luggage. Walk anywhere you please; but recollect that, if you should escape, you would cause my ruin.
"I am sorry that my instructions are to give you only ten sous a day, but if you have any friends in Venecia able to send you some money, write to them, and trust to me for the security of your letters. Now you may go to bed, if you need rest."
Thus I became a prisoner with the range of a fortress and the allowance of a private—a curious arrangement, but Venecia has always excelled in mixed forms of liberty.
They showed me to my room: a large chamber on the first floor, with two windows looking out over the water.
My bed was already in place.
I went straight to my trunk, found the lock intact and the keys still in my pocket, and felt my first real relief of the day.
On the table, the major had thoughtfully arranged paper, pens, and ink.
A Sclavonian soldier appeared at the door and told me, in his rough but respectful way, that he would wait on me, and that I could pay him when I could. Everyone knew I lived on ten sous a day.
I ordered some soup; once I had eaten, weariness claimed its right.
I lay down and slept nine hours without interruption.
When I opened my eyes, a message awaited me: the major invited me to supper.
For the first time since my arrest, I began to think that life in a fortress might not be entirely intolerable and that things would not be so very bad after all.
I went to the honest governor, whom I found in numerous company.
He introduced me to his wife, to several officers, to the chaplain, and to Paoli Vida, one of the singers from St. Mark's, who had brought his pretty wife to the fort, a sister-in-law of the major, kept there because her husband was too jealous to leave her in Venecia.
Jealous men are not comfortable in that city.
There were also two or three ladies of a certain age whose kindness toward me made them seem quite charming.
My own temper was naturally cheerful; under so many friendly faces it rose quickly.
They all wanted to know why Grimani had sent me to the fortress, so I told them the story of my adventures from my grandmother's death to my arrival at the fortress.
I spoke for three hours, lightly, without resentment, on matters that might have sounded very different if I had chosen another tone.
They listened, questioned, laughed, and pitied in turn.
When we parted for the night, each offered me friendship and help.
This is a piece of good fortune which has never failed me whenever I have been the victim of oppression, until I reached the age of fifty.
Whenever I met with honest persons expressing a curiosity to know the history of the misfortune under which I was labouring, and whenever I satisfied their curiosity, I have inspired them with friendship, and with that sympathy which was necessary to render them favourable and useful to me.
My success that evening came from a very simple trick:
I told the truth.
I related my story quietly, without trimming away the details that weighed against me.
It is simple secret that many men do not know, because the larger portion of humankind is composed of cowards; a man who always tells the truth must be possessed of great moral courage.
Experience has taught me that truth is a talisman, the charm of which never fails in its effect, provided it is not wasted upon unworthy people.
I have always believed that a guilty man who admits everything to his judge stands a better chance of acquittal than an innocent man who hesitates, evades, or colours his answers.
Of course, the speaker must be young, or at least in the prime of manhood; for an old man finds the whole of nature combined against him.
The major found endless amusement in the story of the midnight visit to the seminarist's bed, but the chaplain and the ladies sharply rebuked him for laughing.
Recovering his gravity, he advised me to write out the whole account and send it to the secretary of war; he promised to see that it reached its destination, and assured me he would act as my protector.
The ladies supported him warmly.
One after another, they pressed me to follow the major's counsel.
And so, by the oldest of methods -frank speech- I had turned a fortress into a drawing room and jailers into allies.