At Bologna I met the famous Afflisio, who had been discharged from the imperial service and had turned manager. He went from bad to worse, and five or six years later committed forgery, was sent to the galleys, and there died.
I was also impressed by the example of a man of a good family, who had once been rich. This was Count Filomarino. He was living in great misery, deprived of the use of all his limbs by a succession of venereal complaints. I often went to see him to give him a few pieces of money, and to listen to his malevolent talk, for his tongue was the only member that continued active. He was a scoundrel and a slanderer, and writhed under the thought that he could not go to Naples and torment his relations, who were in reality respectable people, but monsters according to his shewing.
Madame Sabatini, the dancer, had returned to Bologna, having made enough money to rest upon her laurels. She married a professor of anatomy, and brought all her wealth to him as a dower. She had with her her sister, who was not rich and had no talents, but was at the same time very agreeable.
At the house I met an abbe, a fine young man of modest appearance. The sister seemed to be deeply in love with him, while he appeared to be grateful and nothing more.
I made some remark to the modest Adonis, and he gave me a very sensible answer. We walked away together, and after telling each other what brought us to Bologna we parted, agreeing to meet again.
The abbe, who was twenty-four or twenty-five years old, was not in orders, and was the only son of a noble family of Novara, which was unfortunately poor as well as noble.
He had a very scanty revenue, and was able to live more cheaply at Bologna than Novara, where everything is dear. Besides, he did not care for his relations; he had no friends, and everybody there was more or less ignorant.
The Abbe de Bolini, as he was called, was a man of tranquil mind, living a peaceful and quiet life above all things. He liked lettered men more than letters, and did not trouble to gain the reputation of a wit. He knew he was not a fool, and when he mixed with learned men he was quite clever enough to be a good listener.
Both temperament and his purse made him temperate in all things, and he had received a sound Christian education. He never talked about religion, but nothing scandalized him. He seldom praised and never blamed.
He was almost entirely indifferent to women, flying from ugly women and blue stockings, and gratifying the passion of pretty ones more out of kindliness than love, for in his heart he considered women as more likely to make a man miserable than happy. I was especially interested in this last characteristic.
We had been friends for three weeks when I took the liberty of asking him how he reconciled his theories with his attachment to Brigida Sabatini.
He supped with her every evening, and she breakfasted with him every morning. When I went to see him, she was either there already or came in before my call was over. She breathed forth love in every glance, while the abbe was kind, but, in spite of his politeness, evidently bored.
Brigida looked well enough, but she was at least ten years older than the abbe. She was very polite to me and did her best to convince me that the abbe was happy in the possession of her heart, and that they both enjoyed the delights of mutual love.
But when I asked him over a bottle of good wine about his affection for Brigida, he sighed, smiled, blushed, looked down, and finally confessed that this connection was the misfortune of his life.
"Misfortune? Does she make you sigh in vain? If so you should leave her, and thus regain your happiness."
"How can I sigh? I am not in love with her. She is in love with me, and tries to make me her slave."
"How do you mean?"
"She wants me to marry her, and I promised to do so, partly from weakness, and partly from pity; and now she is in a hurry."
"I daresay; all these elderly girls are in a hurry."
"Every evening she treats me to tears, supplications, and despair. She summons me to keep my promise, and accuses me of deceiving her, so you may imagine that my situation is an unhappy one."
"Have you any obligations towards her?"
"None whatever. She has violated me, so to speak, for all the advances came from her. She has only what her sister gives her from day to day, and if she got married she would not get that."
"Have you got her with child?"
"I have taken good care not to do so, and that's what has irritated her;
she calls all my little stratagems detestable treason."
"Nevertheless, you have made up your mind to marry her sooner or later?"
"I'd as soon hang myself. If I got married to her I should be four times as poor as I am now, and all my relations at Novara would laugh at me for bringing home a wife of her age. Besides, she is neither rich nor well born, and at Novara they demand the one or the other."
"Then as a man of honour and as a man of sense, you ought to break with her, and the sooner the better."
"I know, but lacking normal strength what am I to do? If I did not go and sup with her to-night, she would infallibly come after me to see what had happened. I can't lock my door in her face, and I can't tell her to go away."
"No, but neither can go on in this miserable way.
You must make up your mind, and cut the Gordian knot, like Alexander."
"I haven't his sword."
"I will lend it you."
"What do you mean?"
"Listen to me. You must go and live in another town. She will hardly go after you there, I suppose."
"That is a very good plan, but flight is a difficult matter."
"Difficult? Not at all. Do you promise to do what I tell you, and I
will arrange everything quite comfortably. Your mistress will not know anything about it till she misses you at supper."
"I will do whatever you tell me, and I shall never forget your kindness;
but Brigida will go mad with grief."
"Well my first order to you is not to give her grief a single thought.
You have only to leave everything to me. Would you like to start to-
morrow?"
"To-morrow?"
"Yes. Have you any debts?"
"No."
"Do you want any money?"