I had come to Doctor Gennaro for sixty ducats.
That was all I expected from Naples. A purse heavy enough to carry me to Rome, a polite supper if fortune felt generous, and perhaps a bed that did not smell of road dust and bad decisions.
Before the night was over, the doctor had laughed at my misfortunes, imprisoned me with hospitality, and placed in my hand the first thread of my Neapolitan fortune.
He began by questioning me.
I had no difficulty in answering him.
What surprised me was not his curiosity, but the way he greeted every reply. No sooner had I finished a sentence than he broke into loud, unstoppable laughter.
I stared at him.
I had just painted for him the misery of Calabria and the picture of the sad situation of the Bishop of Martorano.
These scenes appeared to me more likely to call forth tears than to excite hilarity.
His mirth pricked me like an insult. For a moment I thought he was mocking me, and I felt my temper rising.
He must have read it on my face, because he pressed a hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath.
"Forgive me," he said at last, wiping his eyes. "It is not you. It is us. This laughter is a kind of sickness in my family. One of my uncles died of it."
"What!" I exclaimed, "died of laughing!"
"Yes. This disease, which was not known to Hippocrates, is called li flati."
I looked him over. He was still shaking, yet his eyes were clear. "What do you mean? Does an hypochondriac affection, which causes sadness and lowness in all those who suffer from it, render you cheerful?"
"Yes, because, most likely, my flati, instead of influencing the hypochondrium," he said, tapping himself, "affects my spleen, which my physician asserts to be the organ of laughter. It is quite a discovery."
"You are mistaken; it is a very ancient notion, and it is the only function which is ascribed to the spleen in our animal organization."
He laughed again, softer this time, more like a wheeze. "Well, we must discuss the matter at length, for I hope you will remain with us a few weeks."
"I wish I could, but I must leave Naples to-morrow or the day after."
He leaned closer, suddenly businesslike. "Have you got any money?"
"I rely upon the sixty ducats you have to give me."
At these words, his peals of laughter began again, and as he could see that I was annoyed, he said, "I am amused at the idea that I can keep you here as long as I like. But be good enough to see my son; he writes pretty verses enough."
And truly his son, although only fourteen, was already a great poet.
A servant led me to the young man's rooms.
I found a boy of fourteen or fifteen with clear features, bright eyes, and and engaging manners. He greeted me politely, pen still in hand.
"You must forgive me," he said. "I cannot attend to you altogether for the present as I have to finish a song for a cousin of the Duchess de Rovino. She is taking the veil at St Claire's. The printer is waiting for my manuscript."
"If the printer is waiting, then you have a very good excuse," I said. "Let me help, if I can."
He hesitated, then pushed the manuscript toward me and read aloud.
The verses surged along, warm and full of pious fire, with turns of phrase that might have come from Guidi's desk.
"You have an ode here, not a song," I told him. "Call it by its right name."
His face lit up at the word "ode." That gave me courage to touch the weak spots.
I praised what deserved it, then, with my pen, crossed out some lines and replaced them with my own.
He watched my hand move, eyes wide, and when I finished he read the new version, cheeks flushing higher with each line.
"You must be Apollo," he cried. "Or at least his Venetian clerk."
While he copied out the fair version, I wrote a sonnet on the same nun and the same convent.
He read it, clapped his hands, and begged me to sign it so he could send it with his ode.
While I was correcting and recopying my manuscript, he went to his father to find out who I was, which made the old man laugh until supper-time.
That evening I discovered that my bed had been set up in the young poet's room. It was their way of telling me I was not a passing guest, but part of the household.
Doctor Gennaro's family was composed of this son and of a daughter unfortunately very plain, of his wife and of two elderly, devout sisters. 1
Amongst the guests at the supper-table I met several literary men, and the Marquis Galiani, who was at that time annotating Vitruvius.
He had a brother, an abbe whose acquaintance I made twenty years after, in Paris, when he was secretary of embassy to Count Cantillana.
The next day, at supper, I was presented to the celebrated Genovesi; I had already sent him the letter of the Archbishop of Cosenza.
He spoke to me of Apostolo Zeno and of the Abbe Conti.
He remarked that it was considered a very venial sin for a regular priest to say two masses in one day for the sake of earning two carlini more, but that for the same sin a secular priest would deserve to be burnt at the stake.
The nun took the veil on the following day, and Gennaro's ode and my sonnet had the greatest success.
The following day, while Doctor Gennaro was receiving visits for his name day, a Neapolitan gentleman asked to see me.
He was tall, dark, and carried himself with ease.
"I am Don Antonio Casanova," he said. "They tell me you are staying here. May I ask whether your family was originally from Venice?"
"I am, sir," I answered modestly, "the great-grandson of the unfortunate Marco Antonio Casanova, secretary to Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, who died of the plague in Rome, in the year 1528, under the pontificate of Clement VII."
I had hardly finished when he threw his arms around me.
"Cousin!" he cried.
At that word Doctor Gennaro bent double. He clutched his sides, gasping, tears streaming down his cheeks. He tried to speak and only wheezed.
His wife sprang up in alarm.
"Don Antonio," she said sharply, "you know his condition. Could you not have chosen a quieter way to greet your relations?"
"I never thought the circumstance likely to provoke mirth," he protested, still holding my shoulders and staring at me with solemn delight.
I said nothing, for, in reality, I felt that the recognition was very comic.
When the doctor finally recovered his breath, Don Antonio invited me to dinner for the next day with my young friend Paul Gennaro, who had already become my alter ego.
At his house he led me at once to a cabinet and drew out a roll of papers tied with faded ribbon.
"Our family tree," he said, spreading it on the table.
He pointed proudly to the top. "Here, Don Francisco, brother of Don Juan."
In the genealogy I knew by heart, Don Juan was my direct ancestor, born after his father's death. A brother might have existed.
When he learned that my line began with a Don Francisco of Aragon in the fourteenth century, his eyes shone.
"Then the whole house of the Casanovas of Saragossa is ours," he said.
He looked at me with such earnest joy that I did not have the heart to dispute a single twig.
"And what lucky accident had brought you to Naples, cousin?" he asked.
"As I embraced the ecclesiastical profession," I said, "I am going to Rome to seek my fortune."
He nodded, satisfied, and presented me to his family.
I thought that I could read on the countenance of my cousin, his dearly beloved wife, that she was not much pleased with the newly-found relationship.
However, his pretty daughter and a still prettier niece of his, might very easily have given me faith in the doctrine that blood is thicker than water, however fabulous it may be.
After dinner, Don Antonio informed me that the Duchess de Bovino had expressed a wish to know the Abbe Casanova who had written the sonnet in honor of her relative, and that he would be very happy to introduce me to her as his own cousin.
I looked down at my sleeves.
"My cousin," I said quietly, "I would like you to not insist on presenting me, as I am only provided with travelling suits, and I have to be careful of my purse so as not to arrive in Rome without money."
Delighted at my confidence, and approving my economy, he said, "I am rich, and you must not scruple to come with me to my tailor."
He accompanied his offer with an assurance that the circumstance would not be known to anyone, and that he would feel deeply mortified if I denied him the pleasure of serving me. 2
I shook him warmly by the hand and said, "I am ready to do anything you please, cousin."
We went to a tailor who took my measure, and who brought me on the following day everything necessary to the toilet of the most elegant abbe.
Don Antonio returned, dined with Doctor Gennaro, and after the meal took me and my friend Paul to the duchess.
She received us in a high salon flooded with afternoon light. Without ceremony she greeted me in the familiar form, as Neapolitan ladies do when they mean to be gracious.
"So you are the poet," she said, holding out her hand.
Her daughter, then only ten or twelve years old, was very handsome, and a few years later became Duchess de Matalona.
The duchess presented me with a snuff-box in pale tortoise-shell with arabesque incrustations in gold, and she invited us to dine with her on the morrow, promising to take us after dinner to the Convent of St. Claire to pay a visit to the new nun.
From the palace I slipped away alone and went to Panagiotti's to claim the cask of muscatel.
The manager had it drawn off into two smaller barrels. One I sent to Don Antonio, the other to Doctor Gennaro.
As I was leaving the shop I met the worthy Panagiotti, who was glad to see me.
Was I to blush at the sight of the good man I had at first deceived?
No, for in his opinion I had acted very nobly towards him.
When I reached home, Doctor Gennaro managed to thank me for my handsome present without laughing.
The next day Don Antonio presented me with a gold headed cane worth at least fifteen ounces, and his tailor brought me a travelling suit and a blue great coat, with the buttonholes in gold lace.
I therefore found myself splendidly equipped.
At the duchess's table that evening I was introduced to Don Lelio Caraffa, a man whose quiet voice made others fall silent.
While the rest spoke loudly, he listened, and when he spoke, even the duchess leaned nearer. They said the king himself honoured him with the title of friend.
I spent two agreeable hours in the convent parlour, answering as best I could the curiosity of the nuns, who pressed so close to the grating that they seemed determined to pass through it.
Had destiny permitted me to remain in Naples, my fortune might there have been made.
But though I had formed no settled design, the voice of fate called me to Rome, and I resisted my cousin Antonio's repeated entreaties that I should accept the honourable office of tutor in several houses of the first distinction.
Don Antonio gave a splendid dinner in my honour, though he was plainly vexed by the sight of his wife casting looks of no great tenderness upon her newly acquired cousin.
More than once I observed her glance at my new costume and then lean to whisper something to the guest beside her. She probably knew what had passed.
There are certain stations in life with which I can never make peace.
In the most brilliant company, if I suspect one person of staring at me, my composure deserts me at once.
My self-esteem feels wounded, my wit takes flight, and I remain there in the guise of a dolt.
It is a weakness of mine, and one I have never been able to cure.
Don Lelio Caraffa then offered me a very liberal salary if I would undertake the education of his nephew, the Duke de Matalona, who was then ten years old.
I thanked him warmly, and begged him to show himself my true benefactor in another manner, namely by giving me a few letters of introduction for Rome.
He granted this request without hesitation, and wrote one for Cardinal Acquaviva and another for Father Georgi.
I learned that my friends had been so obliging as to procure for me the honour of kissing the Queen's hand.
"They have procured you the honour of kissing the Queen's hand," said Don Antonio.
The room applauded my good fortune.
I felt the blood leave my face.
Everyone saw honour where I saw danger.
They spoke of the favour, of the distinction, of the impression I should make, of the road which such a presentation might open. I listened, bowed, and felt myself already lost.
A court is a place where a man may be ruined by a single question, and I had already too many answers in reserve.
The Queen would certainly have asked me some questions. I could not have avoided telling her that I had just left Martorano and the poor bishop whom she had sent there. That alone might have placed me in a ridiculous position.
Worse still, the Queen knew my mother. She would very likely have alluded to my mother's profession in Dresden.
That word, spoken before Don Antonio, would have mortified him, and my pedigree, which had been received with so much tenderness, would have been covered with ridicule.
I knew the force of prejudice! I should have been ruined, and I felt I should do well to withdraw in good time. 3
Don Antonio, seeing me silent, believed me overcome by gratitude.
"You are moved," he said.
"I am," I answered, and in that I spoke the truth.
But I was moved as a man is moved when he sees the trap door under the carpet.
When I took leave of Don Antonio, he pressed into my hand a fine gold watch and gave me a letter for Don Gaspar Vidaldi, whom he called his best friend.
Don Gennaro paid me the sixty ducats. His son, with tears in his eyes and vows on his lips, begged me to write.
They all came with me to the coach, their blessings following me as warmly as their embraces, and their tears mixing with mine.
From the day I landed in Chiozza until my arrival in Naples, fortune had seemed resolved to frown upon me.
In Naples she softened, and on my return she smiled outright.
That city has always dealt kindly with me, as the reader of these memoirs will discover in time.
My readers must not forget that in Portici I was on the point of disgracing myself, and there is no remedy against the degradation of the mind, for nothing can restore it to its former standard. It is a case of disheartening atony for which there is no possible cure.
I was not ungrateful to the good Bishop of Martorano.
If his summons to his diocese had harmed me without meaning to, I still owed to his letter to M. Gennaro all the good fortune that had lately come my way.
From Rome, I wrote to thank him. 4
Author Note:
Well, I dare say, fortunately very plain, or Master Casanova will immediately ruin his reputation as an eminent abbe.
Don Antonio Casanova's delicate generosity is impressive and delightful at once.
Young Casanova is very aware of his circumstances, it's funny how that as Fortune smiled at him in Naples, nothing of it is substantial and easily blown away.
Finally, we are about to see Rome for real.