and that he was
mistaking me for some one else. He maintained with great warmth and
assurance that he knew me, and that I was his kind master Paruta. I
perceived that he took me for a Venetian patrician of that name, but I
vainly strove to disabuse him. The good man, thinking perhaps that I
denied the title of Paruta in order to escape his thanks, followed me a
long way with a perfect storm of blessings, vowing to pray to God until
his dying day for my happiness and for that of the whole Paruta family.
I asked a friend who knew the nobleman in question if I resembled him.
He replied that Paruta was lean, tall, very lightly built, with thin
legs and a pale face, and that he had not the least similarity to me.

Everybody knows or did know Michele dall'Agata, the celebrated
impresario of the opera;[9] it is notorious that the fellow was a good
span shorter than me, two palms broader, and wholly different in dress
and personal appearance. Well, through a tedious course of years, as
long as this man lived, it was my misfortune to be stopped upon the road
almost every day, by singers and dancers of both sexes, by
chapel-masters, tailors, painters, letter-carriers, &c., all of whom
mistook me for Michele. I had to listen to interminable complaints,
lengthy expressions of gratitude, inquiries after lodgings, grumblings
about meagre decorations and scanty wardrobes. From the letter-carriers
I had, over and over again, to refuse letters and parcels addressed to
Michele dall'Agata, screaming, protesting, swearing that I was not
Michele. All these persons, when they reluctantly at last took leave,
turned back from time to time and stared at me, like men bereft of
sense, showing their firm conviction that I _was_ Michele, who had
reasons for not wishing to _appear_ Michele. One summer, on reaching
Padua, I learned that Signora Maria Canziani, an excellent and
well-conducted dancer, and my good friend, had lately been confined. I
wished to pay her a visit, and inquired from a woman at her lodgings if
I might be introduced into her room. She responded with these words
addressed to her mistress: "Madam, Signor Michele dall'Agata is waiting
outside, and would like to offer his respects to you." When I entered
the apartment, poor Canziani burst into such peals of laughter at the
woman's blunder that I thought she must have died. Having paid this
visit, I chanced to meet the celebrated professor of astronomy, Toaldo,
on the bridge of San