ithout
seeking the intervention of Count Barziza, he was at liberty to throw my
doors and windows open and freely to avail himself of my abode. Take
this affair as you choose, it earned for me the estimable good-will of
the patrician Bragadino, caused me to sojourn three days and three
nights in an inn, and gave me occasion to relate one of my innumerable
contretemps.

If I were to expand this chapter with an account of all the
contrarieties I suffered as a house-owner in Venice, it would grow into
a volume.[11] Having to reside in the city, I judged it prudent to take
our property there in exchange for some farms in Friuli. I very soon
perceived that the advantage of this barter fell to my brothers
Francesco and Almoro. My tenants refused to pay their rents, and made
perpetual demands for alterations and repairs. Masons, carpenters,
glaziers, smiths, pavement-layers, emptiers of cesspools, ate up a third
of my revenues. Lawsuits to recover arrears devoured a large part of the
remaining two-thirds. Bad debts, empty houses, and taxes reduced the
total to a bare fifth. Beside this annual loss to my pocket, I was
driven to my wits' ends by the vagaries of the tenants.

I will select two examples. One day a woman of respectable appearance
came, and asked for the lease of an empty house I had on the Giudecca. I
granted her request, and she paid the first instalment of her rent.
After this first payment, all my clamours, demands for arrears, and
menaces were thrown to the winds. She actually inhabited my house for
three years, and discharged her obligations with the coin of promises
and sometimes insults. I offered to make her a free present of her debt
if she would only decamp. This roused her to a state of fury. "Was she
not a woman of honour?" she exclaimed: "she was wont to pay up
punctually, and not to accept alms." At last I had recourse to the
Avvogadori, one of whom sent for the woman, endured her chatter, and
intimated that she must give the house up at the expiration of eight
days. Accordingly, I went to take possession of my property; but
no!--there was the woman, comfortably ensconced with her own family, as
though the house belonged to her. Again I applied to the court. Bailiffs
were dispatched, who turned my tenants with their furniture into the
streets. The keys of the house were placed in my hands, and I crossed
over to the Giudecca to inspect the damaged tenement, of which, at last,
I felt myself once more