ursing this condemnable desire within my breast. Of
a truth, I should have been forced to set fire to the house before I
drew him from its shelter. That I shall prove; but I was not an
incendiary.

Doctor Andrea Comparetti, professor of medicine now in the University of
Padua, expressed astonishment when he met me pacing the darkest and the
most perilous alleys on the night of that famous 18th of January. He
lectured me upon my want of prudence, and reminded me of the
circumstances in which I was placed. I laughed the matter off, and he
had to leave me with a smile. Let no one imagine, however, that I am
boasting of the desire which burned my blood, or that I record my
nocturnal wanderings as a sign of heroism. I have never been a
gasconading braggart. From a man who could pen a letter like Gratarol's
I had to expect some stab in the dark. It was only a blind human
weakness which prompted this temerity. I know well enough how to
distinguish recklessness from courage.

LXI.

_The sequel to Gratarol's missive of defiance.--My personal relations
with him cease._

On the morning of the 19th I rose from sleep with a calm mind, and
recovered my natural risibility. My ante-chamber was thronged with
gentlemen, relatives, and friends, who thought it their duty to pay me
respects after the event of yesterday. They were not a little eager to
learn how I had been dragged into a mess so much at variance with the
well-known tenor of my life. While I was gratifying their excusable
curiosity with a candid and humorous account of the whole matter, my
brother Gasparo appeared. He brought with him the Senator Paolo Renier,
afterwards Doge of Venice,[76] whom I had not hitherto the privilege of
knowing.

In compliance with this nobleman's request, I told the whole tale over
again. "So then," he said, "make a plain and brief statement in writing
of the facts you have described to me. Put it in the form of a memorial
to the Supreme Tribunal. Petition to have your honour vindicated.
Enclose Gratarol's defamatory letter. Name your witnesses. Add anything
you think of use, and bring the whole to me."

I obeyed him blindly; and I do not suppose that any one will be so
foolish as to imagine that I departed in one hair's-breadth from the
truth while appealing to those awful Three, before the very name of whom
the whole town trembles.[77]

The difficulty of narrating a long series of closely connected incidents
prevented me from m