from this well-meant tyranny. But such was not
the case. Doctor Bartolommeo Bevilacqua, rector of the public schools of
Venice, and my good friend, arrived at Padua. He had been sent off
post-haste by the lady to persuade me into taking the step which she
thought it a folly to refuse. I repeated all that I had previously
urged, and declared that my mind was made up to accept no office under
any magistracy. I meant to remain a peace-loving madman to the end.
Perhaps I shall be condemned for the repugnance I have always felt to
becoming the slave of great folk and public interests; but this point in
my character is fixed and ineradicable. I may add that the result of
these negotiations was to free me from the pertinacious patronage
against which I rebelled with my whole nature.

Under these various anxieties and the heat of the season my health gave
away. I was seized with a violent fever, which confined me to bed for
three days. During that time the news which I received about my brother
grew always worse and worse. When I was able to leave my room, I went to
Mme. Cenet. She told me that a priest had been summoned to assist him in
his passage from this world. Two of the doctors, on examining his
expectoration, found that it consisted of pure matter. They concluded
that the lungs, bruised by his fall, had begun to gangrene, and that he
had only a few hours to live. I asked whether Professor della Bona had
repeated his visit. She answered, No. Happening just then to catch sight
of that eminent physician passing along the Prato della Valle, I ran
out, and besought him to come up and give a look at my poor dying
brother. He willingly complied; and on the way I told him what the
doctors had discovered.

At this point I am obliged to exchange the tragic tone for comic humour,
and shall perhaps appear satirical against my will.

The worthy professor listened attentively a long time to my brother's
breathing. Then he said: "The respiration is certainly weak, but
unimpeded. There can be no question of gangrene. Where is that purulent
expectoration?" We brought him the vessel, which he inspected closely,
and laid aside with these words: "There is no pus there; it is only
butter." And so it was. The butter which Mme. Cenet administered had
been spat up from time to time by the patient. "Our invalid," continued
the physician, "is dying of nothing else but an acute fever. Has he
drunk the manna-water I recommended, and have you ma