As soon as I landed with my luggage, I took a mean lodging and went to present myself to M. André Dolfin, the proveditore-generale.
He received me kindly and renewed his promise that I should soon be promoted to lieutenant.
From him I went to my captain, M. Camporese, who received me well.
My third visit was to the commander of the galleasses, M. D. R., to whom M. Antonio Dolfin, who I travelled with from Venice to Corfu, had kindly recommended me.
After a short conversation, he said,
"Would you remain with me with the title adjutant?"
I accepted at once. I told him that I felt deeply honoured, and that he would always find me ready to obey his orders.
He had me shown immediately to a room in his house. The next day I was established there.
I then asked my captain for a French soldier to serve me. He granted the request, and I was pleased to discover that the man assigned to me was a hairdresser by trade and a great talker by nature.
Both talents suited me.
My beautiful hair, would be in good hands; and as I wished to practice French, his tongue would be as useful to me as his comb.
He was, in other respects, a rascal of the first order: a drunkard, a debauchee, a peasant from Picardy, and barely able to read or write.
None of this troubled me. I only wanted him to serve me and talk to me, and in those two duties he was sufficient.
His French was good, his memory better, and his shame nonexistent.
He knew by heart a great number of erotic songs and smutty stories which he could tell in the most laughable manner.
When I had sold the goods brought from Constantinople, except the wines, I found myself master of nearly five hundred sequins.
The first use I made of this little fortune was to redeem everything I had pledged with the Jews. Then I turned to money whatever I did not need.
I was determined not to play any longer as a dupe, but to secure in gambling all the advantages which a prudent young man could obtain without sullying his honour.
I must now give the reader some idea of the life we led in Corfu. As for the town itself, I shall not describe it because there are already many descriptions better than the one I could offer in these pages.
The chief figure in Corfu was the proveditore-generale, who exercised sovereign authority and lived with great magnificence.
The office was then held by M. André Dolfin, a man of sixty, strict, headstrong, and ignorant. He no longer cared for women, but liked to be courted by them.
He received every evening, and his supper table was always laid for twenty-four.
There were three field officers of marines serving on the galleys, and three field officers for the troops of the line aboard the men-of-war.
Each galleass had its captain, called a sopracomito, and we had ten of them. We had also ten commanders, one for each man-of-war, including three capi di mare, or admirals. All belonged to the nobility of Venice.
There were also a dozen civil officers employed in the police of the island or in the administration of justice. They bore the title of grandi officiali di terra.
Those who were blessed with handsome wives had the pleasure of seeing their houses very much frequented by admirers who aspired to win the favours of the ladies, but there was not much heroic love-making, perhaps for the reason that there were then in Corfu many Aspasias whose favours could be had for money.
Gambling was allowed everywhere, and that all absorbing passion was very prejudicial to the emotions of the heart.
The lady most celebrated then in Corfu for beauty and gallantry was Madame F.
Her husband, captain of a galley, had brought her to the island the year before, and madam had greatly astonished all the naval officers.
She had looked at her admirers as if choice were her natural privilege, then selected M. D. R. and dismissed the rest of her suitors without ceremony.
F---- had married her on the very day she had left the convent; she was only seventeen years of age then, and he had brought her on board his galley immediately after the marriage ceremony.
I saw her for the first time at the dinner-table on the day I entered M. D. R.'s house.
She struck me at once.
I thought I was gazing at a supernatural being, so infinitely above all the women I had ever seen, that it seemed impossible to fall in love with her.
She appeared to me of a nature different and so greatly superior to mine that I did not see the possibility of rising up to her.
I persuaded myself that only a Platonic friendship could exist between her and M. D. R. It seemed impossible that so divine a creature should descend to ordinary weakness.
I even thought M. F. quite right not to show any jealousy, though in every other respect he was a perfect fool and entirely unworthy of such a wife.
This first impression was ridiculous.
It could not last, and it did not.
Indeed, the nature of it soon changed, but in a novel manner, at least as far as I was concerned.
My position as adjutant gave me the honour of dining at M. D. R.'s table, but the honour went no farther.
The other adjutant shared it with me. He was, like me, an ensign in the army, and unlike me, the greatest fool I had yet encountered. His name was Sanzonio.
We sat at table, but we were not guests.
No one spoke to us. No one looked at us. We were served, fed, and forgotten. I knew very well that this treatment did not come from deliberate contempt. It was merely the custom of great houses, where inferior officers occupy chairs rather than places. But such knowledge did not make the thing easier to bear.
It enraged me.
I could very well understand that my colleague, Sanzonio, should not complain of such treatment, because he was a blockhead, but I did not feel disposed to allow myself to be put on a par with him.
At the end of eight or ten days, Madame F----, not having condescended to cast one glance upon my person, began to appear disagreeable to me.
I felt piqued, vexed, provoked, all the more because I could not suppose she acted in that manner willfully and purposely. In fact, I would have been highly pleased if there had been premeditation on her part.
But no. I was a nobody in her estimation.
That was intolerable, because I was perfectly certain of being somebody, I wanted her to know it.
At last an occasion offered itself.
A very fine turkey was placed before me. M. D. R., seeing it, told me to carve it.
I immediately went to work.
I was not a skilful carver, and Madame F----, laughing at my lack of dexterity, looked at me and said,
"If you were not certain of performing your task with credit to yourself, you ought not to have undertaken it."
The whole table heard her.
I felt the blood rise to my face. Anger gave me twenty answers, pride rejected nineteen of them, and prudence silenced the last.
I laid down the knife, sat, and swallowed my humiliation with more difficulty than I had swallowed the dinner.
From that moment, my heart overflowed with spite and hatred against her.
To crown my rage, having one day to address me, she asked me what was my name.
She had seen me every day for a fortnight at M. D. R.'s table. She knew I was his adjutant. therefore, she ought to have known my name.
Besides, I had been very lucky at the gaming-table, and I had become rather famous in Corfu. My anger against Madame F was at its height.
At that time, I placed my money in the hands of a certain Maroli, a major in the army and a gambler by profession. He kept the faro bank at the coffee-house.
We had become partners. I helped him when he dealt, and he served me in the same way when I held the cards, which happened often, for Maroli was not generally liked.
He used to hold the cards in a way which frightened the punters; my manners were very different, and I was very lucky. Besides I was easy and smiling when my bank was losing, and I won without shewing any avidity, and that is a manner which always pleases the punters.
This Maroli was the very man who had won all my money during my first stay in Corfu.
When he saw, on my return, that I was determined not to be duped again, he judged me worthy of sharing the wise maxims without which gambling must necessarily ruin all those who meddle with it.
However, I did not entirely trust him.
Every night, as soon as play ended, we settled our accounts. The cashier kept the capital of the bank; the winnings were divided; each of us carried away his share.
Lucky at play, enjoying good health and the friendship of my comrades, who, whenever the opportunity offered, always found me generous and ready to serve them, I should have been satisfied with my condition.
But I was not.
At least not until I find myself more considered at M. D. R.'s table, and treated with less haughtiness by his lady who, without any reason, seemed disposed to humiliate me.
My self-love bled every evening.
I hated her.
Yet the more I hated her, the more carefully I observed her. The more I admired the perfection of her beauty, the more I accused her mind of poverty. I found her lacking in wit, judgment, delicacy, and feeling.
She might have made the conquest of my heart without bestowing hers upon me. All I wanted was not to be compelled to hate her.
That was what I could not understand.
What pleasure could she find in being detested, when a little kindness would have made her adored?
I could not call it coquetry as I had never given her the least proof that I admired her beauty. She could not be punishing me for a passion I had not declared.
D. R. seemed to interest her only in a very slight manner, and as to her husband, she cared nothing for him.
In short, that charming woman made me very unhappy.
What angered me most was the was the knowledge that, without her disdain, I might never have thought of her.
My vexation was increased by the feeling of hatred entertained by my heart against her, a feeling which until then I had never known to exist in me, and the discovery of which overwhelmed me with confusion.