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Updated: May 27, 2025
In the eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his graceful comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of Metastasio and the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there has been a succession of able dramatists Monti, Gozzi, Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, etc.; and as the class of plays acted was elevated, so the character of the performers was also improved.
Doctor Gozzi told me that there could not be the shadow of a doubt that his unfortunate sister was possessed, as, if she had only been mad, she never would have so cruelly ill-treated the Capuchin, Prospero, and he determined to place her under the care of Father Mancia. Sunday had come; Bettina had made a good dinner, but she had been frantic all through the day.
Doctor Gozzi had also given way to merriment; but begged that the farce should come to an end, for he deemed that his father's eccentricities were as many profanations against the sacredness of exorcism. At last the exorcist, doubtless tired out, went to bed saying that he was certain that the devil would not disturb his daughter during the night.
In the evening when I came down to supper I found that Bettina's bed had been brought to the kitchen close by her mother's; but it was no concern of mine, and I remained likewise perfectly indifferent to the noise made during the night, and to the confusion which took place in the morning, when she had a fresh fit of convulsions. Doctor Gozzi and his father returned in the evening.
When Doctor Gozzi granted me the privilege of going out alone, he gave me an opportunity for the discovery of several truths which, until then, were not only unknown to me, but the very existence of which I had never suspected. On my first appearance, the boldest scholars got hold of me and sounded my depth.
Wine alone gave him sense and spirit, for when sober he was incapable of attending to the simplest family matter, and his wife often said that he never would have married her had not his friends taken care to give him a good breakfast before he went to the church. But Doctor Gozzi had also a sister, called Bettina, who at the age of thirteen was pretty, lively, and a great reader of romances.
Father Mancia smiled, dipped the sprinkler over and over in the holy water, gave us all a generous shower, and took his leave. Doctor Gozzi told us that the exorcist would come again on the morrow, and that he had promised to deliver Bettina within three hours if she were truly possessed of the demon, but that he made no promise if it should turn out to be a case of madness.
"If you have read your Virgil or Homer," Gozzi tells us, "you have seen Illyrians. These people are quite as pagan in their rites of marriage and the burying of their dead as any people of pagan antiquity. One of their favorite national games consists in lifting a tremendous disk cut out of marble and hurling it to a great distance. Is not this Diomedes and Turnus?
Doctor Olivo happened to come in at that moment, and inquired whether he would be in the way; he was answered in the negative, provided he had faith. Upon which he left, saying that he had no faith in any miracles except in those of the Gospel. Soon after Doctor Gozzi went to his room, and finding myself alone with Bettina I bent down over her bed and whispered in her ear.
Doctor Gozzi had taught me well enough to enable me to scrape on the violin in the orchestra of a theatre, and having mentioned my wishes to M. Grimani he procured me an engagement at his own theatre of Saint Samuel, where I earned a crown a day, and supported myself while I awaited better things.
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