1. Three thousand of Byron's letters have survived? a remarkable number for so short a life. In
general they are our best single biographical source
for the poet, providing running commentary on his
day-to-day concerns and activities and giving us
the clearest possible picture of his complex per
sonality, a picture relatively (but not entirely) free
of the posturings that pervade both the romantic
poems and the satires. The texts of our small sam
ple here are from Leslie A. Marchand's twelve- volume edition, Byro?i's Letters and Journals (1973-82).
1. Irish poet and a good friend of Byron since they met in 1811. Moore's Life of Byron in 1830 is the
sole source for many of Byron's letters, including
this one.
2. I.e., have eaten no flesh (the disciples of the Greek philosopher-mathematician Pythagoras
were strict vegetarians).
3. These asterisks (as well as those in the next paragraph and near the end of the letter) are Moore's,
representing omissions in his printed text.
4. Moore's father had been dismissed from his post as barrack master at Dublin.
5. A mythical king of Britain. 6. Shakespeare's Richard III 1.1.24. 7. Moore's Oriental romance Lalla Rookh. 8. Canto 3 of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1816).
.
LETTERS / 737
mare of my own delinquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my
brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my
mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her?but
I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters.
Venice is in the estro of her carnival, and I have been up these last two nights at the ridotto9 and the opera, and all that kind of thing. Now for an adventure. A few days ago a gondolier brought me a billet without a subscription, intimating a wish on the part of the writer to meet me either in gondola or at the island of San Lazaro, or at a third rendezvous, indicated in the note. 'I know the country's disposition well'?in Venice 'they do let Heaven see those tricks they dare not show,' &c. &c.;' so, for all response, I said that neither of the three places suited me; but that I would either be at home at ten at night alone, or at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer might meet me masked. At ten o'clock I was at home and alone (Marianna was gone with her husband to a conversazione2), when the door of my apartment opened, and in walked a well-looking and (for an Italian) bionda3 girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was married to the brother of my amorosa, and wished to have some conversation with me. I made a decent reply, and we had some talk in Italian and Romaic (her mother being a Greek of Corfu), when lo! in a very few minutes, in marches, to my very great astonishment, Marianna S[egati], in propria persona, and after making polite courtesy to her sister-inlaw and to me, without a single word seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair, and bestows upon her some sixteen slaps, which would have made your ear ache only to hear their echo. I need not describe the screaming which ensued. The luckless visitor took flight. I seized Marianna, who, after several vain efforts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and God knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight.
After damning my servants for letting people in without apprizing me, I found that Marianna in the morning had seen her sister-in-law's gondolier on the stairs, and, suspecting that his apparition boded her no good, had either
returned of her own accord, or been followed by her maids or some other spy
of her people to the conversazione, from whence she returned to perpetrate
this piece of pugilism. I had seen fits before, and also some small scenery of
the same genus in and out of our island: but this was not all. After about an
hour, in comes?who? why, Signor S[egati], her lord and husband, and finds
me with his wife fainting upon the sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion,
dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling-bottles?and the lady as
pale as ashes without sense or motion. His first question was, 'What is all
this?' The lady could not reply?so I did. I told him the explanation was the
easiest thing in the world; but in the mean time it would be as well to recover
his wife?at least, her senses. This came about in due time of suspiration and respiration.
You need not be alarmed?jealousy is not the order of the day in Venice, and daggers are out of fashion; while duels, on love matters, are unknown? at least, with the husbands. But, for all this, it was an awkward affair; and though he must have known that I made love to Marianna, yet I believe he
9. An Italian social gathering. 'Estro': fire, fervor. 2. An evening party. Marianna Segati, wife of a 1.
