XII
The Adventures of the Old Woman (continued)
Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less surprised at the young man’s words, I told him that there were far greater misfortunes in the world than what he complained of. And to convince him of it, I gave him a short history of the horrible disasters that had happened to me; and, as soon as I had finished, I fainted again. He carried me in his arms to a neighbouring cottage, where he had me put to bed, gave me something to eat, waited on me with the greatest attention, comforted me, caressed me, told me that he had never seen anything so perfectly beautiful as myself, and that he had never so much regretted the loss of what no one could restore to him. “I was born at Naples,” he said, “where they castrate two or three thousand children every year; several die of the operation; some acquire voices far beyond the most tuneful of your ladies; and others are sent to govern states and empires.ah My operation was a great success, and I was one of the singers in the Princess of Palestrina’s chapel.” “In my mother’s chapel!” I exclaimed. “The Princess of Palestrina, your mother!” cried he, bursting into a flood of tears. “You must be the beautiful young princess whom I raised till she was six years old, and who at that tender age promised to be as fair as you are now?” “I am the same,” I replied: “my mother lies about a hundred yards from here, cut in pieces, and buried under a heap of dead bodies.”
I then related to him all that had happened to me, and he, in return, acquainted me with all his adventures, and how he had been sent to the court of the King of Morocco by a Christian prince,16 to conclude a treaty with that monarch; the result of which granted him gunpowder, cannon, and ships to enable him to destroy the commerce of other Christian governments. “My mission is concluded,” said the eunuch; “I am going to take ship at Ceuta, and I’ll take you along with me to Italy. ‘Ma che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!’”
I thanked him with tears of joy; and instead of taking me with him into Italy, he carried me into Algiers, and sold me to the Dey of that province. I had not been long a slave, when the plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out at Algiers with redoubled fury. You have seen an earthquake; but tell me, miss, have you ever the plague? “Never,” answered the young baroness.
If you ever had (continued the old woman) you would admit that an earthquake was a trifle compared to it. It is very common in Africa; I was seized with it. Imagine, if you will, the distressed situation of the daughter of a pope, only fifteen years old, and who in less than three months had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery ; had been ravished almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four quarters; had experienced the scourges of famine and war, and was now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not, however, die of it; but my eunuch and the Dey,ai and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers, perished.
As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey’s slaves. I was purchased by a merchant, who carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. After many changes, I ended up the property of an aga of the janissaries,aj who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered away to the defence of Asoph, then besieged by the Russians. ak
The aga, being very fond of women, took his whole seraglio
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with him, and lodged us in a small fort, with two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers to guard us. Our army killed a huge number of Russians; but they soon returned us the compliment. Asoph was taken by storm, and the enemy spared neither age nor sex, but put all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our little fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine. The twenty janissaries who were left to defend it, had sworn never to surrender the place. Being reduced to the extremity of famine, they found themselves obliged to kill our two eunuchs, and eat them, rather than violate their oath. After a few more days, they resolved to eat the women too.
We had a very pious and humane imam,al who delivered an excellent sermon on this occasion, persuading them not to kill us at once; “Only cut off one of the buttocks of each of those ladies,” said he, “and you will fare extremely well; if you still need more you can come back in a few days and have the same. Heaven will approve of so charitable an action, and you will be saved.”
By the force of this eloquence he easily persuaded them, and all underwent the operation. The imam applied the same balsam as they do to children after circumcision. We were all at the point of death.
The janissaries had scarcely time to finish the repast with which we had supplied them, when the Russians appeared in flat-bottomed boats; not a single janissary escaped. The Russians paid no regard to the condition we were in; but as there are French surgeons in all parts of the world, a skillful operator took us under his care, and cured us; and I will never forget for as long as I live, that as soon as my wounds were perfectly healed he made me certain proposals. In general, he desired us all to have a good heart, assuring us that the same thing had happened in many sieges and that it was agreeable to the laws of war.
As soon as my companions were in a condition to walk, they were sent to Moscow. As for me, I fell to the lot of a boyard,am who put me to work in his garden, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But when this nobleman was broken on the wheel after about two years, with about thirty others, for some court intrigues, an I took advantage of the event and made my escape. I travelled over a great part of Russia. I was for a long time an innkeeper’s servant at Riga, then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipsick, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden, the Hague, and Rotterdam: I have grown old in misery and disgrace, living with only one buttock, and in remembering always that I was a pope’s daughter. I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?
In the different countries in which it has been my fate to wander, and the many inns where I have been a servant, I have observed a prodigious number of people who held their existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew more than twelve who voluntarily put an end to their misery: namely, three negroes, four Englishmen, four Genoese, and a German professor named Robek.17 My last place was with the Jew, Don Issachar, who attached me to your service, my fair lady; to whose destinies I have attached myself, and have been more concerned with your misfortunes than with my own. I would never have even mentioned the matter to you, if you had not irked me a little bit; and if it was not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time. In short, my dear miss, I have a great deal of knowledge and experience in the world; therefore, take my advice—divert yourself, and ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.