CHAPTER XIV

An Amusing Meeting in Orsera—­Journey to Corfu—­My Stay in Constantinople—­Bonneval—­My Return to Corfu—­Madame F.—­The False Prince—­I Run Away from Corfu—­My Frolics at Casopo—­I Surrender My self a Prisoner—­My Speedy Release and Triumph—­My Success with Madame F.

I affirm that a stupid servant is more dangerous than a bad one, and a much greater plague, for one can be on one’s guard against a wicked person, but never against a fool.  You can punish wickedness but not stupidity, unless you send away the fool, male or female, who is guilty of it, and if you do so you generally find out that the change has only thrown you out of the frying-pan into the fire.

This chapter and the two following ones were written; they gave at full length all the particulars which I must now abridge, for my silly servant has taken the three chapters for her own purposes.  She pleaded as an excuse that the sheets of paper were old, written upon, covered with scribbling and erasures, and that she had taken them in preference to nice, clean paper, thinking that I would care much more for the last than for the first.  I flew into a violent passion, but I was wrong, for the poor girl had acted with a good intent; her judgment alone had misled her.  It is well known that the first result of anger is to deprive the angry man of the faculty of reason, for anger and reason do not belong to the same family.  Luckily, passion does not keep me long under its sway:  ‘Irasci, celerem tamen et placabilem esse’.  After I had wasted my time in hurling at her bitter reproaches, the force of which did not strike her, and in proving to her that she was a stupid fool, she refuted all my arguments by the most complete silence.  There was nothing to do but to resign myself, and, although not yet in the best of tempers, I went to work.  What I am going to write will probably not be so good as what I had composed when I felt in the proper humour, but my readers must be satisfied with it they will, like the engineer, gain in time what they lose in strength.

I landed at Orsera while our ship was taking ballast, as a ship cannot sail well when she is too light, and I was walking about when I remarked a man who was looking at me very attentively.  As I had no dread of any creditor, I thought that he was interested by my fine appearance; I could not find fault with such a feeling, and kept walking on, but as I passed him, he addressed me: 

“Might I presume to enquire whether this is your first visit to Orsera, captain?”

“No, sir, it is my second visit to this city.”

“Were you not here last year?”

“I was.”

“But you were not in uniform then?”

“True again; but your questions begin to sound rather indiscreet.”

“Be good enough to forgive me, sir, for my curiosity is the offspring of gratitude.  I am indebted to you for the greatest benefits, and I trust that Providence has brought you here again only to give me the opportunity of making greater still my debt of gratitude to you.”