“I?  What have I done?”

“M.  Demetrio is dying.”

“Have I killed him?”

She went away without answering me.  I dressed myself, rather frightened, I confess, but determined upon pleading complete ignorance of everything, and I proceeded to Demetrio’s room; and I was confronted with horror-stricken countenances and bitter reproaches.  I found all the guests around him.  I protested my innocence, but everyone smiled.  The archpriest and the beadle, who had just arrived, would not bury the arm which was lying there, and they told me that I had been guilty of a great crime.

“I am astonished, reverend sir,” I said to the priest, “at the hasty judgment which is thus passed upon me, when there is no proof to condemn me.”

“You have done it,” exclaimed all the guests, “you alone are capable of such an abomination; it is just like you.  No one but you would have dared to do such a thing!”

“I am compelled,” said the archpriest, “to draw up an official report.”

“As you please, I have not the slightest objection,” I answered, “I have nothing to fear.”

And I left the room.

I continued to take it coolly, and at the dinner-table I was informed that M. Demetrio had been bled, that he had recovered the use of his eyes, but not of his tongue or of his limbs.  The next day he could speak, and I heard, after I had taken leave of the family, that he was stupid and spasmodic.  The poor man remained in that painful state for the rest of his life.  I felt deeply grieved, but I had not intended to injure him so badly.  I thought that the trick he had played upon me might have cost my life, and I could not help deriving consolation from that idea.

On the same day, the archpriest made up his mind to have the arm buried, and to send a formal denunciation .against me to the episcopal chancellorship of Treviso.

Annoyed at the reproaches which I received on all sides, I returned to Venice.  A fortnight afterwards I was summoned to appear before the ‘magistrato alla blasfemia’.  I begged M. Barbaro to enquire the cause of the aforesaid summons, for it was a formidable court.  I was surprised at the proceedings being taken against me, as if there had been a certainty of my having desecrated a grave, whilst there could be nothing but suspicion.  But I was mistaken, the summons was not relating to that affair.  M. Barbaro informed me in the evening that a woman had brought a complaint against me for having violated her daughter.  She stated in her complaint that, having decoyed her child to the Zuecca, I had abused her by violence, and she adduced as a proof that her daughter was confined to her bed, owing to the bad treatment she had received from me in my endeavours to ravish her.  It was one of those complaints which are often made, in order to give trouble and to cause expense, even against innocent persons.  I was innocent of violation, but it was quite true that I had given the girl a sound thrashing.  I prepared my defence, and begged M. Barbaro to deliver it to the magistrate’s secretary.