still
alive, and his statements could be challenged. With this object he
related three love-passages of his early manhood. To omit these
altogether from his Memoirs would be tantamount to doing him a grave
injustice, since they were meant to illustrate his sentiments upon the
delicate question of the relation between men and women in affairs of
the heart. They are not, however, suited to the taste of the present
century, being dictated with a frankness and a sense of humour which
remind us of our own Fielding. Their tone is wholesome and manly, but
some of their details are crude. It is the translator's duty in these
circumstances to subordinate literary to ethical considerations.
Repeating the stories, so far as possible, in Gozzi's own language, he
must supply those parts which he feels bound to omit by a brief
statement of fact. The portions of this chapter which are enclosed in
brackets contain the translator's abstract. The rest is a more or less
literal version of the original text.]

(i.)

_Story of my first love, with an unexpected termination._

In order to relate the trifling stories of my love-adventures, I must
return to the period of my early manhood. I ought indeed to blush while
telling them, at the age which I have reached; but I promised the tales,
and I shall give them with all candour, even though I have to blush the
while.

Being a man, I felt the sympathy for women which all men feel. As soon
as I could comprehend the difference between the sexes--and one arrives
betimes at such discretion--women appeared to me a kind of earthly
goddesses. I far preferred the society of a woman to that of a man. It
happened, however, that education and religious principles were so
deeply rooted in my nature, and acted on me so powerfully as checks to
inclination, that they made me in those salad days extremely modest and
reserved. I hardly know whether this modesty and this reserve of mine
were quite agreeable to all the girls of my acquaintance during the
years of my first manhood.

I can take my oath that I left my father's house, at the age of sixteen,
on military service in Dalmatia, innocent--I will not say in
thoughts--but most innocent as to the acts of love. The town of Zara was
the rock on which this frail bark of my innocency foundered; and since I
hope to make my readers laugh at my peculiar bent in love-making, and
also by the tales of my amours, I will first describe my character in
this respec