ds
engaged for the balls which were given for three consecutive days in the
Soranzo Palace.

On the third day, towards the end of the dancing, an hour before
day-break, feeling tired, I left the orchestra abruptly; and as I was
going down the stairs I observed a senator, wearing his red robes, on the
point of getting into a gondola. In taking his handkerchief out of his
pocket he let a letter drop on the ground. I picked it up, and coming up
to him just as he was going down the steps I handed it to him. He
received it with many thanks, and enquired where I lived. I told him, and
he insisted upon my coming with him in the gondola saying that he would
leave me at my house. I accepted gratefully, and sat down near him. A few
minutes afterwards he asked me to rub his left arm, which, he said, was
so benumbed that he could not feel it. I rubbed it with all my strength,
but he told me in a sort of indistinct whisper that the numbness was
spreading all along the left side, and that he was dying.

I was greatly frightened; I opened the curtain, took the lantern, and
found him almost insensible, and the mouth drawn on one side. I
understood that he was seized with an apoplectic stroke, and called out
to the gondoliers to land me at once, in order to procure a surgeon to
bleed the patient.

I jumped out of the gondola, and found myself on the very spot where
three years before I had taught Razetta such a forcible lesson; I
enquired for a surgeon at the first coffee-house, and ran to the house
that was pointed out to me. I knocked as hard as I could; the door was at
last opened, and I made the surgeon follow me in his dressing-gown as far
as the gondola, which was waiting; he bled the senator while I was
tearing my shirt to make the compress and the bandage.

The operation being performed, I ordered the gondoliers to row as fast as
possible, and we soon reached St. Marina; the servants were roused up,
and taking the sick man out of the gondola we carried him to his bed
almost dead.

Taking everything upon myself, I ordered a servant to hurry out for a
physician, who came in a short time, and ordered the patient to be bled
again, thus approving the first bleeding prescribed by me. Thinking I had
a right to watch the sick man, I settled myself near his bed to give him
every care he required.

An hour later, two noblemen, friends of the senator, came in, one a few
minutes after the other. They were in despair; they had enquire