Pandolfo, keeper of the gambling-house, comes in, rubbing his eyes sleepily Ridolfo - Master Pandolfo, will you have coffee ? Pandolfo-Yes, if you please. Ridolfo - Boys, serve coffee for Master Pandolfo. Be seated. Make yourself comfortable. Pandolfo - No, no, I must drink it at once and get back to work. Ridolfo Are they playing yet in the shop? Pandolfo-They are busy at two tables. Ridolfo - So early? Pandolfo - They are at it since yesterday. Ridolfo What game? Pandolfo-An innocent game: "first and second" [i. e., faro]. Ridolfo― And how does it go? Pandolfo - For me it goes well. Ridolfo - Have you amused yourself playing too? Pandolfo - Yes, I took a little hand also. Ridolfo - Excuse me, my friend; I've no business to meddle in your affairs, but it doesn't look well when the master of the shop plays; because if he loses he's laughed at, and if he wins he's suspected. Pandolfo I am content if they haven't the laugh on me. As for the rest, let them suspect as they please; I pay no attention. Ridolfo - Dear friend, we are neighbors; I shouldn't want you to get into trouble. You know, by your play before you have brought up in the court. Pandolfo - I'm easily satisfied. I won a pair of sequins, and wanted no more. out. Ridolfo That's right. Pluck the quail without making it cry From whom did you win them? Pandolfo A jeweler's boy. Ridolfo - Bad. Very bad. masters. That tempts the boys to rob their Pandolfo-Oh, don't moralize to me. Let the greenhorns stay at home. I keep open for any one who wants to play. Ridolfo-And has Signor Eugenio been playing this past night? Pandolfo - He's playing yet. He hasn't dined, he hasn't slept, and he's lost all his money. Ridolfo [aside]- Poor young man! [Aloud.] And how much has he lost? Pandolfo - A hundred sequins in cash: and now he is playing on credit. Ridolfo-With whom is he playing? Pandolfo - With the count. Pandolfo - With him alone. Ridolfo - It seems to me an honest man shouldn't stand by and see people assassinated. Pandolfo - Oho, my friend, if you're going to be so thinskinned you'll make little money. Ridolfo - I don't care for that. Till now I have been in serv ice, and did my duty honestly. I saved a few pennies, and with the help of my old master, who was Signor Eugenio's father, you know, I have opened this shop. With it I mean to live honorably and not disgrace my profession. [People from the gambling-shop call "Cards!"] Pandolfo [answering]-At your service. Ridolfo For mercy's sake, get poor Signor Eugenio away from the table. Pandolfo - For all me, he may lose his shirt: I don't care. [Starts out.] Pandolfo - Not at all: we'll deal a card for it. Ridolfo I'm no greenhorn, my friend. Pandolfo-Oh well, what does it matter? You know my visitors make trade for you. I am surprised that you trouble yourself about these little matters. [Exit.] A gentleman, Don Marzio, enters Ridolfo [aside] - Here is the man who never stops talking, and always must have it his own way. Marzio-Coffee. Ridolfo At once, sir. Marzio-What's the news, Ridolfo ? Ridolfo Marzio I couldn't say, sir. Has no one appeared here at your café yet? Ridolfo - 'Tis quite early still. Marzio - Early? Early? It has struck nine already. Ridolfo - Oh no, honored sir, 'tis not seven yet. Ridolfo - I assure you, it hasn't struck seven yet. Ridolfo You abuse me without reason, sir. Marzio I counted the strokes just now, and I tell you it is nine. Besides, look at my watch: it never goes wrong. [Shows it.] Ridolfo - Very well, then; if your watch is never wrong,-it says a quarter to seven. Marzio-What? looks. What? That can't be. [Takes out his eye-glass and Ridolfo What do you say? Marzio- My watch is wrong. It is nine o'olock. I heard it. Ridolfo - Where did you buy that watch? Marzio I ordered it from London. Ridolfo - They cheated you. Marzio-Cheated me? How so? It is the very first quality. Ridolfo - If it were a good one, it wouldn't be two hours wrong. Marzio — It is always exactly right. Ridolfo But the watch says a quarter to seven, and you say it is nine. Marzio-My watch is right. Ridolfo - Then it really is a little before seven, as I said. Marzio-You're an insolent fellow. My watch is right: you talk foolishly, and I've half a mind to box your ears. is brought.] Ridolfo [aside]-Oh, what a beast! Marzio-At home, of course, uxorious fellow! Always a wife! coffee.] petting his wife. [His coffee What an Always a wife! [Drinks his Ridolfo - Anything but his wife. night at Pandolfo's. He's been gambling all Marzio - Just as I tell you. Always gambling. Ridolfo [aside] - "Always gambling," "Always his wife," "Always" the Devil; I hope he'll catch him! Marzio-He came to me the other day in all secrecy, to beg me to lend him ten sequins on a pair of earrings of his wife's. Ridolfo - Well, you know, every man is liable to have these little difficulties; but they don't care to have them known, and that is doubtless why he came to you, certain that you would tell no one. Marzio-Oh, I say nothing. I help all, and take no credit for it. See! Here are his wife's earrings. I lent him ten Do you think I am secured ? sequins on them. Ridolfo - I'm no judge, but I think so. Marzio-Halloa, Trappolo. [Trappolo enters.] Here; go to the jeweler's yonder, show him these earrings of Signor Eugenio's wife, and ask him for me if they are security for ten sequins that I lent him. Trappolo-And it doesn't harm Signor Eugenio to make his affairs public? Marzio-I am a person with whom a secret is safe. [Exit Trappolo.] Say, Ridolfo, what do you know of that dancer over there? Ridolfo — I really know nothing about her. Marzio- I've been told the Count Leandro is her protector. Ridolfo-To be frank, I don't care much for other people's affairs. Marzio-But 'tis well to know things, to govern one's self accordingly. She has been under his protection for some time now, and the dancer's earnings have paid the price of the protection. Instead of spending anything, he devours all the poor wretch has. Indeed, he forces her to do what she should not. Oh, what a villain! Ridolfo But I am here all day, and I can swear that no one goes to her house except Leandro. Marzio — It has a back door. Fool! Fool! Always the back door. Fool! Ridolfo — I attend to my shop: if she has a back door, what is it to me? I put my nose into no one's affairs. Marzio-Beast! Do you speak like that to a gentleman of my station? [This character of Don Marzio the slanderer is the most effective one in the comedy. He finally brings upon himself the bitterest ill-will of all the other characters, and feels himself driven out of Venice, "a land in which all men live at ease, all enjoy liberty, peace, and amusement, if only they know how to be prudent, discreet, honorable."] Translated for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William C. Lawton MEÏR AARON GOLDSCHMIDT (1819-1887) ON THE first line of his memoirs Goldschmidt states that he was of "the tribe of Levi," a fact of which he was never unconscious, and which has given him his peculiar position in modern Danish literature as the exponent of the family and social life of the orthodox Jew. Brandes writes of Goldschmidt that: "In spite of his cosmopolitan spirit, he has always loved two nationalities above all others and equally well,-the Jewish and the Danish. He has looked upon himself as a sort of noble-born bastard; and with the bat of the fable he has said alternately to the mice, I am a mouse,' and to the birds, I have wings.' He has endeavored to give his answer to the questions of the Jew's place in modern culture.» GOLDSCHMIDT Goldschmidt was born on the 26th of October, 1819. His early childhood was spent partly in the country, in the full freedom of country life, and partly in the city, where he was sent to school in preparation for the professional career his father had planned for him, in preference to a business life like his own. Goldschmidt took part in the religious instruction of the school, at the same time observing the customs of the Jewish ritual at home without a full understanding of its meaning,somewhat as he was taught to read Hebrew without being able to translate a word of it into Danish. In the senior class his religious instructor let him join in the Bible reading, but refused to admit him to the catechism class; as a consequence he failed to answer a few questions on his examination papers, and fell just short of a maximum. This made him feel that he was ostracized by his Jewish. birth, and put an end to his desire for further academic studies. At the age of eighteen he began his journalistic career as editor of a provincial paper, the care of which cost him a lawsuit and subjected him to a year's censorship. Soon after, he sold the paper for two hundred dollars, and with this money he started the Copenhagen weekly The Corsair, which in no time gained a large reading public, |