“I have not always been blear-eyed. My nose did not always touch my chin;nor was I always a servant.You must know that I am the daughter of Pope Urban X, and of the Princess of Palestrina.To the age of fourteen I was brought up in a castle, compared with which all the castles of the German barons would not have been ft for stabling, and one of my robes would have bought half the province of Westphalia.I grew up, and improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment;and in the midst of pleasures, homage, and the highest expectations.I already began to inspire the men with love.My breast began to take its right form, and such a breast!White, frm, and formed like that of the Venus de'Medici;my eyebrows were as black as jet, and as for my eyes, they darted fames and eclipsed the luster of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part of the world.My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind;and all the men longed to be in their places.
“I was contracted in marriage to a sovereign prince of Massa Carrara. Such a prince!As handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, witty, and in love with me over head and ears.I loved him, too, as our sex generally do for the first time, with rapture, transport, and idolatry. The nuptials were prepared with surprising pomp and magnifcence;the ceremony was attended with feasts, carousals, and burlesques:all Italy composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was tolerable.
“I was on the point of reaching the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness, who had been mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to drink chocolate. In less than two hours after he returned from the visit, he died of most terrible convulsions.
“But this is a mere trife. My mother, distracted to the highest degree, and yet less afficted than I, determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place.As she had a very fne estate in the neighborhood of Gaeta, we embarked on board a galley, which was gilded like the high altar of St.Peter's, at Rome.In our passage we were boarded by a Sallee rover.Our men defended themselves like true Pope's soldiers;they fung themselves upon their knees, laid down their arms, and begged the corsair to give them absolution in articulo mortis.
“The Moors presently stripped us as bare as ever we were born. My mother, my maids of honor, and myself, were served all in the same manner.It is amazing how quick these gentry are at undressing people.But what surprised me most was, that they made a rude sort of surgical examination of parts of the body which are sacred to the functions of nature.I thought it a very strange kind of ceremony;for thus we are generally apt to judge of things when we have not seen the world.I afterwards learned that it was to discover if we had any diamonds concealed.This practice had been established since time immemorial among those civilized nations that scour the seas.I was informed that the religious Knights of Malta never fail to make this search whenever any Moors of either sex fall into their hands.It is a part of the law of nations, from which they never deviate.
“I need not tell you how great a hardship it was for a young princess and her mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily imagine what we must have suffered on board a corsair.My mother was still extremely handsome, our maids of honor, and even our common waiting-women, had more charms than were to be found in all Africa.As to myself, I was enchanting;I was beauty itself, and then I had my virginity.But, alas!I did not retain it long;this precious fower, which had been reserved for the lovely Prince of Massa Carrara, was cropped by the captain of the Moorish vessel, who was a hideous Negro, and thought he did me infnite honor.Indeed, both the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have had very strong constitutions to undergo all the hardships and violences we suffered before our arrival at Morocco.But I will not detain you any longer with such common things;they are hardly worth mentioning.
“Upon our arrival at Morocco we found that kingdom deluged with blood. Fifty sons of the Emperor Muley Ishmael were each at the head of a party.This produced ffty civil wars of blacks against blacks, of tawnies against tawnies, and of mulattoes against mulattoes.In short, the whole empire was one continued scene of carnage.
“No sooner were we landed than a party of blacks, of a contrary faction to that of my captain, came to rob him of his booty. Next to the money and jewels, we were the most valuable things he had.I witnessed on this occasion such a battle as you never beheld in your cold European climates.The northern nations have not that fermentation in their blood, nor that raging lust for women that is so common in Africa.The natives of Europe seem to have their veins flled with milk only;but fre and vitriol circulate in those of the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighboring provinces.They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of their country, to decide who should have us.A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left;another Moor laid hold of her by the right leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other.In this manner almost all of our women were dragged by four soldiers.
“My captain kept me concealed behind him, and with his drawn scimitar cut down everyone who opposed him;at length I saw all our Italian women and my mother mangled and torn in pieces by the monsters who contended for them. The captives, my companions, the Moors who took us, the soldiers, the sailors, the blacks, the whites, the mulattoes, and lastly, my captain himself, were all slain, and I remained alone expiring upon a heap of dead bodies.Similar barbarous scenes were transacted every day over the whole country, which is of three hundred leagues in extent, and yet they never missed the fve stated times of prayer enjoined by their prophet Mahomet.
“I disengaged myself with great difficulty from such a heap of corpses, and made a shift to crawl to a large orange tree that stood on the bank of a neighboring rivulet, where I fell down exhausted with fatigue, and overwhelmed with horror, despair, and hunger. My senses being overpowered, I fell asleep, or rather seemed to be in a trance.Thus I lay in a state of weakness and insensibility between life and death, when I felt myself pressed by something that moved up and down upon my body.This brought me to myself.I opened my eyes, and saw a pretty fair-faced man, who sighed and muttered these words between his teeth,'O che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!''
“我不是一向眼睛里長滿紅筋、眼圈這么赤紅的;鼻子也不是一向碰到下巴的,我也不是一向當用人的。我是教皇厄爾彭十世和巴萊斯德利那公主生的女兒;十四歲以前住的王府,把你們日耳曼全體男爵的宮堡做它的馬房還不配;威斯發(fā)里全省的豪華,還抵不上我一件衣衫。我越長越美,越風流,越多才多藝;我享盡快樂,受盡尊敬,前程遠大。我很早就能挑動人家的愛情了。乳房慢慢地變得豐滿,而且是何等樣的乳房!又白,又結實,模樣兒活像梅迭西斯的《維納斯》[20]身上的。還有多美的眼睛!多美的眼皮!多美的黑眉毛!兩顆眼珠射出來的火焰,像當?shù)氐脑娙藗冋f的,直蓋過了天上的星光。替我更衣的女用人們,常常把我從前面看到后面,從后面看到前面,看得出神了,所有的男人都恨不得做她們的替工呢。
“我跟瑪沙—加拉的王子訂了婚。?。∫晃欢嗝大w面的王子!長得跟我一樣美,說不盡的溫柔、風雅,而且才華蓋世,熱情如火。我愛他的情分就像初戀一樣,對他五體投地、如醉若狂?;槎Y已經開始籌備了。場面的盛大是空前的;連日不斷的慶祝會,騎兵大操,滑稽歌??;全意大利爭著寫十四行詩來歌頌我,我還嫌沒有一首像樣的。
“我快要大喜的時候,一個做過王子情婦的老侯爵夫人,請他到家里去喝巧克力茶。不到兩小時,他抽搐打滾,形狀可怕,竟自死了。
“這還不算一回事。我母親絕望之下——其實還不及我傷心——想暫時離開一下那個不祥之地。她在迦伊埃德附近有塊極好的莊田。我們坐著一條本國的兵船,布置得金碧輝煌,好比羅馬圣·比哀教堂的神龕。誰知海盜半路上來襲擊,上了我們的船。我們的兵不愧為教皇的衛(wèi)隊,他們的抵抗是丟下槍械,跪倒在地,只求饒命。
“海盜立即把他們剝得精光,像猴子一般;我的母親,我們的宮女,連我自己都在內。那些先生剝衣服手法的神速,真可佩服。但我還有更詫異的事呢:他們把手指放在我們身上的某個部分,那是女人平日只讓醫(yī)生安放套管的。這個儀式,我覺得很奇怪。一個人不出門就難免少見多怪。不久我知道,那是要瞧瞧我們有沒有隱藏什么鉆石。在往來海上的文明人中間,這風俗由來已久,從什么時代開始已經不可考了。我知道瑪?shù)聲奈涫總僛21]俘獲土耳其人的時候,不論男女,也從來不漏掉這個手續(xù);這是沒有人違反的一條公法。
“一個年輕公主,跟著母親被帶往摩洛哥去當奴隸,那種悲慘也不必細說了。在海盜船上受的罪,你們不難想象。我母親還非常好看;我們的宮女,連一個普通女仆的姿色,也是全非洲找不出來的。至于我,長得那么迷人,賽過天仙下凡,何況還是個處女。但我的童貞并沒保持多久:我替俊美的王子保留的一朵花,給海盜船上的船長硬摘了去。他是一個奇丑無比的黑人,自以為大大抬舉了我呢。不必說,巴萊斯德利那公主和我,身體都很壯健,因此受盡折磨,還能挨到摩洛哥。閑言少敘;這些事也太平常了,不值一提。
“我們到的時節(jié),摩洛哥正是一片血海。摩萊·伊斯瑪伊皇帝的五十個兒子各有黨派;那就有了五十場內戰(zhàn);黑人打黑人,黑人打半黑人[22],半黑人打半黑人,黑白混血種人打黑白混血種人。全個帝國變了一個日夜開工的屠宰場。
“才上岸,與我們的海盜為敵的一幫黑人,立刻過來搶他的戰(zhàn)利品。最貴重的東西,除了鉆石與黃金,就要算到我們了。我那時看到的廝殺,你們休想在歐洲地面上看到;這是水土關系。北方人沒有那種熱血,對女人的瘋勁也不像在非洲那么普遍。歐洲人血管里仿佛羼著牛奶;阿特拉斯山[23]一帶的居民,血管里有的是硫酸,有的是火。他們的廝殺就像當?shù)氐莫{虎毒蛇一般猛烈,目的是要搶我們。一個摩爾人抓著我母親的右臂,我船上的大副抓著她的左臂,一個摩爾兵拽著她的一條腿,我們的一個海盜拽著另外一條。全體婦女幾乎同時都被四個兵扯著。船長把我藏在他身后,手里握著大彎刀;敢冒犯他虎威的,他都來一個殺一個。臨了,所有的意大利婦女,連我母親在內,全被那些你爭我奪的魔王撕裂了,扯作幾塊。海盜、俘虜、兵、水手、黑人、半黑人、白人、黑白混血種人,還有我那船長,全都死了;我壓在死人底下,只剩一口氣。同樣的場面出現(xiàn)在一千多里的土地上,可是穆罕默德規(guī)定的一天五次祈禱,他們從來沒耽誤。
“我費了好大氣力,從多少鮮血淋漓的尸首下面爬出來,一步一步,挨到附近一條小溪旁邊,一株大橘樹底下:又驚又駭,又累又餓,不由得倒下去了。我疲倦已極,一忽兒就睡著;那與其說是休息,不如說是暈厥。正當我困憊昏迷、半死半活的時候,忽然覺得有件東西壓在我身上亂動。睜開眼來,只見一個氣色很好的白種人,嘆著氣,含含糊糊說出幾個意大利字:多倒霉啊,一個人沒有了……”