The Great Leap Forward

I read an interesting article in the IHT about the great 19th century writer George Eliot (Middlemarch, Silas Marner, Felix Holt, Luke Short, Dangerous Curves, I'll Say She Does). It turns out that Miss Eliot was in fact a woman, though only Charles Dickens, who knew her personally, guessed as much at the time.

She married John Cross in 1880 and as they were both keen fans of Dante, they decided to spend their honeymoon in Venice going round the local museums. They checked in at the Grande Albergo l'Europa (now part of the Accor Group) on 4 June 1880 and hired their own gondola and gondolier (gondolieri) for 12 days. Mrs Cross became a bit worried about her husband because he had lost a lot of weight and was "alternately agitated and deeply depressed (mania melancolica)". Eventually she summoned a doctor (il dottore Richetti). While they were discussing Mr Cross's case, the inglese, despite warnings not to lean out of the window (pericolossimo sporghesi), hurled himelf into the Grand Canal (Canal Grande). He was rescued by his gondolier and carried back to his hotel room.

The local newspaper Il Tempo reported that "an Englishman of about 40 years of age" (un inglese dell'eta d'anni 40 circa) had thrown himself from the first floor of the Hotel Europe (se gettato dal primo piano dell'hotel Europe). The inspector (Ispettore) assigned to the case, a certain Ispettore Cluzot, shared his thoughts with the readers of L'Adriatico. "Imagine for yourself the desolation of the poor woman!" he told the newspaper (mmaginate la desolazione della bellissima donna inglese).

Perhaps the best explanation of these extraordinary happenings is to be found in the memoirs of Walter Sichel, the political biographer and barrister: "After a prolonged course of Dante at Venice, Cross had cast himself into the Grand Canal and begged the gondoliers not to rescue him".