196 JEROME CARDAN 



that I could not come, whereupon they, knowing that 

 it was not my wont to dine in the middle of the day, 

 and deeming that it was on this score that I refused to 

 join them, said, ' Then for your sake we will make the 

 feast a supper.' I answered that I could not on any 

 account make one of their party, and then they de- 

 manded to know the cause of my refusal. I replied it 

 was because of a strange event which had befallen me, 

 and of a vow I had made thereanent. At this they 

 were greatly astonished, and two of them exchanged 

 significant glances, and they urged me again and again 

 that I should not be so firmly set upon marring so 

 illustrious a gathering by my absence, but I gave back 

 the same answer as before." 1 They came a second time, 

 but Cardan was not to be moved. He records, however, 

 that he did break his vow after all by going out after 

 dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill. 



It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in 

 what seems, by contemporary daylight, to have been a 

 complimentary invitation to dinner ; but to the old 

 man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this 

 episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault 

 against his life. He finds some compensation, however, 

 in once more recording the fact that all these disturbers 

 of his peace like the men who were concerned in Gian 

 Battista's condemnation came to a bad end. His 

 rival, who had taken his place as Professor, had not 

 taught in the schools more than three or four times 

 before he was seized with disease and died after three 

 months' suffering. " Upon him there lay only the sus- 

 picion of the charge, but I heard afterwards that a friend 

 of his was certainly privy to the deed of murder which 

 they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup 

 1 De Vita Propria^ ch. xxx. p. 89. 



