she the Madame Slopis who travels with Aston?"
"Exactly."
"I can give you good news of her."
After dinner I asked Agatha how she came to know Callimena.
"My husband is her godfather."
"What is her exact age?"
"Fourteen."
"She's a simple prodigy! What loveliness!"
"Her sister is still handsomer."
"I have never seen her."
A servant came in and said M. Goudar would like to have a little private conversation with the advocate.
The advocate came back in a quarter of an hour, and informed me that Goudar had given him the two hundred ounces, and that he had returned him the ring.
"Then that's all settled, and I am very glad of it. I have certainly made an eternal enemy of him, but that doesn't trouble me much."
We began playing, and Agatha made me play with Callimena, the freshness and simplicity of whose character delighted me.
I told her all I knew about her sister, and promised I would write to Turin to enquire whether she were still there. I told her that I loved her, and that if she would allow me, I would come and see her. Her reply was extremely satisfactory.
The next morning I went to wish her good day. She was taking a music lesson from her master. Her talents were really of a moderate order, but love made me pronounce her performance to be exquisite.
When the master had gone, I remained alone with her. The poor girl overwhelmed me with apologies for her dress, her wretched furniture, and for her inability to give me a proper breakfast.
"All that make you more desirable in my eyes, and I am only sorry that I cannot offer you a fortune."
As I praised her beauty, she allowed me to kiss her ardently, but she stopped my further progress by giving me a kiss as if to satisfy me.
I made an effort to restrain my ardour, and told her to tell me truly whether she had a lover.
"Not one."
"And have you never had one?"
"Never."
"Not even a fancy for anyone?"
"No, never."
"What, with your beauty and sensibility, is there no man in Naples who has succeeded in inspiring you with desire?"
"No one has ever tried to do so. No one has spoken to me as you have, and that is the plain truth."
"I believe you, and I see that I must make haste to leave Naples, if I would not be the most unhappy of men."
"What do you mean?"
"I should love you without the hope of possessing you, and thus I should be most unhappy."
"Love me then, and stay. Try and make me love you. Only you must moderate your ecstacies, for I cannot love a man who cannot exercise self-restraint."
"As just now, for instance?"
"Yes. If you calm yourself I shall think you do so for my sake, and thus love will tread close on the heels of gratitude."
This was as much as to tell me that though she did not love me yet I had only to wait patiently, and I resolved to follow her advice. I had reached an age which knows nothing of the impatient desires of youth.
I gave her a tender embrace, and as I was getting up to go I asked her if she were in need of money.
This question male her blush, and she said I had better ask her aunt, who was in the next room.
I went in, and was somewhat astonished to find the aunt seated between two worthy Capuchins, who were talking small talk to her while she worked at her needle. At a little distance three young girls sat sewing.
The aunt would have risen to welcome me, but I prevented her, asked her how she did, and smilingly congratulated her on her company. She smiled back, but the Capuchins sat as firm as two stocks, without honouring me with as much as a glance.
I took a chair and sat down beside her.
She was near her fiftieth year, though some might have doubted whether she would ever see it again; her manner was good and honest, and her features bore the traces of the beauty that time had ruined.
Although I am not a prejudiced man, the presence of the two evil-smelling monks annoyed me extremely. I thought the obstinate way in which they stayed little less than an insult. True they were men like myself, in spite of their goats' beards and dirty frocks, and consequently were liable to the same desires as I; but for all that I found them wholly intolerable. I could not shame them without shaming the lady, and they knew it; monks are adepts at such calculations.
I have travelled all over Europe, but France is the only country in which I saw a decent and respectable clergy.
At the end of a quarter of an hour I could contain myself no longer, and told the aunt that I wished to say something to her in private. I thought the two satyrs would have taken the hint, but I counted without my host. The aunt arose, however, and took me into the next room.
I asked my question as delicately as possible, and she replied,—
"Alas! I have only too great a need of twenty ducats (about eighty francs) to pay my rent."
I gave her the money on the spot, and I saw that she was very grateful, but I left her before she could express her feelings.
Here I must tell my readers (if I ever have any) of an event which took place on that same day.
As I was dining in my room by myself, I was told that a Venetian gentleman who said he knew me wished to speak to me.
I ordered him to be shewn in, and though his face was not wholly unknown to me I could not recollect who he was.
He was tall, thin and wretched, misery and hunger spewing plainly in his every feature; his beard was long, his head shaven, his robe a dingy brown, and bound about him with a coarse cord, whence hung a rosary and a dirty handkerchief. In the left hand he bore a basket, and in the right a long stick; his form is still before me, but I think of him not as a humble penitent, but as a being in the last state of desperation; almost an assassin.
"Who are you?" I said at length. "I think I have seen you before, and yet . . ."
"I will soon tell you my name and the story of my woes; but first give me something to eat, for I am dying of hunger. I have had nothing but bad soup for the last few days."
"Certainly; go downstairs and have your dinner, and then come back to me; you can't eat and speak at the same time."
My man went down to give him his meal, and I gave instructions that I was not to be left alone with him as he terrified me.
I felt sure that I ought to know him, and longed to hear his story.
In three quarters of an hour he came up again, looking like some one in a high fever.
