re to
elapse, before she could think of marriage, in a convent. As a palliative
to his refusal he had added, that, if by that time I had a
well-established position in the world, he might consent to our wedding.

That answer struck me as most cruel, and in the despair in which it threw
me I was not astonished when the same night I found the door by which I
used to gain admittance to C---- C---- closed and locked inside.

I returned home more dead than alive, and lost twenty-four hours in that
fearful perplexity in which a man is often thrown when he feels himself
bound to take a decision without knowing what to decide. I thought of
carrying her off, but a thousand difficulties combined to prevent the
execution of that scheme, and her brother was in prison. I saw how
difficult it would be to contrive a correspondence with my wife, for I
considered C---- C---- as such, much more than if our marriage had received
the sanction of the priest's blessing or of the notary's legal contract.

Tortured by a thousand distressing ideas, I made up my mind at last to
pay a visit to Madame C----. A servant opened the door, and informed me
that madame had gone to the country; she could not tell me when she was
expected to return to Venice. This news was a terrible thunder-bolt to
me; I remained as motionless as a statue; for now that I had lost that
last resource I had no means of procuring the slightest information.

I tried to look calm in the presence of my three friends, but in reality
I was in a state truly worthy of pity, and the reader will perhaps
realize it if I tell him that in my despair I made up my mind to call on
P---- C---- in his prison, in the hope that he might give me some
information.

My visit proved useless; he knew nothing, and I did not enlighten his
ignorance. He told me a great many lies which I pretended to accept as
gospel, and giving him two sequins I went away, wishing him a prompt
release.

I was racking my brain to contrive some way to know the position of my
mistress--for I felt certain it was a fearful one--and believing her to
be unhappy I reproached myself most bitterly as the cause of her misery.
I had reached such a state of anxiety that I could neither eat nor sleep.

Two days after the refusal of the father, M. de Bragadin and his two
friends went to Padua for a month. I had not had the heart to go with
them, and I was alone in the house. I needed consolation and I went to
the gaming-table,