front of her on the floor with
the dagger, said to him, "Lothario, pay attention to what I say to thee:
if by any chance thou darest to cross this line thou seest, or even
approach it, the instant I see thee attempt it that same instant will I
pierce my bosom with this dagger that I hold in my hand; and before thou
answerest me a word desire thee to listen to a few from me, and
afterwards thou shalt reply as may please thee. First, I desire thee to
tell me, Lothario, if thou knowest my husband Anselmo, and in what light
thou regardest him; and secondly I desire to know if thou knowest me too.
Answer me this, without embarrassment or reflecting deeply what thou wilt
answer, for they are no riddles I put to thee."

Lothario was not so dull but that from the first moment when Camilla
directed him to make Anselmo hide himself he understood what she intended
to do, and therefore he fell in with her idea so readily and promptly
that between them they made the imposture look more true than truth; so
he answered her thus: "I did not think, fair Camilla, that thou wert
calling me to ask questions so remote from the object with which I come;
but if it is to defer the promised reward thou art doing so, thou mightst
have put it off still longer, for the longing for happiness gives the
more distress the nearer comes the hope of gaining it; but lest thou
shouldst say that I do not answer thy questions, I say that I know thy
husband Anselmo, and that we have known each other from our earliest
years; I will not speak of what thou too knowest, of our friendship, that
I may not compel myself to testify against the wrong that love, the
mighty excuse for greater errors, makes me inflict upon him. Thee I know
and hold in the same estimation as he does, for were it not so I had not
for a lesser prize acted in opposition to what I owe to my station and
the holy laws of true friendship, now broken and violated by me through
that powerful enemy, love."

"If thou dost confess that," returned Camilla, "mortal enemy of all that
rightly deserves to be loved, with what face dost thou dare to come
before one whom thou knowest to be the mirror wherein he is reflected on
whom thou shouldst look to see how unworthily thou him? But, woe is me, I
now comprehend what has made thee give so little heed to what thou owest
to thyself; it must have been some freedom of mine, for I will not call
it immodesty, as it did not proceed from any deliberate intention,