d cheerful; her fine lips seemed
to breathe the most heavenly voluptuousness, and her teeth were two rows
of the most brilliant enamel. Her head-dress did not allow me to see her
hair, but if she had any I knew by the colour of her eyebrows that it was
of a beautiful light brown. Her hand and her arm, which I could see as
far as the elbow, were magnificent; the chisel of Praxiteles never carved
anything more grace fully rounded and plump, I was not sorry to have
refused the two rendezvous which had been offered to me by the beauty,
for I was sure of possessing her in a few days, and it was a pleasure for
me to lay my desires at her feet. I longed to find myself alone with her
near that grating, and I would have considered it an insult to her if,
the very next day, I had not come to tell her how fully I rendered to her
charms the justice they deserved. She was faithful to her determination
not to look at me once, but after all I was pleased with her reserve. All
at once the two friends lowered their voices, and out of delicacy I
withdrew further. Their private conversation lasted about a quarter of an
hour, during which I pretended to be intently looking at a painting; then
they kissed one another again by the same process as at the beginning of
the interview; the nun closed the opening, turned her back on us, and
disappeared without casting one glance in my direction.

As we were on our way back to Venice, the countess, tired perhaps of our
silence, said to me, with a smile,

"M---- M---- is beautiful and very witty."

"I have seen her beauty, and I believe in her wit."

"She did not address one word to you."

"I had refused to be introduced to her, and she punished me by pretending
not to know that I was present."

The countess made no answer, and we reached her house without exchanging
another word. At her door a very ceremonious curtesy, with these words,
"Adieu, sir!" warned me that I was not to go any further. I had no wish
to do so, and went away dreaming and wondering at the singularity of the
adventure, the end of which I longed to see.

EPISODE 8 -- CONVENT AFFAIRS

CHAPTER XVI

Countess Coronini--A Lover's Pique--Reconciliation--The
First Meeting--A Philosophical Parenthesis

My beautiful nun had not spoken to me, and I was glad of it, for I was so
astonished, so completely under the spell of her beauty, that I might
have given her a very poor opinion of my intelligence by