ve these little
difficulties; but they don't care to have them known, and that is
doubtless why he came to you, certain that you would tell no one.

_Marzio_--Oh, I say nothing. I help all, and take no credit for it. See!
Here are his wife's earrings. I lent him ten sequins on them. Do you
think I am secured?

_Ridolfo_--I'm no judge, but I think so.

_Marzio_--Halloa, Trappolo. [_Trappolo enters._] Here; go to the
jeweler's yonder, show him these earrings of Signor Eugenio's wife, and
ask him for me if they are security for ten sequins that I lent him.

_Trappolo_--And it doesn't harm Signor Eugenio to make his affairs
public?

_Marzio_--I am a person with whom a secret is safe. [_Exit Trappolo._]
Say, Ridolfo, what do you know of that dancer over there?

_Ridolfo_--I really know nothing about her.

_Marzio_--I've been told the Count Leandro is her protector.

_Ridolfo_--To be frank, I don't care much for other people's affairs.

_Marzio_--But 'tis well to know things, to govern one's self
accordingly. She has been under his protection for some time now, and
the dancer's earnings have paid the price of the protection. Instead of
spending anything, he devours all the poor wretch has. Indeed, he forces
her to do what she should not. Oh, what a villain!

_Ridolfo_--But I am here all day, and I can swear that no one goes to
her house except Leandro.

_Marzio_--It has a back door. Fool! Fool! Always the back door. Fool!

_Ridolfo_--I attend to my shop: if she has a back door, what is it to
me? I put my nose into no one's affairs.

_Marzio_--Beast! Do you speak like that to a gentleman of my station?

[This character of Don Marzio the slanderer is the most
effective one in the comedy. He finally brings upon himself
the bitterest ill-will of all the other characters, and feels
himself driven out of Venice, "a land in which all men live
at ease, all enjoy liberty, peace, and amusement, if only
they know how to be prudent, discreet, honorable."]

Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,'
by William C. Lawton

MEIR AARON GOLDSCHMIDT

(1819-1887)

[Illustration: GOLDSCHMIDT]

In the first line of his memoirs Goldschmidt states that he was of "the
tribe of Levi," a fact of which he was never unconscious, and which has
given him his peculiar position in modern Danish literature as the
exponent of the family and social life of the orth