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, but I played without attention and lost a great deal.  I had already sold whatever I possessed of any value, and I owed money everywhere.  I could expect no assistance except from my three kind friends, but shame prevented me from confessing my position to them.  I was in that disposition which leads easily to self-destruction, and I was thinking of it as I was shaving myself before a toilet-glass, when the servant brought to my room a woman who had a letter for me.  The woman came up to me, and, handing me the letter, she said,

“Are you the person to whom it is addressed?”

I recognized at once a seal which I had given to C——­ C——­; I thought I would drop down dead.  In order to recover my composure, I told the woman to wait, and tried to shave myself, but my hand refused to perform its office.  I put the razor down, turned my back on the messenger, and opening the letter I read the following lines,