“But you must often have fallen asleep, for unless excited by some powerful interest, it is impossible to pass eight hours in darkness and in silence.”

“We were moved by the deepest interest:  besides, we were in darkness only when we kept these holes open.  The plank was on during our supper, and we were listening in religious silence to your slightest whisper.  The interest which kept my friend awake was perhaps greater than mine.  He told me that he never had had before a better opportunity of studying the human heart, and that you must have passed the most painful night.  He truly pitied you.  We were delighted with C——­ C——­, for it is indeed wonderful that a young girl of fifteen should reason as she did to justify my conduct, without any other weapons but those given her by nature and truth; she must have the soul of an angel.  If you ever marry her, you will have the most heavenly wife.  I shall of course feel miserable if I lose her, but your happiness will make amends for all.  Do you know, dearest, that I cannot understand how you could fall in love with me after having known her, any more than I can conceive how she does not hate me ever since she has discovered that I have robbed her of your heart.  My dear C——­ C——­ has truly something divine in her disposition.  Do you know why she confided to you her barren loves with me?  Because, as she told me herself, she wished to ease her conscience, thinking that she was in some measure unfaithful to you.”

“Does she think herself bound to be entirely faithful to me, with the knowledge she has now of my own unfaithfulness?”

“She is particularly delicate and conscientious, and though she believes herself truly your wife, she does not think that she has any right to control your actions, but she believes herself bound to give you an account of all she does.”

“Noble girl!”

The prudent wife of the door-keeper having brought the supper, we sat down to the well-supplied table.  M——­ M——­ remarked that I had become much thinner.

“The pains of the body do not fatten a man,” I said, “and the sufferings of the mind emaciate him.  But we have suffered sufficiently, and we must be wise enough never to recall anything which can be painful to us.”

“You are quite right, my love; the instants that man is compelled to give up to misfortune or to suffering are as many moments stolen from his life, but he doubles his existence when he has the talent of multiplying his pleasures, no matter of what nature they may be.”

We amused ourselves in talking over past dangers, Pierrot’s disguise, and the ball at Briati, where she had been told that another Pierrot had made his appearance.

M——­ M——­ wondered at the extraordinary effect of a disguise, for, said she to me: 

“The Pierrot in the parlour of the convent seemed to me taller and thinner than you.  If chance had not made you take the convent gondola, if you had not had the strange idea of assuming the disguise of Pierrot, I should not have known who you were, for my friends in the convent would not have been interested in you.  I was delighted when I heard that you were not a patrician, as I feared, because, had you been one, I might in time have run some great danger.”