“I am sorry,” I said, “to hear that my gossip is not in, though at the same time I am delighted to make the acquaintance of his charming wife.”

“Your gossip?  You will be M. Vetturi, then?  My husband told me that you had kindly promised to be the god-father of our next child.  I am delighted to know you, but my husband will be very vexed to have been away: 

“I hope he will soon return, as I wanted to ask him for a night’s lodging.  I dare not go anywhere in the state you see me.”

“You shall have the best bed in the house, and I will get you a good supper.  My husband when he comes back will thank your excellence for doing us so much honour.  He went away with all his people an hour ago, and I don’t expect him back for three or four days.”

“Why is he away for such a long time, my dear madam?”

“You have not heard, then, that two prisoners have escaped from The Leads?  One is a noble and the other a private individual named Casanova.  My husband has received a letter from Messer-Grande ordering him to make a search for them; if he find them he will take them back to Venice, and if not he will return here, but he will be on the look-out for three days at least.”

“I am sorry for this accident, my dear madam, but I should not like to put you out, and indeed I should be glad to lie down immediately.”

“You shall do so, and my mother shall attend to your wants.  But what is the matter with your knees?”

“I fell down whilst hunting on the mountains, and gave myself some severe wounds, and am much weakened by loss of blood.”

“Oh! my poor gentleman, my poor gentleman!  But my mother will cure you.”

She called her mother, and having told her of my necessities she went out.  This pretty sbirress had not the wit of her profession, for the story I had told her sounded like a fairy-tale.  On horseback with white silk stockings!  Hunting in sarcenet, without cloak and without a man!  Her husband would make fine game of her when he came back; but God bless her for her kind heart and benevolent stupidity.  Her mother tended me with all the politeness I should have met with in the best families.  The worthy woman treated me like a mother, and called me “son” as she attended to my wounds.  The name sounded pleasantly in my ears, and did no little towards my cure by the sentiments it awoke in my breast.  If I had been less taken up with the position I was in I should have repaid her care with some evident marks of the gratitude I felt, but the place I was in and the part I was playing made the situation too serious a one for me to think of anything else.

This kindly woman, after looking at my knees and my thighs, told me that I must make my mind to suffer a little pain, but I might be sure of being cured by the morning.  All I had to do was to bear the application of medicated linen to my wounds, and not to stir till the next day.  I promised to bear the pain patiently, and to do exactly as she told me.