No doubt more than one of my readers will pronounce my treatment of the abbe to have been barbarous; but putting aside the fact that I owe no man an account of my thoughts, deeds, and words, nature had implanted in me a strong dislike to this brother of mine, and his conduct as a man and a priest, and, above all, his connivance with Possano, had made him so hateful to me that I should have watched him being hanged with the utmost indifference, not to say with the greatest pleasure.  Let everyone have his own principles and his own passions, and my favourite passion has always been vengeance.

“What did you do with the girl he eloped with?” said my sister-in-raw.

“I sent her back to Venice with the ambassadors the better by thirty thousand francs, some fine jewels, and a perfect outfit of clothes.  She travelled in a carriage I gave her which was worth more than two hundred louis.”

“That’s all very fine, but you must make some allowance for the abbe’s grief and rage at seeing you sleep with her.”

“Fools, my dear sister, are made to suffer such grief, and many others besides.  Did he tell you that she would not let him have anything to do with her, and that she used to box his ears?”

“On the the contrary, he was always talking of her love for him.”

“He made himself a fine fellow, I have no doubt, but the truth is, it was a very ugly business.”

After several hours of pleasant conversation my brother left, and I took my sister-in-law to the opera.  As soon as we were alone this poor sister of mine began to make the most bitter complaints of my brother.

“I am no more his wife now,” said she, “than I was the night before our marriage.”

“What!  Still a maid?”

“As much a maid as at the moment I was born.  They tell me I could easily obtain a dissolution of the marriage, but besides the scandal that would arise, I unhappily love him, and I should not like to do anything that would give him pain.”

“You are a wonderful woman, but why do you not provide a substitute for him?”

“I know I might do so, without having to endure much remorse, but I prefer to bear it.”

“You are very praiseworthy, but in the other ways you are happy?”

“He is overwhelmed with debt, and if I liked to call upon him to give me back my dowry he would not have a shirt to his back.  Why did he marry me?  He must have known his impotence.  It was a dreadful thing to do.”

“Yes, but you must forgive him for it.”

She had cause for complaint, for marriage without enjoyment is a thorn without roses.  She was passionate, but her principles were stronger than her passions, or else she would have sought for what she wanted elsewhere.  My impotent brother excused himself by saying that he loved her so well that he thought cohabitation with her would restore the missing faculty; he deceived himself and her at the same time.  In time she died, and he married another woman with the same idea, but this time passion was stronger than virtue, and his new wife drove him away from Paris.  I shall say more of him in twenty years time.