I had made up my mind to spend a quiet six months at Rome, and the day after my arrival I took a pleasant suite of rooms opposite the Spanish Ambassador, whose name was d’Aspura.  It happened to be the same rooms as were occupied twenty-seven years ago by the teacher of languages, to whom I had gone for lessons while I was with Cardinal Acquaviva.  The landlady was the wife of a cook who only, slept with his better half once a week.  The woman had a daughter of sixteen or seventeen years old, who would have been very pretty if the small-pox had not deprived her of one eye.  They had provided her with an ill-made artificial eye, of a wrong size and a bad colour, which gave a very unpleasant expression to her face.  Margarita, as she was called, made no impression on me, but I made her a present which she valued very highly.  There was an English oculist named Taylor in Rome at that time, and I got him to make her an eye of the right size and colour.  This made Margarita imagine that I had fallen in love with her, and the mother, a devotee, was in some trouble as to whether my intentions were strictly virtuous.

I made arrangements with the mother to supply me with a good dinner and supper without any luxury.  I had three thousand sequins, and I had made up my mind to live in a quiet and respectable manner.

The next day I found letters for me in several post-offices, and the banker Belloni, who had known me for several years, had been already advised of my bill of exchange.  My good friend Dandolo sent me two letters of introduction, of which one was addressed to M. Erizzo, the Venetian ambassador.  He was the brother of the ambassador to Paris.  This letter pleased me greatly.  The other was addressed to the Duchess of Fiano, by her brother M. Zuliani.

I saw that I should be free of all the best houses, and I promised myself the pleasure of an early visit to Cardinal Bernis.

I did not hire either a carriage or a servant.  At Rome both these articles are procurable at a moment’s notice.

My first call was on the Duchess of Fiano.  She was an ugly woman, and though she was really very good-natured, she assumed the character of being malicious so as to obtain some consideration.

Her husband, who bore the name of Ottoboni, had only married her to obtain an heir, but the poor devil turned out to be what the Romans call ‘babilano’, and we impotent.  The duchess told me as much on the occasion of my third visit.  She did not give me the information in a complaining tone, or as if she was fain to be consoled, but merely to defy her confessor, who had threatened her with excommunication if she went on telling people about her husband’s condition, or if she tried to cure him of it.

The duchess gave a little supper every evening to her select circle of friends.  I was not admitted to these reunions for a week or ten days, by which time I had made myself generally popular.  The duke did not care for company and supped apart.