All the same I was really very grateful for his advice, and I gave the matter a good deal of thought.

I dressed myself and went to see Esther, whom I had to convince of the divinity of my oracle, a different task with one whose own wits had told her so much concerning my methods.  This was the problem she gave me to solve,

“Your oracle must tell me something which I, and only I, know.”

Feeling that it would be impossible to fulfil these conditions, I told her that the oracle might reveal some secret she might not care to have disclosed.

“That is impossible,” she answered, “as the secret will be known only to myself.”

“But, if the oracle replies I shall know the answer as well as you, and it may be something you would not like me to know.”

“There is no such thing, and, even if there were, if the oracle is not your own brain you can always find out anything you want to know.”

“But there is some limit to the powers of the oracle.”

“You are making idle excuses; either prove that I am mistaken in my ideas or acknowledge that my oracle is as good as yours.”

This was pushing me hard, and I was on the point of declaring myself conquered when a bright idea struck me.

In the midst of the dimple which added such a charm to her chin Esther had a little dark mole, garnished with three or four extremely fine hairs.  These moles, which we call in Italian ‘neo, nei’, and which are usually an improvement to the prettiest face, when they occur on the face, the neck, the arms, or the hands, are duplicated on the corresponding parts of the body.  I concluded, therefore, that Esther had a mole like that on her chin in a certain place which a virtuous girl does not shew; and innocent as she was I suspected that she herself did not know of this second mole’s existence.  “I shall astonish her,” I said to myself, “and establish my superiority in a manner which will put the idea of having equal skill to mine out of her head for good.”  Then with the solemn and far-away look of a seer I made my pyramid and extracted these words from it,

“Fair and discreet Esther, no one knows that at the entrance of the temple of love you have a mole precisely like that which appears on your chin.”

While I was working at my calculations, Esther was leaning over me and following every movement.  As she really knew as much about the cabala as I did she did not want it to be explained to her, but translated the numbers into letters as I wrote them down.  As soon as I had extracted all the combinations of numbers from the pyramid she said, quietly, that as I did not want to know the answer, she would be much obliged if I would let her translate the cypher.

“With pleasure,” I replied.  “And I shall do so all the more willingly as I shall thereby save your delicacy from sharing with me a secret which may or may not be agreeable.  I promise you not to try to find it out.  It is enough for me to see you convinced.”