Everything I did when I was away from Esther seemed to turn out ill, and I felt that if I wanted to be happy I should do well to keep near her; but my destiny, or rather my inconstancy, drew me away.

Three days afterwards, the villainous Major Sabi called on me to warn me to be on my guard, as, according to his account, a Venetian officer I had insulted and refused to give satisfaction to had vowed vengeance against me.

“Then,” said I, “I shall have him arrested as an escaped galley slave, in which character I have given him alms, and for wearing without the right to do so the uniform of an officer, thereby disgracing the whole army.  And pray what outrage can I have committed against girls who live in a brothel, and whom I have paid according to their deserts?”

“If what you say is true you are quite right, but this poor devil is in a desperate situation; he wants to leave the country, and does not possess a single florin.  I advise you to give him an alms once more, and you will have done with him.  Two score florins will not make you any the poorer, and will rid you of a villainous enemy.”

“A most villainous one, I think.”  At last I agreed to give him the forty florins, and I handed them to him in a coffee-house where the major told me I should find him.  The reader will see how I met this blackguard four months later.

Now, when all these troubles have been long over and I can think over them calmly, reflecting on the annoyances I experienced at Amsterdam, where I might have been so happy, I am forced to admit that we ourselves are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain.  If I could live my life over again, should I be wiser?  Perhaps; but then I should not be myself.

M. d’O——­ asked me to sup with him at the Burgomasters’ Lodge, and this was a great distinction, for, contrary to the rules of Freemasonry, no one but the twenty-four members who compose the lodge is admitted, and these twenty-four masons were the richest men on the Exchange.

“I have told them that you are coming,” said M. d’O——­, “and to welcome you more honourably the lodge will be opened in French.”  In short, these gentlemen gave me the most distinguished reception, and I had the fortune to make myself so agreeable to them that I was unanimously chosen an honorary member during the time I should stay at Amsterdam.  As we were going away, M. d’O——­ told me that I had supped with a company which represented a capital of three hundred millions.

Next day the worthy Dutchman begged me to oblige him by answering a question to which his daughter’s oracle had replied in a very obscure manner.  Esther encouraged me, and I asked what the question was.  It ran as follows: 

“I wish to know whether the individual who desires me and my company to transact a matter of the greatest importance is really a friend of the King of France?”