“I candidly confess, madam, that I have felt her loss deeply.  She was kind and generous; above all, she was indulgent when I did not call often upon her.  My friendship for her was innocent.”

“I have no doubt of it, although your ode was the work of a poet deeply in love.”

“Oh!” said the kindly cardinal, “a poet cannot possibly write without professing to be in love.”

“But,” replied the marchioness, “if the poet is really in love, he has no need of professing a feeling which he possesses.”

As she was speaking, the marchioness drew out of her pocket a paper which she offered to his eminence.

“This is the ode,” she said, “it does great honour to the poet, for it is admitted to be a masterpiece by all the literati in Rome, and Donna Lucrezia knows it by heart.”

The cardinal read it over and returned it, smiling, and remarking that, as he had no taste for Italian poetry, she must give herself the pleasure of translating it into French rhyme if she wished him to admire it.

“I only write French prose,” answered the marchioness, “and a prose translation destroys half the beauty of poetry.  I am satisfied with writing occasionally a little Italian poetry without any pretension to poetical fame”

Those words were accompanied by a very significant glance in my direction.

“I should consider myself fortunate, madam, if I could obtain the happiness of admiring some of your poetry.”

“Here is a sonnet of her ladyship’s,” said Cardinal S. C.

I took it respectfully, and I prepared to read it, but the amiable marchioness told me to put it in my pocket and return it to the cardinal the next day, although she did not think the sonnet worth so much trouble.  “If you should happen to go out in the morning,” said Cardinal S. C., “you could bring it back, and dine with me.”  Cardinal Aquaviva immediately answered for me:  “He will be sure to go out purposely.”

With a deep reverence, which expressed my thanks, I left the room quietly and returned to my apartment, very impatient to read the sonnet.  Yet, before satisfying my wish, I could not help making some reflections on the situation.  I began to think myself somebody since the gigantic stride I had made this evening at the cardinal’s assembly.  The Marchioness de G. had shewn in the most open way the interest she felt in me, and, under cover of her grandeur, had not hesitated to compromise herself publicly by the most flattering advances.  But who would have thought of disapproving?  A young abbe like me, without any importance whatever, who could scarcely pretend to her high protection!  True, but she was precisely the woman to grant it to those who, feeling themselves unworthy of it, dared not shew any pretensions to her patronage.  On that head, my modesty must be evident to everyone, and the marchioness would certainly have insulted me had she supposed me capable of sufficient vanity to fancy that she