“Where shall I go?” This was the question which seemed to me impossible of solution.  I thought of it all through the night, and through the morning, but I thought in vain; after Rome, I was indifferent where I went to!

In the evening, not caring for any supper, I had gone to my room; the Abbe Gama came to me with a request from the cardinal not to accept any invitation to dinner for the next day, as he wanted to speak to me.  I therefore waited upon his eminence the next day at the Villa Negroni; he was walking with his secretary, whom he dismissed the moment he saw me.  As soon as we were alone, I gave him all the particulars of the intrigue of the two lovers, and I expressed in the most vivid manner the sorrow I felt at leaving his service.

“I have no hope of success,” I added, “for I am certain that Fortune will smile upon me only as long as I am near your eminence.”

For nearly an hour I told him all the grief with which my heart was bursting, weeping bitterly; yet I could not move him from his decision.  Kindly, but firmly he pressed me to tell him to what part of Europe I wanted to go, and despair as much as vexation made me name Constantinople.

“Constantinople!” he exclaimed, moving back a step or two.

“Yes, monsignor, Constantinople,” I repeated, wiping away my tears.

The prelate, a man of great wit, but a Spaniard to the very back-bone, after remaining silent a few minutes, said, with a smile,

“I am glad you have not chosen Ispahan, as I should have felt rather embarrassed.  When do you wish to go?”

“This day week, as your eminence has ordered me.”

“Do you intend to sail from Naples or from Venice?”

“From Venice.”

“I will give you such a passport as will be needed, for you will find two armies in winter-quarters in the Romagna.  It strikes me that you may tell everybody that I sent you to Constantinople, for nobody will believe you.”

This diplomatic suggestion nearly made me smile.  The cardinal told me that I should dine with him, and he left me to join his secretary.

When I returned to the palace, thinking of the choice I had made, I said to myself, “Either I am mad, or I am obeying the impulse of a mysterious genius which sends me to Constantinople to work out my fate.”  I was only astonished that the cardinal had so readily accepted my choice.  “Without any doubt,” I thought, “he did not wish me to believe that he had boasted of more than he could achieve, in telling me that he had friends everywhere.  But to whom can he recommend me in Constantinople?  I have not the slightest idea, but to Constantinople I must go.”

I dined alone with his eminence; he made a great show of peculiar kindness and I of great satisfaction, for my self-pride, stronger even than my sorrow, forbade me to let anyone guess that I was in disgrace.  My deepest grief was, however, to leave the marchioness, with whom I was in love, and from whom I had not obtained any important favour.