The very next day I resolved on insuring Christine’s happiness without making her my wife.  I had thought of marrying her when I loved her better than myself, but after obtaining possession the balance was so much on my side that my self-love proved stronger than my love for Christine.  I could not make up my mind to renounce the advantages, the hopes which I thought were attached to my happy independence.  Yet I was the slave of sentiment.  To abandon the artless, innocent girl seemed to me an awful crime of which I could not be guilty, and the mere idea of it made me shudder.  I was aware that she was, perhaps, bearing in her womb a living token of our mutual love, and I shivered at the bare possibility that her confidence in me might be repaid by shame and everlasting misery.

I bethought myself of finding her a husband in every way better than myself; a husband so good that she would not only forgive me for the insult I should thus be guilty of towards her, but also thank me at the end, and like me all the better for my deceit.

To find such a husband could not be very difficult, for Christine was not only blessed with wonderful beauty, and with a well-established reputation for virtue, but she was also the possessor of a fortune amounting to four thousand Venetian ducats.

Shut up in a room with the three worshippers of my oracle, I consulted Paralis upon the affair which I had so much at heart.  The answer was: 

“Serenus must attend to it.”

Serenus was the cabalistic name of M. de Bragadin, and the excellent man immediately expressed himself ready to execute all the orders of Paralis.  It was my duty to inform him of those orders.

“You must,” I said to him, “obtain from the Holy Father a dispensation for a worthy and virtuous girl, so as to give her the privilege of marrying during Lent in the church of her village; she is a young country girl.  Here is her certificate of birth.  The husband is not yet known; but it does not matter, Paralis undertakes to find one.”

“Trust to me,” said my father, “I will write at once to our ambassador in Rome, and I will contrive to have my letter sent by special express.  You need not be anxious, leave it all to me, I will make it a business of state, and I must obey Paralis all the more readily that I foresee that the intended husband is one of us four.  Indeed, we must prepare ourselves to obey.”

I had some trouble in keeping my laughter down, for it was in my power to metamorphose Christine into a grand Venetian lady, the wife of a senator; but that was not my intention.  I again consulted the oracle in order to ascertain who would be the husband of the young girl, and the answer was that M. Dandolo was entrusted with the care of finding one, young, handsome, virtuous, and able to serve the Republic, either at home or abroad.  M. Dandolo was to consult me before concluding any arrangements.  I gave him courage for his task by informing him that the girl had a dowry of four thousand ducats, but I added that his choice was to be made within a fortnight.  M. de Bragadin, delighted at not being entrusted with the commission, laughed heartily.