Three days afterwards I received a letter from her.  She painted with such vivid colours the happiness she had felt in seeing me, that I made up my mind to give her that pleasure as often as I could.  I answered at once that I would attend mass every Sunday at the church of her convent.  It cost me nothing:  I could not see her, but I knew that she saw me herself, and her happiness made me perfectly happy.  I had nothing to fear, for it was almost impossible that anyone could recognize me in the church which was attended only by the people of Muran.

After hearing two or three masses, I used to take a gondola, the gondolier of which could not feel any curiosity about me.  Yet I kept on my guard, for I knew that the father of C——­ C——­ wanted her to forget me, and I had no doubt he would have taken her away, God knew where if he had had the slightest suspicion of my being acquainted with the place where he had confined her.

Thus I was reasoning in my fear to lose all opportunity of corresponding with my dear C——­ C——­, but I did not yet know the disposition and the shrewdness of the sainted daughters of the Lord.  I did not suppose that there was anything remarkable in my person, at least for the inmates of a convent; but I was yet a novice respecting the curiosity of women, and particularly of unoccupied hearts; I had soon occasion to be convinced.

I had executed my Sunday manoeuvering only for a month or five weeks, when my dear C——­ C——­ wrote me jestingly that I had become a living enigma for all the convent, boarders and nuns, not even excepting the old ones.  They all expected me anxiously; they warned each other of my arrival, and watched me taking the holy water.  They remarked that I never cast a glance toward the grating, behind which were all the inmates of the convent; that I never looked at any of the women coming in or going out of the church.  The old nuns said that I was certainly labouring under some deep sorrow, of which I had no hope to be cured except through the protection of the Holy Virgin, and the young ones asserted that I was either melancholy or misanthropic.

My dear wife, who knew better than the others, and had no occasion to lose herself in suppositions, was much amused, and she entertained me by sending me a faithful report of it all.  I wrote to her that, if she had any fear of my being recognized I would cease my Sunday visits to the church.  She answered that I could not impose upon her a more cruel privation, and she entreated me to continue my visits.  I thought it would be prudent, however, to abstain from calling at Laura’s house, for fear of the chattering nuns contriving to know it, and discovering in that manner a great deal more than I wished them to find out.  But that existence was literally consuming me by slow degrees, and could not last long.  Besides, I was made to have a mistress, and to live happily with her.  Not knowing what to do with myself, I would gamble, and I almost invariably won; but, in spite of that, weariness had got hold of me and I was getting thinner every day.