During my stay in the casino I amused myself in reading, in writing to C——­ C——­, but my love for her had become a calm affection.  The lines which interested me most in her letters were those in which she mentioned her friend.  She often blamed me for not having cultivated the acquaintance of M——­ M——­, and my answer was that I had not done so for fear of being known.  I always insisted upon the necessity of discretion.

I do not believe in the possibility of equal love being bestowed upon two persons at the same time, nor do I believe it possible to keep love to a high degree of intensity if you give it either too much food or none at all.  That which maintained my passion for M——­ M ——­ in a state of great vigour was that I could never possess her without running the risk of losing her.

“It is impossible,” I said to her once, “that some time or other one of the nuns should not want to speak to you when you are absent?”

“No,” she answered, “that cannot happen, because there is nothing more religiously respected in a convent than the right of a nun to deny herself, even to the abbess.  A fire is the only circumstance I have to fear, because in that case there would be general uproar and confusion, and it would not appear natural that a nun should remain quietly locked up in her cell in the midst of such danger; my escape would then be discovered.  I have contrived to gain over the lay-sister and the gardener, as well as another nun, and that miracle was performed by my cunning assisted by my lover’s gold.

“He answers for the fidelity of the cook and his wife who take care of the casino.  He has likewise every confidence in the two gondoliers, although one of them is sure to be a spy of the State Inquisitors.”

On Christmas Eve she announced the return of her lover, and she told him that on St. Stephen’s Day she would go with him to the opera, and that they would afterwards spend the night together.

“I shall expect you, my beloved one,” she added, “on the last day of the year, and here is a letter which I beg you not to read till you get home.”

As I had to move in order to make room for her lover, I packed my things early in the morning, and, bidding farewell to a place in which during ten days I had enjoyed so many delights, I returned to the Bragadin Palace, where I read the following letter: 

“You have somewhat offended me, my own darling, by telling me, respecting the mystery which I am bound to keep on the subject of my lover, that, satisfied to possess my heart, you left me mistress of my mind.  That division of the heart and of the mind appears to me a pure sophism, and if it does not strike you as such you must admit that you do not love me wholly, for I cannot exist without mind, and you cannot cherish my heart if it does not agree with my mind.  If your love cannot accept a different state of things it does not excel in delicacy.  However, as some