I had no difficulty in obeying her, for I was truly in great need of rest.  I slept until evening.  As soon as I awoke, I wrote to her that my health was excellent, and that I felt quite inclined to begin our delightful contest all over again.  I asked her to let me know how she was herself, and after I had dispatched my letter I returned to Venice.

CHAPTER XIX

I Give My Portrait to M. M.—­A Present From Her—­I Go to the Opera With
Her—­She Plays At the Faro Table and Replenishes My Empty
Purse—­Philosophical Conversation With M. M.—­A Letter From C. C.—­She
Knows All—­A Ball At the Convent; My Exploits In the Character of
Pierrot—­C.  C. Comes to the Casino Instead of M. M.—­I Spend the Night
With Her In A Very Silly Way.

My dear M——­ M——­ had expressed a wish to have my portrait, something like the one I had given to C——­ C——­, only larger, to wear it as a locket.  The outside was to represent some saint, and an invisible spring was to remove the sainted picture and expose my likeness.  I called upon the artist who had painted the other miniature for me, and in three sittings I had what I wanted.  He afterwards made me an Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel was transformed into a dark-haired saint, and the Holy Virgin into a beautiful, light-complexioned woman holding her arms towards the angel.  The celebrated painter Mengs imitated that idea in the picture of the Annunciation which he painted in Madrid twelve years afterwards, but I do not know whether he had the same reasons for it as my painter.  That allegory was exactly of the same size as my portrait, and the jeweller who made the locket arranged it in such a manner that no one could suppose the sacred image to be there only for the sake of hiding a profane likeness.

The end of January, 1754, before going to the casino, I called upon Laura to give her a letter for C——­ C——­, and she handed me one from her which amused me.  My beautiful nun had initiated that young girl, not only into the mysteries of Sappho, but also in high metaphysics, and C——­ C——­ had consequently become a Freethinker.  She wrote to me that, objecting to give an account of her affairs to her confessor, and yet not wishing to tell him falsehoods, she had made up her mind to tell him nothing.

“He has remarked,” she added, “that perhaps I do not confess anything to him because I did not examine my conscience sufficiently, and I answered him that I had nothing to say, but that if he liked I would commit a few sins for the purpose of having something to tell him in confession.”

I thought this reply worthy of a thorough sophist, and laughed heartily.