renewed his protestations, and clothed them with such a semblance of honesty and truth, that when he ended with this tender conclusion, ‘Be assured, my son, that I love you,’ my anger vanished. * * * I lost sight of the Jesuit, and thought I was addressing a man, a being capable of sympathising in the distresses of others.  ‘Ah, well, father,’ said I, ’I need some one on whom I can rely, some one towards whom I can feel kindly; I will therefore place confidence in your words.’” After some further conversation, Ciocci was asked if he wished to leave that place.  “If I desire it!” he replied, “what a strange question!  You might as well ask a condemned soul whether he desires to escape from hell!” At these words the Jesuit started like a goaded animal, and, forgetting his mission of deceiver, with, knit brows and compressed lips, he allowed his ferocious soul for one moment to appear; but, having grown old in deceit, he immediately had the circumspection to give this movement of rage the appearance of religious zeal, and exclaimed, “What comparisons are these?  Are you not ashamed to assume the language of the Atheist?  By speaking in this way you clearly manifest how little you deserve to leave this place.  But since I have told you that I love you, I will give you a proof of it by thinking no more of those irreligious expressions; they shall be forgotten as though they had never been spoken.  Well, the Cardinal proposes to you an easy way of returning to your monastery.”  “What does be propose?” “Here is the way,” said he, presenting me with a paper:  “copy this with your own hand; nothing more will be required of you.”  “I took the paper with convulsive eagerness.  It was a recantation of my faith, there condemned as erroneous. * * * Upon reading this, I shuddered, and, starting to my feet, in a solemn attitude and with a firm voice, exclaimed, ’Kill me, if you please; my life is in your power; but never will I subscribe to that iniquitous formulary.’  The Jesuit, after laboring in vain to persuade me to his wishes, went away in anger.  I now momentarily expected to be conducted to the torture.  Whenever I was taken from my room to the chapel, I feared lest some trap-door should open beneath my feet, and therefore took great care to tread in the footsteps of the Jesuit who preceded me.  No one acquainted with the Inquisition will say that my precaution was needless.  My imagination was so filled with the horrors of this place, that even in my short, interrupted, and feverish dreams I beheld daggers and axes glittering around me; I heard the noise of wheels, saw burning piles and heated irons, and woke in convulsive terror, only to give myself up to gloomy reflections, inspired by the reality of my situation, and the impressions left by these nocturnal visions.  What tears did I shed in those dreary moments!  How innumerable were the bitter wounds that lacerated my heart!  My prayers seemed to me unworthy to be received by a God of charity, because, notwithstanding all my efforts to banish