have the soul of an angel. If you ever marry
her, you will have the most heavenly wife. I shall of course feel
miserable if I lose her, but your happiness will make amends for all. Do
you know, dearest, that I cannot understand how you could fall in love
with me after having known her, any more than I can conceive how she does
not hate me ever since she has discovered that I have robbed her of your
heart. My dear C---- C---- has truly something divine in her disposition.
Do you know why she confided to you her barren loves with me? Because, as
she told me herself, she wished to ease her conscience, thinking that she
was in some measure unfaithful to you."

"Does she think herself bound to be entirely faithful to me, with the
knowledge she has now of my own unfaithfulness?"

"She is particularly delicate and conscientious, and though she believes
herself truly your wife, she does not think that she has any right to
control your actions, but she believes herself bound to give you an
account of all she does."

"Noble girl!"

The prudent wife of the door-keeper having brought the supper, we sat
down to the well-supplied table. M---- M---- remarked that I had become
much thinner.

"The pains of the body do not fatten a man," I said, "and the sufferings
of the mind emaciate him. But we have suffered sufficiently, and we must
be wise enough never to recall anything which can be painful to us."

"You are quite right, my love; the instants that man is compelled to give
up to misfortune or to suffering are as many moments stolen from his
life, but he doubles his existence when he has the talent of multiplying
his pleasures, no matter of what nature they may be."

We amused ourselves in talking over past dangers, Pierrot's disguise, and
the ball at Briati, where she had been told that another Pierrot had made
his appearance.

M---- M---- wondered at the extraordinary effect of a disguise, for, said
she to me:

"The Pierrot in the parlour of the convent seemed to me taller and
thinner than you. If chance had not made you take the convent gondola, if
you had not had the strange idea of assuming the disguise of Pierrot, I
should not have known who you were, for my friends in the convent would
not have been interested in you. I was delighted when I heard that you
were not a patrician, as I feared, because, had you been one, I might in
time have run some great danger."

I knew very well what she had to fear, but pretending