alking with interest on various topics till
Cesarino and the husband came back. The dear child finished his conquest
of me at supper; he had a merry random wit, and all the Neapolitan
vivacity. He sat down at the clavier, and after playing several pieces
with the utmost skill he began to sing Neapolitan songs which made us all
laugh. Therese only looked at him and me, but now and again she embraced
her husband, saying, that in love alone lies happiness.

I thought then, and I think now, that this day was one of the happiest I
have ever spent.

CHAPTER VII

The Corticelli--The Jew Manager Beaten--The False Charles Ivanoff and the
Trick He Played Me--I Am Ordered to Leave Tuscany--I Arrive at Rome--My
Brother Jean

At nine o'clock the next morning, the Abbe Gama was announced. The first
thing he did was to shed tears of joy (as he said) at seeing me so well
and prosperous after so many years. The reader will guess that the abbe
addressed me in the most flattering terms, and perhaps he may know that
one may be clever, experienced in the ways of the world, and even
distrustful of flattery, but yet one's self-love, ever on the watch,
listens to the flatterer, and thinks him pleasant. This polite and
pleasant abbe, who had become extremely crafty from having lived all his
days amongst the high dignitaries at the court of the 'Servus Servorum
Dei' (the best school of strategy), was not altogether an ill-disposed
man, but both his disposition and his profession conspired to make him
inquisitive; in fine, such as I have depicted him in the first volume of
these Memoirs. He wanted to hear my adventures, and did not wait for me
to ask him to tell his story. He told me at great length the various
incidents in his life for the seventeen years in which we had not seen
one another. He had left the service of the King of Spain for that of the
King of Portugal, he was secretary of embassy to the Commander Almada,
and he had been obliged to leave Rome because the Pope Rezzonico would
not allow the King of Portugal to punish certain worthy Jesuit assassins,
who had only broken his arm as it happened, but who had none the less
meant to take his life. Thus, Gama was staying in Italy corresponding
with Almada and the famous Carvalho, waiting for the dispute to be
finished before he returned to Rome. In point of fact this was the only
substantial incident in the abbe's story, but he worked in so many
episodes of no consequence that