ether talking of love. He was armed, I was not,
but he missed me; I sprang upon him and killed him with my two hands,
wringing his neck as if he had been a chicken. I wanted Bianca to fly
with me; but she would not. That is the way with women! So I went alone.
I was condemned to death, and my property was confiscated and made over
to my next-of-kin; but I had carried off my diamonds, five of Titian's
pictures taken down from their frames and rolled up, and all my gold.

"I went to Milan, no one molested me, my affair in nowise interested the
State.--One small observation before I go further," he continued, after
a pause, "whether it is true or no that the mother's fancies at the time
of conception or in the months before birth can influence her child,
this much is certain, my mother during her pregnancy had a passion for
gold, and I am the victim of a monomania, of a craving for gold which
must be gratified. Gold is so much of a necessity of life for me, that I
have never been without it; I must have gold to toy with and finger. As
a young man I always wore jewelry, and I carried two or three hundred
ducats about me wherever I went."

He drew a couple of gold coins from his pocket and showed them to me as
he spoke.

"I can tell by instinct when gold is near. Blind as I am, I stop before
a jeweler's shop windows. That passion was the ruin of me; I took to
gambling to play with gold. I was not a cheat, I was cheated, I ruined
myself. I lost all my fortune. Then the longing to see Bianca once more
possessed me like a frenzy. I stole back to Venice and found her again.
For six months I was happy; she hid me in her house and fed me. I
thought thus deliciously to finish my days. But the Provveditore courted
her, and guessed that he had a rival; we in Italy can feel that. He
played the spy upon us, and surprised us together in bed, base wretch.
You may judge what a fight for life it was; I did not kill him outright,
but I wounded him dangerously.

"That adventure broke my luck. I have never found another Bianca; I have
known great pleasures; but among the most celebrated women at the court
of Louis XV. I never found my beloved Venetian's charm, her love, her
great qualities.

"The Provveditore called his servants, the palace was surrounded and
entered; I fought for my life that I might die beneath Bianca's eyes;
Bianca helped me to kill the Provveditore. Once before she had refused
flight with me; but after six months of