nterfere as he was delighted at my
misfortune. He wore a wig, and was very jealous of my beautiful head of
hair. Francois was envious through the whole of his life; yet he combined
this feeling of envy with friendship; I never could understand him; but
this vice of his, like my own vices, must by this time have died of old
age.

After his great operation, the abbe left my room quietly, but when I woke
up shortly afterwards, and realized all the horror of this unheard-of
execution, my rage and indignation were indeed wrought to the highest
pitch.

What wild schemes of revenge my brain engendered while, with a
looking-glass in my hand, I was groaning over the shameful havoc
performed by this audacious priest! At the noise I made my grandmother
hastened to my room, and amidst my brother's laughter the kind old woman
assured me that the priest would never have been allowed to enter my room
if she could have foreseen his intention, and she managed to soothe my
passion to some extent by confessing that he had over-stepped the limits
of his right to administer a reproof.

But I was determined upon revenge, and I went on dressing myself and
revolving in my mind the darkest plots. It seemed to me that I was
entitled to the most cruel revenge, without having anything to dread from
the terrors of the law. The theatres being open at that time I put on a
mask to go out, and I, went to the advocate Carrare, with whom I had
become acquainted at the senator's house, to inquire from him whether I
could bring a suit against the priest. He told me that, but a short time
since, a family had been ruined for having sheared the moustache of a
Sclavonian--a crime not nearly so atrocious as the shearing of all my
front locks, and that I had only to give him my instructions to begin a
criminal suit against the abbe, which would make him tremble. I gave my
consent, and begged that he would tell M. de Malipiero in the evening the
reason for which I could not go to his house, for I did not feel any
inclination to show myself anywhere until my hair had grown again.

I went home and partook with my brother of a repast which appeared rather
scanty in comparison to the dinners I had with the old senator. The
privation of the delicate and plentiful fare to which his excellency had
accustomed me was most painful, besides all the enjoyments from which I
was excluded through the atrocious conduct of the virulent priest, who
was my godfather. I wept fro