had guessed
rightly.

I thought Juliette very singular, for she seldom spoke to me, and
whenever she looked at me she made use of an eye-glass, or she contracted
her eye-lids, as if she wished to deny me the honour of seeing her eyes,
which were beyond all dispute very beautiful. They were blue, wondrously
large and full, and tinted with that unfathomable variegated iris which
nature only gives to youth, and which generally disappears, after having
worked miracles, when the owner reaches the shady side of forty.
Frederick the Great preserved it until his death.

Juliette was informed of the portrait I had given of her to M. de
Malipiero's friends by the indiscreet pensioner, Xavier Cortantini. One
evening I called upon her with M. Manzoni, and she told him that a
wonderful judge of beauty had found flaws in hers, but she took good care
not to specify them. It was not difficult to make out that she was
indirectly firing at me, and I prepared myself for the ostracism which I
was expecting, but which, however, she kept in abeyance fully for an
hour. At last, our conversation falling upon a concert given a few days
before by Imer, the actor, and in which his daughter, Therese, had taken
a brilliant part, Juliette turned round to me and inquired what M. de
Malipiero did for Therese. I said that he was educating her. "He can well
do it," she answered, "for he is a man of talent; but I should like to
know what he can do with you?"

"Whatever he can."

"I am told that he thinks you rather stupid."

As a matter of course, she had the laugh on her side, and I, confused,
uncomfortable and not knowing what to say, took leave after having cut a
very sorry figure, and determined never again to darken her door. The
next day at dinner the account of my adventure caused much amusement to
the old senator.

Throughout the summer, I carried on a course of Platonic love with my
charming Angela at the house of her teacher of embroidery, but her
extreme reserve excited me, and my love had almost become a torment to
myself. With my ardent nature, I required a mistress like Bettina, who
knew how to satisfy my love without wearing it out. I still retained some
feelings of purity, and I entertained the deepest veneration for Angela.
She was in my eyes the very palladium of Cecrops. Still very innocent, I
felt some disinclination towards women, and I was simple enough to be
jealous of even their husbands.

Angela would not grant me the s