"I see you do not believe me, but I assure you that the abbess threatened
me with excommunication if I let myself be seen by a man."

"Fear these bolts no longer, dear, they cannot hurt you."

But she sneezed more violently than ever, and fearing lest her efforts
might bring on her delivery I called the woman again, and left the nun in
her care, promising to return at the same hour on the next day.

It would not have been like me to leave this interesting creature in her
distress, but my devotion to her cause had no merit, since I was madly in
love with this new M---- M---- with black eyes; and love always makes men
selfish, since all the sacrifices they make for the beloved object are
always ultimately referable to their own desires.

I had determined, then, to do all in my power for her, and certainly not
to allow her to return to the convent in the state she was in. I
concluded that to save her would be an action pleasing to God, since God
alone could have made her so like my beloved, and God had willed that I
should win a good deal of money, and had made me find the Zeroli, who
would serve as a shield to my actions and baffle the curiosity of spies.
The philosophers and the mystics may perhaps laugh at me, but what do I
care? I have always delighted in referring all the actions of my life to
God, and yet people have charged me with Atheism!

Next morning I did not forget the Zeroli, and I went to her room at eight
and found her asleep. Her maid begged me to go in quietly for fear of
awakening her, and then left me and shut the door. I knew my part, for I
remembered how, twenty years before, a Venetian lady, whose sleep I had