Volume III Part 41 (2/2)
”I shall be near you, and that is enough for me:”
In fact, I did not coibberish, and was terribly bored, as Esther preserved a sole frorace and wonderful ive me some pleasure in return for the tediuot ho, Heaven be thanked! I heard nothing more about the cabala Before we parted, Esther and her father made me promise to dine with the prevented ht o'clock, while I was still dressing, I suddenly saw Piccolo before an to feel suspicious I rang the bell for my faithful Spaniard, who came in directly
”I want to speak to you privately,” said he, ”tell that fellow to go out”
”He can stay,” I answered, ”he does not knoord of Italian” Le Duc, of course, knew Italian perfectly well
”Yesterday, about noon,” he began, ”two men came into my room They were accompanied by the innkeeper, who served as interpreter One of the ed bill of exchange, which I had given the night before, and which he held in his hands As I gave no reply, he told ument; I must say yes or no there and then, for such were their instructions from the chief of police I had no choice in the et back the bill, and the man told me I could not have it unless I told the police the naot it, as, in the interests of coer must be prosecuted My reply was that I could not possibly tell theer who had co a small bank of faro, to pass the tiht introduced by soone, I found to my surprise that nobody knew him; and I added that if I had been aware of this I would not only have refused the bill but would not have allowed him to play Thereupon the second policeman said that I had better find out who this person was, or else I should be considered as the forger and prosecuted accordingly; after this threat they went out
”In the afternoon my wife called on the chief of police and was politely received, but after hearing what she had to say he inforer, since M Casanova's honour ainst him, in which case he would have to prosecute me
”You see in what a difficult position we are placed, and I think you ought to try to help us You have got your money and you are not without friends Get their influence exerted in the matter, and we shall hear no more about it Your interests as well as mine are concerned”
”Except as a witness of the fact,” I answered, ”I can have nothing to do with this affair You agree that I received the bill froh for lad to be of service to you, but I really don't see what I can do The best advice I can give you is to ed bill, and if you can't do that I would counsel you to disappear, and the sooner the better, or else you e at this, and turning his back onI should be sorry for what I had said
My Spaniard followed hinor had gone off threatening vengeance, and that, in his opinion, I would do well to be on ht,” said I, ”say no rateful for his advice, and I gave the ht
I dressed myself and went to see Esther, whom I had to convince of the divinity of my oracle, a different task with one whose oits had told her so avewhich I, and only I, know”
Feeling that it would be impossible to fulfil these conditions, I told her that the oracle ht not care to have disclosed
”That is impossible,” she answered, ”as the secret will be known only to myself”
”But, if the oracle replies I shall know the answer as well as you, and ityou would not like , and, even if there were, if the oracle is not your own brain you can always find out anything you want to know”
”But there is so idle excuses; either prove that I aood as yours”
This was pushi+nght idea struck me
In the midst of the dimple which added such a chararnished with three or four extremely fine hairs These moles, which we call in Italian 'neo, nei', and which are usually an improvement to the prettiest face, when they occur on the face, the neck, the ar parts of the body I concluded, therefore, that Esther had a mole like that on her chin in a certain place which a virtuous girl does not shew; and innocent as she was I suspected that she herself did not know of this second mole's existence ”I shall astonish her,” I said to myself, ”and establishequal skill to ood” Then with the solemn and far-away look of a seer I made my pyramid and extracted these words from it,
”Fair and discreet Esther, no one knows that at the entrance of the temple of love you have a mole precisely like that which appears on your chin”
While I orking atevery movement As she really knew as much about the cabala as I did she did not want it to be explained to her, but translated the numbers into letters as I wrote them down As soon as I had extracted all the combinations of numbers from the pyramid she said, quietly, that as I did not want to know the answer, she would be ed if I would let her translate the cypher
”With pleasure,” I replied ”And I shall do so all the ly as I shall thereby save your delicacy froreeable I proh for me to see you convinced”