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 happiness she wished only to
die with me, and received several thrusts. I was entangled in a great
cloak that they flung over me, carried down to a gondola, and hurried
to the Pozzi dungeons. I was twenty-two years old. I gripped the hilt
of my broken sword so hard, that they could only have taken it from me
by cutting off my hand at the wrist. A curious chance, or rather the
instinct of self-preservation, led me to hide the fragment of the
blade in a corner of my cell, as if it might still be of use.
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