I swore never to return to Madame Orio's house. To steady my mind, I buried myself in study.
That afternoon I argued a metaphysical thesis claiming that what exists only in the abstract can exist only abstractly.
A neat point, though too neat: it slipped toward heresy, and I was forced to retract.
Days later I left for Padua and earned my doctorate utroque jure. The parchment in my hand should have cured me of sentiment. It didn't.
Back in Venice, a note awaited me. Procurator Rosa wrote that Madame Orio wished to see me. Certain Angela would not be there, I went.
The two graceful sisters were so kind, so pleasant, that they scattered to the winds the shame I felt at seeing them after the fearful night I had passed in their room two months before.
I made polite excuses about my absence -thesis, exams, duty.
Madame Orio accepted them at once; she wanted only to scold me for forgetting her.
When I rose to leave, Nanette pressed a folded letter into my palm with a glance that said, read it alone.
Outside, under a street lamp, I opened it. Inside was another note with Angela's handwriting.
"If you are not afraid of passing another night with me you shall have no reason to complain of me, for I love you, and I wish to hear from your own lips whether you would still have loved me if I had consented to become contemptible in your eyes."
This is the letter of Nanette, who alone had her wits about her:
"M. Rosa having undertaken to bring you back to our house, I prepare these few lines to let you know that Angela is in despair at having lost you. I confess that the night you spent with us was a cruel one, but I do not think that you did rightly in giving up your visits to Madame Orio. If you still feel any love for Angela, I advise you to take your chances once more. Accept a rendezvous for another night; she may vindicate herself, and you will be happy. Believe me; come. Farewell!"
The two letters made me smile in spite of myself. I folded them slowly, imagining the look on Angela's face when I avenge myself by showing her the coldest contempt.
On Sunday I went back to Madame Orio's, carrying a smoked tongue and two bottles of Cyprus wine on my coat.
To my great surprise my cruel mistress was not there.
Nanette told me that she had met her at church in the morning, and that she would not be able to come before supper-time.
Trusting to that promise, I declined Madam Orio's invitation, then slipped upstairs before the meal began.
I was impatient to play the part I had prepared myself for, and feeling assured that Angela, even if she should prove less cruel, would only grant me insignificant favours, I despised them in anticipation, and resolved to be avenged.
The lock clicked below after three-quarters of an hour.
Footsteps climbed the stairs, and a moment later Nanette and Marton entered the room.
"Where is Angela?" I enquired.
"She must have been unable to come, or to send a message." Nanette said. "But she knows you're here."
"She thinks she has made a fool of me; but I suspected she would act in this way." I answered. "You know her now. She is trifling with me, and very likely she is now revelling in her triumph. She has made use of you to allure me in the snare, and it is all the better for her; had she come, I meant to have had my turn, and to have laughed at her."
Nanette smiled. "Ah! you must allow me to have my doubts as to that."
"Doubt me not, beautiful Nanette; the pleasant night we are going to spend without her must convince you."
"That is to say that, as a man of sense, you can accept us as a makeshift; but you can sleep here, and my sister can lie with me on the sofa in the next room."
"I cannot hinder you, but it would be great unkindness on your part. At all events, I do not intend to go to bed."
"What! you would have the courage to spend seven hours alone with us? Why, I am certain that in a short time you will be at a loss what to say, and you will fall asleep."
"Well, we shall see." I said, producing the tongue and wine. "In the mean-time here are provisions. You will not be so cruel as to let me eat alone? Can you get any bread?"
She laughed. "Yes, and to please you we must have a second supper."
As she fetched it, I studied her face in the candlelight calm, bright, curious.
"I ought to be in love with you. Tell me, beautiful Nanette," I said, ", if I were as much attached to you as I was to Angela, would you follow her example and make me unhappy?"
She tilted her head. "How can you ask such a question? It is worthy of a conceited man. All I can answer is, that I do not know what I would do."
They laid the cloth, laughing as they worked. Bread, a wedge of Parmesan and a pitcher of water.
The wine I'd brought sparkled in their glasses; they weren't used to it, their laughter loosened into song, and I found their gaiety delightful.
And as I looked at them, I wondered at my having been blind enough not to see their merit.
After our delicious supper we sat close together. Their hands were warm in mine; I pressed them to my lips.
"Are you truly my friends?" I asked. "Do you approve of Angela's conduct towards me?"
They exchanged a glance and they both answered that it had made them shed many tears.
"Then let me," I said. "have for you the tender feelings of a brother, and share those feelings yourselves as if you were my sisters; let us exchange, in all innocence, proofs of our mutual affection, and swear to each other an eternal fidelity."
I kissed them once, lightly, a brother's kiss.
They laughed and returned it.
But those innocent kisses, as we repeated them, very soon became ardent ones.
Heat gathered in our faces. The air turned thick.
We stopped at the same instant, looking at each other very much astonished and rather serious.
They rose without a word and left the room. I remained alone with my thoughts.
Indeed, it was natural that the burning kisses I had given and received should have sent through me the fire of passion, and that I should suddenly have fallen madly in love with the two amiable sisters.
Both were handsomer than Angela, and they were superior to her -Nanette by her charming wit, Marton by her sweet and simple nature.
I could not understand how I had been so long in rendering them the justice they deserved, but they were the innocent daughters of a noble family, and the lucky chance which had thrown them in my way ought not to prove a calamity for them.
I was not vain enough to suppose that they loved me, but I could well enough admit that my kisses had influenced them in the same manner that their kisses had influenced me.
Believing this to be the case, it was evident that, with a little cunning on my part, and of sly practices of which they were ignorant, I could easily, during the long night I was going to spend with them, obtain favours, the consequences of which might be very positive.
The very thought made me shudder, and I firmly resolved to respect their virtue, never dreaming that circumstances might prove too strong for me.