"They execrate his Eminence, who has never been on their side, but they haven't yet dared to attack him or his servants.

Oh! I have no illusions, they will end by catching me again, all the same.

Perhaps they will even hear of our conversation this evening, and make me pay dearly for it; for I do wrong to speak, I speak in spite of myself.

They have stolen all my happiness, and brought all possible misfortune on me, everything that was possible, everything--you hear me!" Increasing discomfort was taking possession of Pierre, who, seeking to relieve himself by a jest, exclaimed: "Come, come, at any rate it wasn't the Jesuits who gave you the fever." "Yes, yes, it was!" Don Vigilio violently declared.

"I caught it on the bank of the Tiber one evening, when I went to weep there in my grief at having been driven from the little church where I officiated." Pierre, hitherto, had never believed in the terrible legend of the Jesuits.