Shall I play for florins and crowns?
That would be an excellent means, certainly, of either becoming a hundred times richer or of losing every farthing.
Strange! how fearful and avaricious money makes me! I do not even care to play; no, I will not do it.

I will dress like a nobleman: in satin, velvet, and silk; I will drink and eat of the most exquisite dishes; I will Jive in luxury and abundance, as though the world were a terrestrial paradise.

Ah, what a glorious life! "But what a cowardly wretch I am! My only anxiety is to know how to spend or rather squander this treasure, and at this moment there lives, far from me, one who perhaps is stretching out her hand to me to beg an alms! My poor mother! she may even need bread.

Were she to curse her ungrateful son, would he not have deserved it a hundred times?
I am afraid of myself! With ten crowns, with the twentieth part of what I am going to throw away in dissipation, she might be saved from misery for more than a year.

Why did I not give twenty crowns to my master to send to her?
Suppose I return to the factory to execute this good thought?
Impossible! Signor Turchi would be enraged; besides, I have no confidence in him.