It may be a noble aspiration, but you must prepare yourself to fight jealousy and her daughter, calumny; if those two monsters do not succeed in destroying you, the victory must be yours.
Now, for instance, you thoroughly refuted Salicetti to-day.

Well, he is a physician, and what is more a Corsican; he must feel badly towards you." "Could I grant that the longings of women during their pregnancy have no influence whatever on the skin of the foetus, when I know the reverse to be the case?
Are you not of my opinion ?" "I am for neither party; I have seen many children with some such marks, but I have no means of knowing with certainty whether those marks have their origin in some longing experienced by the mother while she was pregnant." "But I can swear it is so." "All the better for you if your conviction is based upon such evidence, and all the worse for Salicetti if he denies the possibility of the thing without certain authority.

But let him remain in error; it is better thus than to prove him in the wrong and to make a bitter enemy of him." In the evening I called upon Lucrezia.

The family knew my success, and warmly congratulated me.

Lucrezia told me that I looked sad, and I answered that I was assisting at the funeral of my liberty, for I was no longer my own master.