character to make it serviceable to his purposes. He knew I was mild to
an excess, and patient in bearing involuntary wrongs; but haughty and
impatient when insulted with premeditated offences; loving decency and
dignity in things in which these were requisite, and not more exact in
requiring the respect due to myself, than attentive in rendering that
which I owed to others. In this he undertook to disgust me, and in this
he succeeded. He turned the house upside down, and destroyed the order
and subordination I had endeavored to establish in it. A house without a
woman stands in need of rather a severe discipline to preserve that
modesty which is inseparable from dignity. He soon converted ours into a
place of filthy debauch and scandalous licentiousness, the haunt of
knaves and debauchees. He procured for second gentleman to his
excellency, in the place of him whom he got discharged, another pimp like
himself, who kept a house of ill--fame, at the Cross of Malta; and the
indecency of these two rascals was equalled by nothing but their
insolence. Except the bed-chamber of the ambassador, which, however, was
not in very good order, there was not a corner in the whole house
supportable to an modest man.

As his excellency did not sup, the gentleman and myself had a private
table, at which the Abbe Binis and the pages also eat. In the most
paltry ale-house people are served with more cleanliness and decency,
have cleaner linen, and a table better supplied. We had but one little
and very filthy candle, pewter plates, and iron forks.

I could have overlooked what passed in secret, but I was deprived of my
gondola. I was the only secretary to an ambassador, who was obliged to
hire one or go on foot, and the livery of his excellency no longer
accompanied me, except when I went to the senate. Besides, everything
which passed in the house was known in the city. All those who were in