I left the city on horseback in the evening and in very bad weather, but nothing could have kept me back, because early the next morning I expected a letter from my dear prisoner.  I had only travelled six miles from Padua when my horse fell, and I found my left leg caught under it.  My boots were soft ones, and I feared I had hurt myself.  The postillion was ahead of me, but hearing the noise made by the fall he came up and disengaged me; I was not hurt, but my horse was lame.  I immediately took the horse of the postillion, to which I was entitled, but the insolent fellow getting hold of the bit refused to let me proceed.  I tried to make him understand that he was wrong; but, far from giving way to my arguments, he persisted in stopping me, and being in a great hurry to continue my journey I fired one of my pistols in his face, but without touching him.  Frightened out of his wits, the man let go, and I galloped off.  When I reached the Dolo, I went straight to the stables, and I myself saddled a horse which a postillion, to whom I gave a crown, pointed out to me as being excellent.  No one thought of being astonished at my other postillion having remained behind, and we started at full speed.  It was then one o’clock in the morning; the storm had broken up the road, and the night was so dark that I could not see anything within a yard ahead of me; the day was breaking when we arrived in Fusina.

The boatmen threatened me with a fresh storm; but setting everything at defiance I took a four-oared boat, and reached my dwelling quite safe but shivering with cold and wet to the skin.  I had scarcely been in my room for a quarter of an hour when the messenger from Muran presented herself and gave me a letter, telling me that she would call for the answer in two hours.  That letter was a journal of seven pages, the faithful translation of which might weary my readers, but here is the substance of it: 

After the interview with M. de Bragadin, the father of C——­ C——­ had gone home, had his wife and daughter to his room, and enquired kindly from the last where she had made my acquaintance.  She answered that she had seen me five or six times in her brother’s room, that I had asked her whether she would consent to be my wife, and that she had told me that she was dependent upon her father and mother.  The father had then said that she was too young to think of marriage, and besides, I had not yet conquered a position in society.  After that decision he repaired to his son’s room, and locked the small door inside as well as the one communicating with the apartment of the mother, who was instructed by him to let me believe that she had gone to the country, in case I should call on her.