At this point, Marcolina, who had been listening attentively and with apparent seriousness, suddenly assumed a half-commiserating, half-mischievous expression, and said: “You are trying, Signor Casanova”--she seemed deliberately to avoid addressing him as Chevalier--“to give me an elaborate proof of your renowned talent as entertainer, and I am extremely grateful to you. But of course you know as well as I do that the Cabala has not merely nothing to do with mathematics, but is in conflict with the very essence of mathematics. The Cabala bears to mathematics the same sort of relationship that the confused or fallacious chatter of the Sophists bore to the serene, lofty doctrines of Plato and of Aristotle.” “Nevertheless, beautiful and learned Marcolina, you will admit,” answered Casanova promptly, “that even the Sophists were far from being such contemptible, foolish apprentices as your harsh criticism would imply. Let me give you a contemporary example. M. Voltaire’s whole technique of thought and writing entitles us to describe him as an Arch-Sophist. Yet no one will refuse the due meed of honor to his extraordinary talent. I would not myself refuse it, though I am at this moment engaged in composing a polemic against him. Let me add that I am not allowing myself to be influenced in his favor by recollection of the extreme civility he was good enough to show me when I visited him at Ferney ten years ago.” “It is really most considerate of you to be so lenient in your criticism of the greatest mind of the century!” Marcolina smilingly retorted. “A great mind--the greatest of the century!” exclaimed Casanova. “To give him such a designation seems to me inadmissible, were it only because, for all his genius, he is an ungodly man--nay positively an atheist. No atheist can be a man of great mind.” “As I see the matter, there is no such incompatibility. But the first thing you have to prove is your title to describe Voltaire as an atheist.”