While I was thus alone, building castles in the air, I saw a woman of about thirty approaching me, not disagreeable in face, white, round, and plump, with a turned-up nose and wicked eyes, a great deal of gold on her neck, her ears, her arms, her fingers, and in a dress which proclaimed that she was a woman of the common class, but pretty well off. She came over and saluted me. ‘Sir, good day!’ ‘Good day, Signora!’ ‘Will you allow me to offer you my congratulations?’ ‘For what?’ ‘On your entrance into the Forum; I saw you in the courtyard when you were making your salaams. Per Bacco! Sir, your hair is nicely done.’ ‘Isn’t it? Am I not a handsome young fellow?’ ‘But it makes no difference how your hair is done; Signor Goldoni always cuts a good figure.’ ‘So you know me, Signora?’ ‘Did I not see you four years ago in the land of the lawyers, in a long wig and cloak?’ ‘True; you are right, for I was then in the house of the Procurator.’ ‘Just so; in the house of Signor Indrie’ [Goldoni’s uncle]. ‘So you know my uncle too?’ ‘In this part of the world I know every one, from the Doge to the last copyist of the Courts.’ ‘Are you married?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you a widow?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh--I do not dare ask more!’ ‘All the better.’ ‘Have you any business?’ ‘No.’ ‘From your appearance I took you for a well-to-do person.’ ‘I really am.’ ‘Then you have investments?’ ‘None at all.’ ‘But you are very well fitted out; how do you manage to do it?’ ‘I am a daughter of the Palace, and the Palace supports me.’ ‘That is very strange! You say you are a daughter of the Palace?’ ‘Yes, sir; my father had a position in it.’ ‘What did he do?’ ‘He listened at the doors and then went to take good news to those who were expecting pardons, or verdicts, or favourable judgments; he had capital legs and always got there first. As for my mother, she was always here, as I am. She was not proud, she took her fee, and undertook some commissions. I was born and brought up in these gilded halls, and, as you see, I also have gold on me.’ ‘Yours is a most singular story. Then you follow in your mother’s footsteps?’ ‘No, sir. I do something else.’ ‘That is to say?’ ‘I push lawsuits.’ ‘Push lawsuits? I do not understand.’