"See! here is the costume that this redoubtable brigand assumes every night; for this man whom the police seek and pursue to no purpose, this man who spreads terror and dismay throughout Paris--is I--your lover--Giovanni!" Miretta covered her face with her hands. "You!" she murmured; "you! Oh! it is impossible!" "I have told you the truth, Miretta; indeed, why should I tell you this story, if it were untrue?" "O mon Dieu! But what can have induced you to take up this horrible trade?" "Oh! it goes back a long way! Alas! in life, one thing leads to another, all things are connected. The child who refuses to study, the youth who leads a vagabond life, the young man who seeks only to enjoy himself and to gratify his passions--all these are insensibly marching on to the goal which I have reached. They approach it less openly, perhaps! Some become swindlers, others Greeks--that is to say, they cheat at cards in fashionable society. I consider myself as good as they are; I run greater risks, that is all the difference! Yes, the man who seeks nothing but pleasure comes to this, unless he has the strength, the common sense, to stop in time. But I did not stop. I determined to indulge myself with all the forms of pleasure which the favorites of fortune enjoy--or those men whose talents raise them to the highest positions, to the greatest honors. But I had neither fortune nor talent. I might tell you that it was the decree of fate, that my destiny was written in advance, that I could not avoid it. I will not say that, because I do not believe it; because, on the contrary, everything tends to prove that men make themselves what they are.--Besides, why should I seek to excuse myself? I had a momentary respite from my passions--a moment of calm and almost unalloyed happiness; that was when I knew you, Miretta! Your sincere love made me think, for a brief period, that to love was all that was necessary to be happy. But soon those passions, which you had had the art to lull to sleep, reawoke in my being; it was impossible for me to resist them. You yourself unsuspectingly aroused them sometimes; for when I saw you dressed so simply, so shabbily, I would say to myself: "'Ah! how lovely she would be in a handsome silk dress! in the jewels with which so many old and ugly women bedeck themselves! What joy to drive with her in a fine carriage! to see everyone admire her and envy my good fortune!'" "Ah! did I need fine clothes to love you, Giovanni?" "No, not you; but I--I wanted to give them to you, to see you dressed in them.--Well, Miretta, that desire I am able to satisfy now. Come, look!" Giovanni took Miretta's hand, led her to the chest, opened a false bottom, and showed her a heap of gold pieces, jewels, and diamonds, which half filled the great box.