'Tell me rather of yourself, Marietta mia,' said he, taking her hand, and placing her at his side. 'I long to hear how you became great and distinguished, as I see you.'
'The human heart throbs alike beneath rags or purple. When I could make tears course down the rude cheeks that were gaunt with famine, the task was easy to move those whose natures yielded to lighter impulse. For a whole winter--it was the first after we parted--I was the actress of a little theatre in the cité. We dramatised the events of the day; and they whose hard toil estranged them from the world of active life, could see at evening the sorrows and sufferings of the nobility they hated on "the scène." The sack of chateau and the guillotine were favourite themes; and mine was to portray some woman of the people, seduced, wronged, deserted, but avenged! A chance--a caprice of the moment--brought Riquetti one night to our theatre. He came behind the scenes and talked with me. My accent betrayed my birth, and we talked Italian. He questioned me closely, how and where I had learned to declaim. I spoke of you, though not by name. "Ah!" cried he, "a lover already!" The look which he gave me at the words was like a stab; I felt it here, in my heart. It was the careless scoff of one who deemed that to such as me no sense of delicacy need be observed. He might think and say as he pleased, my station was too ignoble to suggest respect. I hated him, and turned away, vowing, if occasion served, to be revenged upon him. He came a few nights after, accompanied by several others--there were ladies too, handsome and splendidly dressed. This splendour shocked the meanness of our misery, and even outraged the meanly clad audience around. I saw this, and seized it as the opportunity of my vengeance. Our piece was, as usual, the story of our daily life; I represented a seduced peasant girl, left to starve in a chateau, from which the owners had gone to enjoy the delights of Paris. I had wandered on foot to the capital, and was supposed to be in search of my seducer through the streets. I sat famished and shivering upon a door-sill, watching with half-listless gaze the rich tide of humanity that swept past. I heeded not the proud display of equipages; the gay groups; the gorgeous procession of life before me; till suddenly, as if on a balcony, I beheld him I sought, the centre of a knot of beautiful women, who, leaning over the balustrade, seemed to criticise the world below. Addressing myself at once to where Riquetti sat, I made him part of the scene. I knew nothing of him, nor of his history; but in blind chance I actually invented some of the chief incidents of his life. I made him a profligate, a duellist, and a seducer. I represented how he had won the affections of his friend's wife, eloped with, and deserted her; and yet, covered with crime, debased by every iniquity, and degraded by every vice, there he sat, successful, triumphant, and esteemed.