“Having decided in advance to spend six months in Rome in complete tranquility, doing only what acquaintance with the Eternal City could provide me with, the next day after my arrival I rented beautiful apartments opposite the palace of the Ambassador of Spain, who was now Monsignor d'Aspuru; these were the apartments occupied by the language teacher from whom I took lessons twenty-seven years ago, when I was in the service of Cardinal Acquaviva. The owner of this room was the wife of a cook, who came to sleep with her only once a week. She had a daughter of sixteen or seventeen years old, who, despite her skin, which may be too dark, would have been quite beautiful if smallpox had not deprived her of one eye. She wore an artificial one in this place, which was a different color and larger, which made her face unpleasant. This girl, whose name was Margarita, did not make any impression on me; but, despite this, I could not stop myself from giving her a gift, more valuable than any other. At that time there was an Englishman in Rome, an ophthalmologist named Chevalier Taylor, who lived in the same square...”