ABSTRACT
This chapter reproduces the text from Chapter III of Ada Reis, volume 1. In the spring of the year 1729, Ada Reis, having landed in Calabria to dispose of some merchandise, became acquainted with a beautiful young Italian maiden, Bianca. He assured her, swearing an oath, that he would return and marry her; in token of which he gave her his amber beads to keep, and a griffin’s claw made of rubies and diamonds. Bianca expressed no regret for her error; she had yielded to her lover’s suit, and she was now the mistress of a man, whom all her country women beheld with enthusiastic admiration: they paid her greater court for Ada Reis’s sake, and envy itself was silenced in order to flatter him. Dreading her father’s anger and persecuted by the continued addresses of her kinsman, Giulliano, Bianca had the weakness to give Giulliano her hand in marriage.
