rself? In the same way that her love for me did not
prevent her from being compliant with the ambassador, she admitted the
possibility of my being the same with C---- C----. She overlooked the
difference of constitution between the two sexes, and the privileges
enjoyed by women.

Now that age has whitened my hair and deadened the ardour of my senses,
my imagination does not take such a high flight, and I think differently.
I am conscious that my beautiful nun sinned against womanly reserve and
modesty, the two most beautiful appanages of the fair sex, but if that
unique, or at least rare, woman was guilty of an eccentricity which I
then thought a virtue, she was at all events exempt from that fearful
venom called jealousy--an unhappy passion which devours the miserable
being who is labouring under it, and destroys the love that gave it
birth.

Two days afterwards, on the 4th of February, 1754, I had the supreme
felicity of finding myself again alone with my beloved mistress. She wore
the dress of a nun. As we both felt guilty, the moment we saw each other,
by a spontaneous movement, we fell both on our knees, folded in each
other's arms. We had both ill-treated Love; she had treated him like a
child, I had adored him after the fashion of a Jansenist. But where could
we have found the proper language for the excuses we had to address to
each other for the mutual forgiveness we had to entreat and to grant?
Kisses--that mute, yet expressive language, that delicate, voluptuous
contact which sends sentiment coursing rapidly through the veins, which
expresses at the same time the feeling of the heart and the impressions
of the mind--that language was the only one we had recourse to, and
without having uttered one syllable, dear reader, oh, how well we agreed!

Both overwhelmed with emotion, longing to give one another some proofs of
the sincerity of our reconciliation and of the ardent fire which was
consuming us, we rose without unclasping our arms, and falling (a most
amorous group!) on the nearest sofa, we remained there until the heaving
of a deep sigh which we would not have stopped, even if we had known that
it was to be the last!

Thus was completed our happy reconciliation, and the calm infused into
the soul by contentment, burst into a hearty laugh when we noticed that I
had kept on my cloak and my mask. After we had enjoyed our mirth, I
unmasked myself, and I asked her whether it was quite true that no one
had w