he tables and chairs
were to be seen solemn old books, dog-leaved at their most tiresome
pages, all of which is very appalling. Nothing is more convenient than a
muse whose complete works are printed; one knows then what to expect,
and you have not always the reading of Damocles hanging over your head.

Dragged by a fatality that so often makes me the victim of women I do
not admire, I became the Conrad, the Lara of this Byronic heroine.

Every morning she sent me folio-sized epistles, dated three hours after
midnight. They were compilations from Frederick Soulie, Eugene Sue, and
Alexander Dumas, glorious authors, whom I delight to read save in my
amorous correspondence, where a feminine mistake in orthography gives me
more pleasure than a phrase plagiarised from George Sand, or a pathetic
tirade stolen from a popular dramatist.

In short, I do not believe in a passion told in language that smells of
the lamp; and the expression "_Je t'aime_" will scarcely persuade me if
it be not written "_Je theme_."

It made no difference how often the beauty wrote, I fortified myself
against her literary visitations by consigning her billets-doux unopened
to an empty drawer. By this means I was enabled to endure her prose
with great equanimity. But she expected me to reply--now, as I did not
care to keep my hand in for my next romance, I viewed her claims as
extravagant and unreasonable, and feigning a strong desire to see my
mother, I fled, less curious than Lot's wife, without looking behind.

Had I not taken this resolution I should have died of ennui in that
dimly-lighted house, among those sepulchral toys, in the presence of
that pale phantom enveloped in a dismal wrapper, cut in the monkish
style, and speaking in a trembling and languishing tone of voice.

La Trappe or Chartreuse would have been preferable--I would have gained
at least my salvation. Although it may be the act of a Cossack, a
shocking irregularity, I have given her no sign of my existence, except
that I told her that my mother's recovery promised to be very slow, and
she would need the devoted attention of a good son.

Judge, dear Roger, after this recital, of which I have subdued the
horrors and dramatic situations out of regard to your sensibility,
whether I could return to Paris to be the comforter in your sorrow. Yet
I could brave an encounter with the Marquise were it not that I am
retained in Normandy by an expected visit of two months from our frie