verses in
which I named all I thought dainty and exquisite. The marchioness
applauded, saying that she admired my courage.

"My courage, madam, is due to you, for I am as timid as a hare when I am
not encouraged; you are the author of my impromptu."

"I admire you. As for myself, were I encouraged by Apollo himself, I
could not compose four lines without paper and ink."

"Only give way boldly to your genius, madam, and you will produce poetry
worthy of heaven."

"That--is my opinion, too," said the cardinal. "I entreat you to give me
permission to skew your ten stanzas to the abbe."

"They are not very good, but I have no objection provided it remains
between us."

The cardinal gave me, then, the stanzas composed by the marchioness, and
I read them aloud with all the expression, all the feeling necessary to
such reading.

"How well you have read those stanzas!" said the marchioness; "I can
hardly believe them to be my own composition; I thank you very much. But
have the goodness to give the benefit of your reading to the stanzas
which his eminence has written in answer to mine. They surpass them
much."

"Do not believe it, my dear abbe," said the cardinal, handing them to me.
"Yet try not to let them lose anything through your reading."

There was certainly no need of his eminence enforcing upon me such a
recommendation; it was my own poetry. I could not have read it otherwise
than in my best style, especially when I had before me the beautiful
woman who had inspired them, and when, besides, Bacchus was in me giving
courage to Apollo as much as the beautiful eyes of the marchioness were
fanning into an ardent blaze the fire already burning through my whole
being.

I read the stanzas with so much expression that the cardinal was
enraptured, but I brought a deep carnation tint upon the cheeks of the
lovely marchioness when I came to the description of those beauties which
the imagination of the poet is allowed to guess at, but which I could
not, of course, have gazed upon. She snatched the paper from my hands
with passion, saying that I was adding verses of my own; it was true, but
I did not confess it. I was all aflame, and the fire was scorching her as
well as me.

The cardinal having fallen asleep, she rose and went to take a seat on
the balcony; I followed her. She had a rather high seat; I stood opposite
to her, so that her knee touched the fob-pocket in which was my watch.
What a position! Taking hol