I was delighted to read your letters," said she, "and to hear that that
villainous woman can no longer flatter herself upon having spent two
hours with you. But tell me, how can you have actually spent them with
her without noticing, in spite of the dark, the difference between her
and me? She is much shorter, much thinner, and ten years older. Besides,
her breath is disagreeable, and I think you know that I have not that
defect. Certainly, you could not see her hair, but you could touch, and
yet you noticed nothing! I can scarcely believe it!"

"Unhappily, it is only too true. I was inebriated with love, and thinking
only of you, I saw nothing but you."

"I understand how strong the imagination would be at first, but this
element should have been much diminished after the first or second
assault; and, above all, because she differs from me in a matter which I
cannot conceal and she cannot supply."

"You are right--a burst of Venus! When I think that I only touched two
dangling flabby breasts, I feel as if I did not deserve to live!"

"And you felt them, and they did not disgust you!"

"Could I be disgusted, could I even reflect, when I felt certain that I
held you in my arms, you for whom I would give my life. No, a rough skin,
a stinking breath, and a fortification carried with far too much ease;
nothing could moderate my amorous fury."

"What do I hear? Accursed and unclean woman, nest of impurities! And
could you forgive me all these defects?"

"I repeat, the idea that I possessed you deprived me of my thinking
faculties; all seemed to me divine."

"You should have treated me like a common prostitute, you should even
have beaten me on finding me such as you describe."

"Ah! now you are unjust!"

"That may be; I am so enraged against that monster that my anger deprives
me of reason. But now that she thinks that she had to do with a servant,
and after the degrading visit she has had she ought to die of rage and
shame. What astonishes me is her believing it, for he is shorter than you
by four inches. And how can she imagine that a servant would do it as
well as you? It's not likely. I am sure she is in love with him now.
Twenty-five louis! He would have been content with ten. What a good thing
that the poor fellow's illness happened so conveniently. But I suppose
you had to tell him all?"

"Not at all. I gave him to understand that she had made an appointment
with me in that room, and that I had really sp