"You have seen fit to censure my conduct with a severity, you have
actually treated me with a disdain, which tells me how proud you are
of the fact that you have never been taken advantage of. You believe
in your own virtue and that it will never abandon you. This is a pure
illusion of your amour propre, my dear child, and I feel impelled to
enlighten your inexperience, and to make you understand, that far from
being sure of that virtue which renders you so severe, you are not
even sure that you have any at all. This prologue astonishes you, eh?
Well, listen with attention, and you will soon be convinced of the
truth whereof I speak.

"Up to the present time, nobody has ever spoken to you of love. Your
mirror alone has told you that you are beautiful. Your heart, I can
see by the appearance of indifference that envelops you like a
mantle, has not yet been developed. As long as you remain as you are,
as long as you can be kept in sight as you are, I will be your
guarantee. But when your heart has spoken, when your enchanting eyes
shall have received life and expression from sentiment, when they
shall speak the language of love, when an internal unrest shall
agitate your breast, when, in fine, desire, half stifled by the
scruples of a good education, shall have made you blush more than once
in secret, then your sensibility, through the combats by which you
will attempt to vanquish it, will diminish your severity toward
others, and their faults will appear more excusable.

"The knowledge of your weakness will no longer permit you to regard
your virtue as infallible. Your astonishment will carry you still
farther. The little help it will be to you against too impetuous
inclinations, will make you doubt whether you ever had any virtue. Can