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 friend
Raymond. This fact certainly ought to make you decide to share our
solitude. Our friend is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but
one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead
of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead
of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which