"You can dance, can you not?"
"Why do you ask me that, M. l'abbé?"
"Why! don't you remember you accused yourself in your last confession of having been to the theatre, to the opera, and to a ball?"
And, indeed, in one of those examinations of conscience that are sold ready printed, to aid idle and recalcitrant memories, I had read that it was a sin to go to a comedy, to the opera, and to a ball; therefore, as during my journey to Paris with my father when I was three years old, I had seen Paul et Virginie played at the Opéra Comique; as I had since been to plays, if by chance any strolling players passed through Villers-Cotterets; as, finally, I had been to a ball at Madame Deviolaine's on the birthday of one of her daughters, I had naïvely accused myself of having committed these three sins, much to the amusement of the worthy Abbé Grégoire, who, as we see, had revealed the secrets of the confessional.
"Well,—yes, I can dance," I replied,—"but why?"
"Dance an entrechat for me."
The entrechat was my strong point. People really did dance at the time I learnt dancing: nowadays they are satisfied to walk; which is much more convenient ... and much easier to learn.
I danced a few steps there and then.
"Bravo!" said the abbé. "Now you shall dance with my niece, who is coming at Whitsuntide."
"But ... I do not like dancing," I rudely replied.