As I never lose sight either of your projects or my own, I resolved to profit by this occasion to gain a just estimate of the child’s value, and also to accelerate her education. But to pursue this work with greater freedom, I found it necessary to change the place of our rendez-vous; for a simple closet, which separates your pupil’s room from that of her mother, could not inspire sufficient security to allow her to reveal herself at her ease. I promised myself then innocently to make some noise, which would cause her enough alarm to induce her, for the future, to seek a safer asylum; this trouble she spared me again.
The little person loves laughter; and to promote her gaiety, I bethought myself, during our entr’actes, to relate to her all the scandalous anecdotes which occurred to my mind; and, so as to render them more piquant and better to fix her attention, I attributed them all to her mother, whom I was thus pleased to bedaub with vice and ridicule. It was not without motive that I made this choice; it encouraged my timid school-girl better than anything else, and I inspired her, at the same time, with the most profound contempt for her mother. I have long remarked that, if it be not always necessary to employ this means to seduce a young girl, it is indispensable, and often even the most efficacious, when one wishes to deprave her; for she who does not respect her mother will not respect herself: a moral truth which I hold to be so useful that I have been glad indeed to have furnished an example in support of the precept.
Meanwhile, your pupil, who had no thought of morals, was stifling her laughter every moment; finally, she had almost thought to have burst out with it. I had no difficulty in persuading her that she had made a terrible noise. I feigned a huge fright, which she easily shared. That she might the better remember it, I did not give way to the pleasure of a reappearance, and left her alone, three hours earlier than was customary; we agreed, therefore, on separating, that, from the morrow, it was in my room that we should meet.
I have already twice received her there; and in this short period the scholar has become almost as learned as the master. Yes, in truth, I have taught her everything, even to complaisances! I have only made an exception of precautions.
Occupied thus all night, I gain thereby in that I sleep a great portion of the day; and as the actual society of the château has nothing to attract me, I hardly appear in the salon for an hour during the day. To-day, I even adopted the course of eating in my room, and I do not intend to leave it again, except for short walks. These eccentricities pass on the ground of my health. I have declared that I am worn out with vapours; I have also announced a little fever. It cost me no more than to speak in a slow and faint voice. As for the alteration in my face, trust your pupil for that. “Love will provide.”[7]
I employ my leisure in meditating means of recovering over my ingrate the advantages I have lost; and also in composing a sort of catechism of debauch for the use of my scholar. I amuse myself by mentioning nothing except by its technical name; and I laugh in advance at the interesting conversation which this ought to furnish between Gercourt and herself on the first night of their marriage. Nothing could be more amusing than the ingenuity with which she makes use already of the little she knows of this tongue! She has no conception that one can speak differently. This child is really seductive! The contrast of naive candour with the language of effrontery does not fail to have an effect; and, I know not why, but it is only bizarre things which give me any longer pleasure.
Perhaps, I am abandoning myself overmuch to this, since I am compromising by it both my time and my health: but I hope that my feigned malady, besides that it will save me from the ennui of the drawing-room, will, perhaps, be of some use to me with the rigid Puritan, whose ferocious virtue is none the less allied with soft sensibility. I doubt not but that she is already informed of this mighty event, and I have a great desire to know what she thinks of it; all the more so in that I will wager she does not fail to attribute the honour of it to herself. I shall regulate the state of my health according to the impression which it makes upon her.
Here you are, my fair friend, as fully acquainted with my affairs as I am myself. I hope to have, shortly, more interesting news to tell you; and I beg you to believe that, in the pleasure which I promise myself, I count for much the reward which I expect from you.
At the Château de ..., 11th October, 17**.