"Come, my dear M. Pipelet, relate to me this new misfortune."
"All he had done previously was nothing to this, sir. He succeeded in his object—thanks to proceedings the most shameful. I do not know if I have the strength to relate it! confusion and shame will impede me at each step."
Pipelet being painfully raised in the bed, modestly buttoned up his flannel waistcoat, and commenced in these terms: "My wide had just gone out; absorbed in the bitterness caused by the prostitution of my name written on all the walls of the capital, I sought to distract myself by endeavoring to sole a boot, twenty times taken up and twenty times abandoned, thanks to the obstinate persecutions of my tormentor. I was seated before a table when I saw the door of my lodge open, and a woman enter. This woman was wrapped in a cloak, with a hood; I arose politely from my seat, and touched my hat. At this moment, a second woman, also enveloped in a cloak with a hood, entered my lodge, and locked the door inside.
"Although astonished at the familiarity of this procedure, and the silence which the two women preserved, I again rose from my chair, and again carried my hand to my hat. Then, sir; no, no, I never can—my modesty revolts."
"Come, Old Modesty, you are among men; go on then!"
"Then," resumed Alfred, becoming crimson, "the mantles fell, and what did I see? Two species of sirens or nymphs, with no other clothing than a tunic of leaves, the head also crowned with foliage; I was petrified. Then they both advanced toward me, extending their arms, if to invite me to precipitate myself into them."
"The hussies!" said Anastasia.
"The advances of these barefaced individuals revolted me," resumed Alfred, animated by chaste indignation; "and, following habit, which never abandons me in the most critical circumstances of my life, I remained completely immovable on my chair; when, profiting by my stupor, the two sirens approached me by a kind of slow whirl, spinning round on their legs, and moving their arms. I became more and more immovable. They reached me, they twisted their arms around me."
"Twisted their arms around an aged married man! Oh, if I had been there with my broomstick," cried Anastasia, "I'd have given a cadence, and spinning of legs to some purpose."
"When I felt myself embraced," continued Alfred, "my blood made one rush—I was half dead. Then one of the sirens—the boldest, a large, tall blonde—leaned on my shoulder, raised my hat, and uncovered my head, all to music, spinning on her legs and moving her arms; then her accomplice drew a pair of scissors from among the leaves, collected together an enormous lock of all the hair that remained behind my head, and cut it off. All, sir, all; always with the spinning around on her legs; then she said to me, singing, 'It is for Cabrion!' and the other impudence repeated in chorus, 'It is for Cabrion! It is for Cabrion!'"