"I flatter myself I have," I answered.
"You are wrong," said the abbe, "you are flattering yourself. You have so conspicuously avoided the questions put to you that everybody in the room noticed your extreme reserve. In the future no one will ask you any questions."
"I should be sorry if it should turn out so, but was I to expose my own concerns?"
"No, but there is a medium in all things."
"Yes, the medium of Horace, but it is often a matter of great difficulty to hit it exactly."
"A man ought to know how to obtain affection and esteem at the same time."
"That is the very wish nearest to my heart."
"To-day you have tried for the esteem much more than for the affection of your fellow-creatures. It may be a noble aspiration, but you must prepare yourself to fight jealousy and her daughter, calumny; if those two monsters do not succeed in destroying you, the victory must be yours. Now, for instance, you thoroughly refuted Salicetti to-day. Well, he is a physician, and what is more a Corsican; he must feel badly towards you."
"Could I grant that the longings of women during their pregnancy have no influence whatever on the skin of the foetus, when I know the reverse to be the case? Are you not of my opinion?"
"I am for neither party; I have seen many children with some such marks, but I have no means of knowing with certainty whether those marks have their origin in some longing experienced by the mother while she was pregnant."