"Have you any objection to seeing one of your friends who is as delicate as discreet?"
With these words, she hastily concealed in her pocket all the papers which did not relate to her disease; then she called out.
A man entered the room, whom I took for a stableboy; it was M. de
Melfort.
"See," said the princess to him, "M. Casanova has taught me the cabalistic science."
And she shewed him the answer she had obtained herself. The count could not believe it.
"Well," said the duchess to me, "we must convince him. What shall I ask?"
"Anything your highness chooses."
She considered for one instant, and, drawing from her pocket a small ivory box, she wrote, "Tell me why this pomatum has no longer any effect."
She formed the pyramid, the columns, and the key, as I had taught her, and as she was ready to get the answer, I told her how to make the additions and subtractions which seem to come from the numbers, but which in reality are only arbitrary; then I told her to interpret the numbers in letters, and I left the room under some pretext. I came back when I thought that she had completed her translation, and I found her wrapped in amazement.
"Ah, sir!" she exclaimed, "what an answer!"