“This is dreadful; you astonish me. You appear to me in perfect health, you are prettier than ever, you are made for the worship of the sweetest of the gods, and I can’t understand how, with a temperament like yours, you can live in continual abstinence.”
“Alas! lacking the reality we console ourselves by pretending. I will not conceal from you that I love my young boarder. It is an innocent passion, and keeps my mind calm. Her caresses quench the flame which would otherwise kill me.”
“And that is not against your conscience?”
“I do not feel any distress on the subject.”
“But you know it is a sin.”
“Yes, so I confess it.”
“And what does the confessor say?”
“Nothing. He absolves me, and I am quite content.”
“And does the pretty boarder confess, too?”
“Certainly, but she does not tell the father of a matter which she thinks is no sin.”