“I should attack it on the point of height. You know you would not let me change your chemise even if I were a dwarf.”
“Ah, dear Iolas! we cannot deceive each other. Would that Heaven had destined me to be married to a man like you!”
“Alas! why am I not worthy of aspiring to such a position?”
I do not know where the conversation would have landed us, but just then the countess came to tell us that dinner was waiting, adding that she was glad to see we loved one another.
“Madly,” said Clementine, “but we are discreet.”
“If you are discreet, you cannot love madly.”
“True, countess,” said I, “for the madness of love and wisdom cannot dwell together. I should rather say we are reasonable, for the mind may be grave while the heart’s gay.”
We dined merrily together, then we played at cards, and in the evening we finished reading the Pastor Fido. When we were discussing the beauties of this delightful work Clementine asked me if the thirteenth book of the “AEneid” was fine.
“My dear countess, it is quite worthless; and I only praised it to flatter the descendant of the author. However, the same writer made a poem on the tricks of countryfolk, which is by no means devoid of merit. But you are sleepy, and I am preventing you from undressing.”
“Not at all.”