"Of course I am a fool to answer her. Who knows what situations a thing like this is going to lead to? I am well aware that whoever she be, a woman is an incubator of sorrow and annoyance. If she is good she is probably stupid, or perhaps she is an invalid, or perhaps she is so disastrously fecund that she gets pregnant if you look at her. If she is bad, one may expect to be dragged through every disgusting kind of degradation. Oh, whatever you do, you're in for it."
He regurgitated the memories of his youthful amours. Deception. Disenchantment. How pitilessly base a woman is while she is young!
" ... To be thinking of things like that now at my age! As if I had any need of a woman now!"
But in spite of all, his pseudonymous correspondent interested him.
"Who knows? Perhaps she is good-looking, or at least not very ill-looking. It doesn't cost me anything to find out."
He re-read her letter. No misspelling. The handwriting not commercial. Her ideas about his book were mediocre enough, but who would expect her to be a critic? "Discreet scent of heliotrope," he added, sniffing the envelope.
"Oh, well, let's have our little fling."
And as he went out to get some breakfast he left his reply with the concierge.