“Do you know how to write?”
“A little; before long I shall know how to write well, I hope. There’s an old gentleman who gives me lessons sometimes.”
“What need is there of your knowing any more than you do?”
“That’s true, monsieur; if you don’t want me to, I won’t learn any more.”
“Oh! I don’t say that. Study, Nicette, since you enjoy it; you weren’t born to sell flowers. But take my advice, and don’t try to rise above the condition in which fate has placed you; it rarely succeeds.”
“Oh! I’m not trying to do anything of the sort, monsieur; I’d just like to be not quite so stupid as I used to be.”
“My dear girl, you may be ignorant, but you can’t be stupid; you will always be charming; your natural wit does not need the resources of education to attract esteem, any more than your charms need the help of art to win admiration. Ah! Nicette, be always as you are now, as I first saw you! Do not change!”
She listened to me in silence; her sweet glance approved all that I said; we understood each other so well! But impatient customers were already beginning to look at her flowers; I felt that I must go. I said adieu, but I continued to stand in front of her. It was impossible to take a kiss, I realized that; she divined my thought, and we both sighed. To part so coldly! Ah! if we had been in my room! I was certain that I had but to say the word, and she would come; but I refrained from saying it, for she would have been lost. I pressed her hand and fled. I felt that I must fly from her, in order not to adore her.
XXI
CONFIDENCE
As a fortunate change in our destiny reconciles us to life, as a lucky throw of the dice brings us nearer to wealth, as a noble deed reconciles the misanthrope to mankind, as the acceptance of a play calms the wrath of an author, as a bottle of old wine makes the drunkard forget his pledges, as a sunbeam causes the traces of the storm to disappear, so the sight of a pretty woman makes us forget our virtuous resolutions, her love banishes from our hearts the memory of our last mistress’s perfidy, and her virtues reconcile us to women in general, whom we take a vow to shun whenever we are deceived, and whom we do not shun, because it is not in nature to do it.