“One must believe everything, expect everything from a beardless youth,” replied the tutor.
Then, drawing his chair close to the girl’s, and laying his hand on her knee, Monsieur Gérondif tried to assume a mellifluous voice and began, weighing his words:
“I have made the wound, and it is for me to apply the balsam, otherwise called the remedy.—Lovely Louise, although young Chérubin has not been true to your charms, there are others who will be too happy to offer incense to them, to cultivate them. I go straight to the point: I love you, divine maiden! and I am not fickle, because, thank heaven, I am a grown man. I have not come to make any base propositions to you—retro, Satanas! which means: I have only honorable views. I offer you my hand, my heart, my name, my rank and my title; but we will wait two years before we marry. I will try to restrain my passions for that length of time, which I require in order to amass a tidy sum of money. You will contribute your wages, your savings; they are much pleased with you here, and it is probable that you will receive a handsome present at New Year’s. We will put it all together and buy a little house in the outskirts of Paris; I will take a few pupils to keep my hand in; we will have a dog, a cat, chickens, all the pleasant things of life, and our days will be blended of honey and hippocras.”
During this harangue, Louise had pushed away the hand that Monsieur Gérondif had laid on her knee, and had moved her chair away; and as soon as he had finished speaking, she rose and said to him in a courteous but determined tone:
“I thank you, monsieur, for condescending to offer me, a poor village girl, without name or family, the title of your wife; but I cannot accept it. Monsieur Chérubin no longer loves me; I can understand that, monsieur, and indeed I was mad to imagine that, in Paris, in the midst of pleasures, living in the whirl of society, he would remember me. But it is altogether different with me! I have not become a great lady, and the image of the man I love can never be effaced from my heart. I love Chérubin; I feel that I shall never love anybody else! So, monsieur, it would be very wicked of me to marry another man, as I could not give that other my love.”
Monsieur Gérondif was greatly surprised by this speech; he recovered himself, however, and replied:
“My sweet Louise, varium et mutabile semper femina; or, if you prefer: 'souvent femme varie, bien fol est qui s’y fie.’—Woman changes ever; he is a great fool who trusts her.—The latter lines are by François I; I prefer Beranger’s.—Tiresias declares that men have only three ounces of love, while women have nine, which enables them to change oftener than we do; and yet, with only three ounces, we do pretty well.”
“What does all this mean, monsieur?”
“It means, my dear love, that you will do like the others: you will change; your love will pass away.”
“Never, monsieur.”