Volume V Part 13 (1/2)
Thereupon the ue in the most sensible ument holly chimerical
”Marry overnor of the child, ill be your son In thiswhat I shall have from my brother M de Pontcarre, who is old and cannot live er If you do not care for ain, into what hands shall I fall! I shall be called a bastard, and my income of twenty-four thousand francs will be lost to me Think over it, dear Galtinardus I must tell you that I feel already as if I were a man I confess I am in love with the Undine, and I should like to knohether I shall be able to sleep with her in fourteen or fifteen years time I shall be so if Oromasis will it, and then I shall be happy indeed What a char creature she is? Have you ever seen a woman like her? What a pity she is dumb!”
”She, no doubt, has a male water-spirit for a lover But all of them are dumb, since it is impossible to speak in the water I wonder she is not deaf as well I can't think why you didn't touch her The softness of her skin is so wonderful--velvet and satin are not to be cohted I should be if I could converse with such an exquisite being”
”Dear Galtinardus, I beg you will consult the oracle to find out where I aht to bed, and if you won't marry me I think I had better save all I have that I ain, for when I a, andthe whole a large suht be realized which could be put out at interest Thus the interest would suffice without the capital being touched”
”The oracle uide,” said I ”You will be my son, and I will never allow anyone to call you a bastard”
The sublime madwoman was quiet by this assurance
Doubtless many a reader will say that if I had been an honest ree with them; it would have been impossible, and I confess that even if it had been possible I would not have done so, for it would only have ance, and I put on one of my handsoht the two sisters Rangoni, daughters of the Roman consul, into our box As I had made their acquaintance on my first visit to Marseilles, I introduced Marcoline to the ladies spoke the tongue of Tasso also, Marcoline was highly delighted
The younger sister, as by far the handsoa Solferino The prince was a cultured enius, but very poor For all that he was a true son of Gonzaga, being a son of Leopold, as also poor, and a girl of the Medini family, sister to the Medini who died in prison at London in the year 1787
Babet Rangoni, though poor, deserved to become a princess, for she had all the airs and st the princess and princesses of the alht to belong to the illustrious faood nor harm The same publications turn Medini into Medici, which is equally harmless
This species of lie arises from the idiotic pride of the nobles who think themselves raised above the rest of humanity by their titles which they have often acquired by so with thes are finally appreciated at their true value, and the pride of the nobility is easily discounted when one sees thea Solferino, whoo, lived on a pension allowed him by the empress I hope the late emperor did not deprive hienius and his knowledge of literature
At the play Marcoline did nothing but chatter with Babet Rangoni, antedthe fair Venetian to see her, but I hadhow I could send Madame d'Urfe to Lyons, for I had no further use for her at Marseilles, and she was often eeneration, she requested ht to bed I made the oracle reply that she must sacrifice to the water-spirits on the banks of two rivers, at the sa-in would be resolved The oracle added that I must perform three expiatory sacrifices to Saturn, on account of my too harsh treatment of the false Querilinthos, and that Seh she herself must perform the sacrifices to the water-spirits
As I was pretending to think of a place where two rivers were sufficiently near to each other to fulfil the requireested that Lyons atered by the Rhone and the Saone, and that it would be an excellent place for the cerereed with her On asking Paralis if there were any preparations to be made, he replied that it Would be necessary to pour a bottle of sea-water into each river a fortnight before the sacrifice, and that this ceremony was to be performed by Semiramis in person, at the first diurnal hour of the moon
”Then,” said the marchioness, ”the bottles must be filled here, for the other French ports are farther off I will go as soon as ever I can leave my bed, and ait for you at Lyons; for as you have to perform expiatory sacrifices to Saturn in this place, you cannot co sorrow at not being able to accoht her tell-sealed bottles of sea-water, telling her that she was to pour them out into the two rivers on the 15th of May (the current month) We fixed her departure for the 11th, and I proht I gave her the hours of the , and also directions for the journey
As soon as the one I left the ”Treize Cantons” and went to live with Marcoline, giving her four hundred and sixty louis, which, with the hundred and forty she had won at biribi, gave her a total of six hundred louis, or fourteen thousand four hundred francs With this sum she could look the future in the face fearlessly
The day after Madame d'Urfe's departure, the betrothed of Mdlle Crosin arrived at Marseilles with a letter from Rosalie, which he handed to ed me in the name of our common honour to introduce the bearer in person to the father of the betrothed
Rosalie was right, but as the lady was not my real niece there were so man and told him that I would first take hiether to his father-in-law in prospective
The young Genoese had gone to the ”Treize Cantons,” where he thought I was staying He was delighted to find hioal of his desires, and his ecstacy received a new momentum when he sa cordially Madae and drove to the father's who gave him an excellent reception, and then presented him to his wife, as already friendly disposed towards hiood and sensible man introduced alt, who had taken such care of their daughter The good wife and good mother, her husband's worthy partner, stretched out her hand to me, and all my trouble was over
My new cousin i her that he and his wife, his future son-in-law, Madame Audibert, and a cousin she had notday This done he invited us, and Madame Audibert said that she would escort us She told hihter was very fond, and would be delighted to see again The worthy hter's happiness
I, too, was pleased with Mada Marcoline happy was to ratitude to her in very war Genoese to the play, to Marcoline's delight, for she would have liked the French very much if she could have understood theether, in the course of which I told Marcoline of the pleasure which awaited her on the one ith joy
The next day ere at Madame Audibert's as punctually as Achilles on the field of battle The lady spoke Italian well, and was char introduced her before At eleven we got to St Louis, and my eyes were charmed with the dranity which becareat graciousness; and then, after thankinghiave her sweetheart a hundred kisses