Volume V Part 98 (1/2)
Next day, a severe headache, a thing from which I seldom suffer, kept me to the house all day I had myself let blood, and my worthy mother, who came to keep me company, dined with Maton My irl, and had often asked ood sense to refuse this request The next day I was still far fro, to my horror, I found myself attacked by a fearful disease This must be a present fro Leopol I spent a troubled night, rage and indignation beingupon Maton suddenly, I found everything in thestate The wretched creature confessed she had been infected for the last six ive it ht I was going to have to do with her
”Wretch, you have poisoned me; but nobody shall know it, as it is by my own fault, and I aenerous I can be”
She got up, and I had all the linen I had given her packed into a trunk
This done, I told my man to take a small room for her at another inn
His errand was soon over, and I then told Maton to go iave her fifty crowns, andthe reason why I had sent her away, and acknowledging that she had no further clai, and she wished ave in when I told her that unless she signed I would turn her into the streets as naked as when I found her
”What am I to do here? I don't know anyone”
”If you like to return to Breslau I will pay your expenses there”
She e, and merely turned my back on her when she went down on her knees to excite htest feeling of pity, for fro to do I considered her as a mere monster, ould sooner or later have costday, and I took a furnished apartment on the first floor of the house where my mother lived for six months, and proceeded about my cure Everyone askedno further need of her services I had sent her away
A week afterwards arde and five or six of his friends were on the sick list; Maton had certainly lost no time
”I am sorry for them, but it's their own fault; why didn't they take irl came to Dresden with you”
”Yes, and I sent her about her business It was enough for e Tell the, and stillto publish their shaet themselves cured in secrecy, if they do not want sensible ht?”
”The adventure is not a very honourable one for you”
”I know it, and that's why I say nothing; I am not such a fool as to proclaim my shame from the housetops These friends of yours ood reasons for sending the girl away, and should consequently have been on their guard
They deserve what they got, and I hope it may be a lesson to the well”
”Youthat I have been as badly treated as they, but that I have heldto pass for a simpleton”
Poor John saw he had been a simpleton himself and departed in silence
I put ust my health was re-established
About this ti with Count Bruhl I had the honour of paying my court to her, and I heard from her own mouth that her royal cousin had had the weakness to let himself be imposed on by calumnies about me I told her that I was of Ariosto's opinion that all the virtues are nothing worth unless they are covered with the veil of constancy
”You saw yourself when I supped with you, how histo Paris next year; you willthat if I had been burnt in effigy I should not venture to shew reat occasion at Leipzig, I went there to regainis justly faaain of so with a letter of credit for three thousand crowns on the banker Hohhty It was of him I heard that the hair of the Empress of Russia, which looked a dark brown or even black, had been originally quite fair The old banker had seen her at Stettin every day between her seventh and tenth years, and told un to comb her hair with lead combs, and to rub a certain coe Catherine had been looked upon as the future bride of the Duke of Holstein, afterwards the hapless Peter III The Russians are fair as a rule, and so it was thought it that the reigning family should be dark
Here I will note down a pleasant adventure I had at Leipzig The Princess of Are at the sanito, and as she had a large suite she dressed up one of herI suppose my readers to be aware that this princess itty and beautiful, and that she was the favourite mistress of the Emperor Francis the First
I heard of hismy hotel at the saoing up to her and addressing her as one would any otherat the false princess) were really the fa