“Truly, my dear Vesian, never has a philosopher described sympathy better than you have just done.  How happy I feel!  How is it that I wish to prove it by kissing you?”

“No doubt because, to be happy, the soul must agree with the senses.”

“Indeed, my divine Vesian?  Your intelligence is charming.”

“It is your work, dear friend; and I am so grateful to you that I share your desires.”

“What is there to prevent us from satisfying such natural desires?  Let us embrace one another tenderly.”

What a lesson in philosophy!  It seemed to us such a sweet one, our happiness was so complete, that at daybreak we were still kissing one another, and it was only when we parted in the morning that we discovered that the door of the room had remained open all night.

Baletti gave her a few lessons, and she was received at the opera; but she did not remain there more than two or three months, regulating her conduct carefully according to the precepts I had laid out for her.  She never received Narbonne again, and at last accepted a nobleman who proved himself very different from all others, for the first thing he did was to make her give up the stage, although it was not a thing according to the fashion of those days.  I do not recollect his name exactly; it was Count of Tressan or Trean.  She behaved in a respectable way, and remained with him until his death.  No one speaks of her now, although she is living in very easy circumstances; but she is fifty-six, and in Paris a woman of that age is no longer considered as being among the living.

After she left the Hotel de Bourgogne, I never spoke to her.  Whenever I met her covered with jewels and diamonds, our souls saluted each other with joy, but her happiness was too precious for me to make any attempt against it.  Her brother found a situation, but I lost sight of him.

CHAPTER IX

The Beautiful O-Morphi—­The Deceitful Painter—­I Practice Cabalism for the Duchess de Chartres I Leave Paris—­My Stay in Dresden and My Departure from that City

I went to St. Lawrence’s Fair with my friend Patu, who, taking it into his head to sup with a Flemish actress known by the name of Morphi, invited me to go with him.  I felt no inclination for the girl, but what can we refuse to a friend?  I did as he wished.  After we had supped with the actress, Patu fancied a night devoted to a more agreeable occupation, and as I did not want to leave him I asked for a sofa on which I could sleep quietly during the night.

Morphi had a sister, a slovenly girl of thirteen, who told me that if I would give her a crown she would abandon her bed to me.  I agreed to her proposal, and she took me to a small closet where I found a straw palliasse on four pieces of wood.

“Do you call this a bed, my child?”

“I have no other, sir.”

“Then I do not want it, and you shall not have the crown.”