“Bring them quick, then; I am fainting with hunger.”

She soon laid the table for two, and put on it all the food she had.  The cheese was Roquefort, and the ham had been covered with jelly.  About ten persons with reasonable appetites should have been able to sup on what there was; but (how I know not) the whole disappeared, and also two bottles of Chambertin, which I seem to taste now.  My sweetheart’s eyes gleamed with pleasure:  truly Chambertin and Roquefort are excellent thinks to restore an old love and to ripen a young one.

“Don’t you want to know what your aunt has been doing the last two hours with M. Sixtimes?”

“They are playing, perhaps; but there is a small hole in the wall, and I will look and see.  I can only see the two candles, and the wicks are an inch long.”

“Didn’t I say so?  Give me a coverlet and I will sleep on the sofa here, and do you go to bed.  But let me look at it first:” 

She made me come into her little room, where I saw a pretty bed, a prayer desk, and a large crucifix.

“Your bed is too small for you, dear heart.”

“Oh, not at all!  I am very comfortable”; and so saying she laid down at full length.

“What a beautiful wife I shall have!  Nay, don’t move, let me look at you so.”  My hand began to press the bosom of her dress, where were imprisoned two spheres which seemed to lament their captivity.  I went farther, I began to untie strings . . . for where does desire stop short?

“Sweetheart, I cannot resist, but you will not love me afterwards.”

“I will always love you:” 

Soon her beautiful breasts were exposed to my burning kisses.  The flame of my love lit another in her heart, and forgetting her former self she opened her arms to me, making me promise not to despise her, and what would one not promise!  The modesty inherent in the sex, the fear of results, perhaps a kind of instinct which reveals to them the natural faithlessness of men make women ask for such promises, but what mistress, if really amorous, would even think of asking her lover to respect her in the moment of delirious ecstacy, when all one’s being is centred on the fulfilment of desire?

After we had passed an hour in these amorous toyings, which set my sweetheart on fire, her charms having never before been exposed to the burning lips or the free caresses of a man, I said to her,

“I grieve to leave you without having rendered to your beauty the greatest homage which it deserves so well.”

A sigh was her only answer.

It was cold, the fire was out, and I had to spend the night on the sofa.

“Give me a coverlet, dearest, that I may go away from you, for I should die here between love and cold if you made me abstain.”

“Lie where I have been, sweetheart.  I will get up and rekindle the fire.”

She got up in all her naked charms, and as she put a stick to the fire the flame leapt up; I rose, I found her standing so as to display all her beauties, and I could refrain no longer.  I pressed her to my heart, she returned my caresses, and till day-break we gave ourselves up to an ecstacy of pleasure.