“I will stay, but remember to be kind.”

“I will.”

When everybody had gone to bed, she came into my room with a little frightened manner, calculated to redouble my ardour, but by great good luck, feeling I had a necessity, I took the light and ran to the place where I could satisfy it.  While there I amused myself by reading innumerable follies one finds written in such places, and suddenly my eyes lighted on these words:—­

“This tenth day of August, 1760, the wretched Raton gave me the what-d’-you-call-it:  reader, beware.”

I was almost tempted to believe in miracles, for I could not think there were two Ratons in the same house.  I returned gaily to my room and found my sweetheart in bed without her chemise.  I went to the place beside the bed where she had thrown it down, and as soon as she saw me touching it she begged me in a fright not to do so, as it was not clean.  She was right, for it bore numerous marks of the disease which infected her.  It may be imagined that my passion cooled, and that I sent her away in a moment; but I felt at the same time the greatest gratitude to what is called chance, for I should have never thought of examining a girl whose face was all lilies and roses, and who could not be more than eighteen.

Next day I went to Roche to see the celebrated Haller.

CHAPTER XVIII

M. Haller—­My Stay at Lausanne—­Lord Rosebury—­The Young
Saconai—­Dissertation on Beauty—­The Young Theologian

M. Haller was a man six feet high and broad in a proportion; he was a well-made man, and a physical as well as a mental colossus.  He received me courteously, and when he had read M. de Muralt’s letter, he displayed the greatest politeness, which shews that a good letter of introduction is never out of place.  This learned man displayed to me all the treasures of his knowledge, replying with exactitude to all my questions, and above all with a rare modesty which astonished me greatly, for whilst he explained the most difficult questions, he had the air of a scholar who would fain know; but on the other hand, when he asked me a scientific question, it was with so delicate an art that I could not help giving the right answer.

M. de Haller was a great physiologist, a great doctor, and a great anatomist.  He called Morgagni his master, though he had himself made numerous discoveries relating to the frame of man.  While I stayed with him he shewed me a number of letters from Morgagni and Pontedera, a professor of botany, a science of which Haller had an extensive knowledge.  Hearing me speak of these learned men whose works I had read at an early age, he complained that Pontedera’s letters were almost illegible and written in extremely obscure Latin.  He shewed me a letter from a Berlin Academician, whose name I have forgotten, who said that since the king had read his letter he had no more thoughts of suppressing the Latin language.