In the evening I went back to the inn, and I had not long to wait for the Astrodi and the Lepi (so the hunchbacked girl was named); but when I saw these two caricatures of women I felt stupefied.  I had expected them, of course, but the reality confounded me.  The Astrodi tried to counterbalance her ugliness by an outrageous freedom of manners; while the Lepi, who though a hunchback was very talented and an excellent actress, was sure of exciting desire by the rare beauty of her eyes and teeth, which latter challenged admiration from her enormous mouth by their regularity and whiteness.  The Astrodi rushed up to me and gave me an Italian embrace, to which, willy nilly, I was obliged to submit.  The quieter Lepi offered me her cheek, which I pretended to kiss.  I saw that the Astrodi was in a fair way to become intolerable, so I begged her to moderate her transports, because as a novice at these parties I wanted to get accustomed to them by degrees.  She promised that she would be very good.

While we were waiting for supper I asked her, for the sake of something to say, whether she had found a lover at Avignon.

“Only the vice-legate’s auditor,” she replied; “and though he makes me his pathic he is good-natured and generous.  I have accustomed myself to his taste easily enough, though I should have thought such a thing impossible a year ago, as I fancied the exercise a harmful one, but I was wrong.”

“So the auditor makes a boy of you?”

“Yes.  My sister would have adored him, as that sort of love is her passion.”

“But your sister has such fine haunches.”

“So have I!  Look here, feel me.”

“You are right; but wait a bit, it is too soon for that kind of thing yet.”

“We will be wanton after supper.”

“I think you are wanton now,” said the Lepi.

“Why?”

“Why?  Ought you to shew your person like that?”

“My dear girl, you will be shewing yourself soon.  When one is in good company, one is in the golden age.”

“I wonder at your telling everyone what sort of a connection you have with the auditor,” said I.

“Nonsense!  I don’t tell everyone, but everyone tells me and congratulates me too.  They know the worthy man never cared for women, and it would be absurd to deny what everybody guesses.  I used to be astonished at my sister, but the best plan in this world is to be astonished at nothing.  But don’t you like that?”

“No, I only like this.”

As I spoke I laid hands on the Lepi, on the spot where one usually finds what I called “this;” but the Astrodi, seeing that I found nothing, burst into a roar of laughter, and taking my hand put it just under her front hump, where at last I found what I wanted.  The reader will guess my surprise.  The poor creature, too ashamed to be prudish, laughed too.  My spirits also begin to rise, as I thought of the pleasure I should get out of this new discovery after supper.