“Certainly.  Will you be there?”

“Yes.  She will speak, but you must pretend to be dumb, as the note you bring with you will tell us; as also that you have come to wait upon us while we are bathing.  She will accept the offer, and when she tells you to undress her from head to foot you will do so.  When you have done, undress yourself, and gently rub the marchioness from the feet to the waist, but not higher.  In the meanwhile I shall have taken off my clothes, and while I hold her in a close embrace you must stand so that I can see all your charms.

“Further, sweetheart, when I leave you you must gently wash her generative organs, and afterwards wipe them with a fine towel.  Then do the same to me, and try to bring me to life again.  I shall proceed to embrace the marchioness a second time, and when it is over wash her again and embrace her, and then come and embrace me and kiss in your Venetian manner the instrument with which the sacrifice is consummated.  I shall then clasp the marchioness to my arms a third time, and you must caress us till the act is complete.  Finally, you will wash us for the third time, then dress, take what she gives you and come here, where I will meet you in the course of an hour.”

“You may reckon on my following all your instructions, but you must see that the task will be rather trying to my feelings.”

“Not more trying than to mine.  I could do nothing with the old woman if you were not present.”

“Is she very old?”

“Nearly seventy.”

“My poor sweetheart!  I do pity you.  But after this painful duty is over you must sup here and sleep with me.”

“Certainly.”

On the day appointed I had a long and friendly interview with the father of my late niece.  I told him all about his daughter, only suppressing the history of our own amours, which were not suitable for a father’s ears.  The worthy man embraced me again and again, calling me his benefactor, and saying that I had done more for his daughter than he would have done himself, which in a sense was perhaps true.  He told me that he had received another letter from the father, and a letter from the young man himself, who wrote in the most tender and respectful manner possible.

“He doesn’t ask anything about the dower,” said he, “a wonderful thing these days, but I will give her a hundred and fifty thousand francs, for the marriage is an excellent one, above all after my poor simpleton’s escape.  All Marseilles knows the father of her future husband, and to-morrow I mean to tell the whole story to my wife, and I am sure she will forgive the poor girl as I have done.”

I had to promise to be present at the wedding, which was to be at Madame Audibert’s.  That lady knowing me to be very fond of play, and there being a good deal of play going on at her house, wondered why she did not see more of me; but I was at Marseilles to create and not to destroy:  there is a time for everything.