Her appearance was as follows:  Madame de Saone was beautifully dressed, and had the whitest hands and the roundest arms that can be imagined.  Her dress, which was cut very low, allowed me to see an exquisite breast of dazzling whiteness, heightened by two rosy buds; her figure was good, and her feet the smallest I have ever seen.  All about her inspired love, but when one’s eyes turned to her face every other feeling gave way to those of horror and pity.  She was fearful.  Instead of a face, one saw a blackened and disgusting scab.  No feature was distinguishable, and her ugliness was made more conspicuous and dreadful by two fine eyes full of fire, and by a lipless mouth which she kept parted, as if to disclose two rows of teeth of dazzling whiteness.  She could not laugh, for the pain caused by the contraction of the muscles would doubtless have drawn tears to her eyes; nevertheless she appeared contented, her conversation was delightful, full of wit and humour, and permeated with the tone of good society.  She might be thirty at the most, and she had left three beautiful young children behind in Paris.  Her husband was a fine, well-made man, who loved her tenderly, and had never slept apart from her.  It is probable that few soldiers have shewn such courage as this, but it is to be supposed that he did not carry his bravery so far as to kiss her, as the very thought made one shudder.  A disorder contracted after her first child-bed had left the poor woman in this sad state, and she had borne it for ten years.  All the best doctors in France had tried in vain to cure her, and she had come to Berne to put herself into the hands of two well-known physicians who had promised to do so.  Every quack makes promises of this sort; their patients are cured or not cured as it happens, and provided that they pay heavily the doctor is ready enough to lay the fault, not on his ignorance, but at the door of his poor deluded patient.

The doctor came while I was with her, and just as her intelligent conversation was making me forget her face.  She had already began to take his remedies, which were partly composed of mercury.

“It seems to me,” said she, “that the itching has increased since I have taken your medicines.”

“It will last,” said the son of AEsculapius, “till the end of the cure, and that will take about three months.”

“As long as I scratch myself,” said she, “I shall be in the same state, and the cure will never be completed.”

The doctor replied in an evasive manner.  I rose to take my leave, and holding my hand she asked me to supper once for all.  I went the same evening; the poor woman took everything and drank some wine, as the doctor had not put her on any diet.  I saw that she would never be cured.

Her good temper and her charming conversational powers kept all the company amused.  I conceived that it would be possible to get used to her face, and to live with her without being disgusted.  In the evening I talked about her to my housekeeper, who said that the beauty of her body and her mental endowments might be sufficient to attract people to her.  I agreed, though I felt that I could never become one of her lovers.