“They will let it you by the month,” said she, “and if you pay a month in advance you need not even tell them your name.”

I found the house to be a very pretty one, standing in a lonely street at about two hundred paces from the citadel.  One gate, large enough to admit a carriage, led into the country.  I found everything to be as Madame R——­ had described it.  I paid a month in advance without any bargaining, and in a day I had settled in my new lodging.  Madame R——­ admired my celerity.

I went to the Jewish wedding and enjoyed myself, for there is something at once solemn and ridiculous about the ceremony; but I resisted all Leah’s endeavours to get me once more into her meshes..  I hired a close carriage from her father, which with the horses I placed in the coach-house and stables of my new house.  Thus I was absolutely free to go whenever I would by night or by day, for I was at once in the town and in the country.  I was obliged to tell the inquisitive Gama where I was living, and I hid nothing from Desarmoises, whose needs made him altogether dependent on me.  Nevertheless I gave orders that my door was shut to them as to everyone else, unless I had given special instructions that they were to be admitted.  I had no reason to doubt the fidelity of my two servants.

In this blissful abode I enjoyed all Mdlle.  R——­’s girls, one after the other.  The one I wanted always brought a companion, whom I usually sent back after giving her a slice of the cake.  The last of them, whose name was Victorine, as fair as day and as soft as a dove, had the misfortune to be tied, though she knew nothing about it.  Mdlle.  R——­, who was equally ignorant on the subject, had represented her to me as a virgin, and so I thought her for two long hours in which I strove with might and main to break the charm, or rather open the shell.  All my efforts were in vain.  I was exhausted at last, and I wanted to see in what the obstacle consisted.  I put her in the proper position, and armed with a candle I began my scrutiny.  I found a fleshy membrane pierced by so small a hole that large pin’s head could scarcely have gone through.  Victorine encouraged me to force a passage with my little finger, but in vain I tried to pierce this wall, which nature had made impassable by all ordinary means.  I was tempted to see what I could do with a bistoury, and the girl wanted me to try, but I was afraid of the haemorrhage which might have been dangerous, and I wisely refrained.

Poor Victorine, condemned to die a maid, unless some clever surgeon performed the same operation that was undergone by Mdlle.  Cheruffini shortly after M. Lepri married her, wept when I said,—­

“My dear child, your little Hymen defies the most vigorous lover to enter his temple.”

But I consoled her by saying that a good surgeon could easily make a perfect woman of her.

In the morning I told Madame R——­ of the case.