Franzia, who had faithfully obeyed my orders, returned before noon from the city with all the articles I had asked for.

“I have not bargained for anything,” he said to me, “and the merchants must, I have no doubt, have taken me for a fool, for I have certainly paid one-third more than the things are worth.”

“So much the worse for them if they have deceived you, but you would have spoilt everything if you had beaten them down in their price.  Now, send me your daughter and let me be alone with her.”

As soon as Javotte was in my room, I made her cut the linen in seven pieces, four of five feet long, two of two feet, and one of two feet and a half; the last one was intended to form the hood of the robe I was to wear for the great operation.  Then I said to Javotte: 

“Sit down near my bed and begin sewing.  You will dine here and remain at work until the evening.  When your father comes, you must let us be alone, but as soon as he leaves me, come back and go to bed.”

She dined in my room, where her mother waited on her without speaking, and gave her nothing to drink except St. Jevese wine.  Towards evening her father came, and she left us.

I had the patience to wash the good man while he was in the bath, after which he had supper with me; he ate voraciously, telling me that it was the first time in his life that he had remained twenty-four hours without breaking his fast.  Intoxicated with the St. Jevese wine he had drunk, he went to bed and slept soundly until morning, when his wife brought me my chocolate.  Javotte was kept sewing as on the day before; she left the room in the evening when Capitani came in, and I treated him in the same manner as Franzia; on the third day, it was Javotte’s turn, and that had been the object I had kept in view all the time.

When the hour came, I said to her,

“Go, Javotte, get into the bath and call me when you are ready, for I must purify you as I have purified your father and Capitani.”

She obeyed, and within a quarter of an hour she called me.  I performed a great many ablutions on every part of her body, making her assume all sorts of positions, for she was perfectly docile, but, as I was afraid of betraying myself, I felt more suffering than enjoyment, and my indiscreet hands, running over every part of her person, and remaining longer and more willingly on a certain spot, the sensitiveness of which is extreme, the poor girl was excited by an ardent fire which was at last quenched by the natural result of that excitement.  I made her get out of the bath soon after that, and as I was drying her I was very near forgetting magic to follow the impulse of nature, but, quicker than I, nature relieved itself, and I was thus enabled to reach the end of the scene without anticipating the denouement.  I told Javotte to dress herself, and to come back to me as soon as she was ready.

She had been fasting all day, and her toilet did not take a long time.  She ate with a ferocious appetite, and the St. Jevese wine, which she drank like water, imparted so much animation to her complexion that it was no longer possible to see how sunburnt she was.  Being alone with her after supper, I said to her,