When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with a
lady just arrived at the inn - I told him the truth, - but I did not
tell him the whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by
the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Suspicion
crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what had passed:
something jarred upon it within me, - I wished him at his convent.
When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the
judgment a world of pains. - I was certain she was of a better order
of beings; - however, I thought no more of her, but went on and
wrote my preface.
The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I
thought, her good education and her good sense; and as I led her
on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a
calmness over all my spirits -
- Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the
world with him! -
I had not yet seen her face - 'twas not material: for the drawing
was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of
the Remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself
as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the
Tiber for it; - but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and
albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and
images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest
out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a
shame to break with thee.
When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand
from across her forehead, and let me see the original: - it was a
face of about six-and-twenty, - of a clear transparent brown, simply
set off without rouge or powder; - it was not critically handsome,
but there was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in,
attached me much more to it, - it was interesting: I fancied it
wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its
declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and
was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss; - but a
thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I
wish'd to know what they had been - and was ready to inquire, (had
the same bon ton of conversation permitted, as in the days of
Esdras) - "What ailelh thee? and why art thou disquieted? and why is
thy understanding troubled?" - In a word, I felt benevolence for
her; and resolv'd some way or other to throw in my mite of
courtesy, - if not of service.
