Volume IV Part 49 (1/2)
”Quite so.”
”Are you perfectly free to do what you like?”
”I think so.”
”Can you give supper to anyone you like in your own rooms? I am certain you can't.”
”I have not had the opportunity of trying the experiment so far, but I believe ... .”
”Don't flatter yourself by believing anything; that house is full of the spies of the police.”
”Then you think that I could not give you and two or three of your girls a little supper?”
”I should take very good care not to go to it, that's all I know. By next morning it would be known to all the town, and especially to the police.”
”Well, supposing I look out for another lodging?”
”It's the same everywhere. Turin is a perfect nest of spies; but I do know a house where you could live at ease, and where my girls might perhaps be able to bring you your purchases. But we should have to be very careful.”
”Where is the house I will be guided by you in everything.”
”Don't trust a Piedmontese; that's the first commandment here.”
She then gave me the address of a small furnished house, which was only inhabited by an old door-keeper and his wife.
”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 sh.e.l.l. 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 pa.s.sage with my little finger, but in vain I tried to pierce this wall, which nature had made impa.s.sable 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.
She laughed and said,--
”It may prove a happy accident for Victorine; it may make her fortune.”
A few years after the Count of Padua had her operated on, and made her fortune. When I came back from Spain I found that she was with child, so that I could not exact the due reward for all the trouble I had taken with her.