or me,
but a glance from her added meaning to her words. I was all the more glad
as I had a slight cold, and the next day being a feast day I could take
up my position at night fall, and thus avoid a painful vigil of several
hours' duration.

I curled myself up in the confessional at four o'clock, hiding myself as
best I could, and commending myself to the care of all the saints. At
five o'clock the beadle made his usual tour of inspection, went out and
locked the door. As soon as I heard the noise of the key I came out of my
narrow cell and sat down on a bench facing the windows. Soon after my
mistress's shadow appeared on the grated panes, and I knew she had seen
me.

I sat on the bench for a quarter of an hour and then pushed open the
little door and entered. I shut it and sat down on the lowest step of the
stair, and spent there five hours which would probably have not been
unpleasant ones if I had not been dreadfully tormented by the rats
running to and fro close to me. Nature has given me a great dislike to
this animal, which is comparatively harmless; but the smell of rats
always sickens me.

At last I heard the clock strike ten, the hour of bliss, and I saw the
form of my beloved holding a candle, and I was then freed from my painful
position. If my readers have been in such a situation they can imagine
the pleasures of that happy night, but they cannot divine the minute
circumstances; for if I was an expert my partner had an inexhaustible
store of contrivances for augmenting the bliss of that sweet employment.
She had taken care to get me a little collation, which looked delicious,
but which I could not touch, my appetite lying in another quarter.

For seven hours, which I thought all too short, we enjoyed one another,
not resting, except for talk, which served to heighten our pleasure.

The burgomaster was not the man for an ardent passion, but his strength
of constitution enabled him to do his duty to his wife every night
without failing, but, whether from regard to his health or from a
religious scruple, he suspended his rights every month while the moon
exercised hers, and to put himself out of temptation he made his wife
sleep apart. But for once in a way, the lady was not in the position of a
divorcee.

Exhausted, but not satiated with pleasure, I left her at day-break,
assuring her that when we met again she would find me the same; and with
that I went to hide in the confessional, fearing lest the