t have
laughed her to scorn, and my position would have been unassailable. At
last I determined on telling the husband that I would give him
twenty-five louis if he could obtain me an interview in which I could
satisfy my desires.

Full of this idea I went back to the inn, and had my dinner in my own
room without troubling to enquire after her. Le Duc told me that she was
dining in her room too, and that the landlord had told the company that
she would not take her meals in public any more. This was information I
possessed already.

After dinner I called on the good-natured Dolci, who introduced me to his
father, an excellent man, but not rich enough to satisfy his son's desire
of travelling. The young man was possessed of considerable dexterity, and
performed a number of very clever conjuring tricks. He had an amiable
nature, and seeing that I was curious to know about his love affairs he
told me numerous little stories which shewed me that he was at that happy
age when one's inexperience is one's sole misfortune.

There was a rich lady for whom he did not care, as she wanted him to give
her that which he would be ashamed to give save for love, and there was a
girl who required him to treat her with respect. I thought I could give
him a piece of good advice, so I told him to grant his favours to the
rich woman, and to fail in respect now and again to the girl, who would
be sure to scold and then forgive. He was no profligate, and seemed
rather inclined to become a Protestant. He amused himself innocently with
his friends of his own age, in a garden near Avignon, and a sister of the
gardener's wife was kind to him when they were alone.

In the evening I went back to the inn, and I had not long to wait for the
Astrodi and the Lepi (so the hunchbacked girl was named); but when I saw
these two caricatures of women I felt stupefied. I had expected them, of
course, but the reality confounded me. The Astrodi tried to
counterbalance her ugliness by an outrageous freedom of manners; while
the Lepi, who though a hunchback was very talented and an excellent
actress, was sure of exciting desire by the rare beauty of her eyes and
teeth, which latter challenged admiration from her enormous mouth by
their regularity and whiteness. The Astrodi rushed up to me and gave me
an Italian embrace, to which, willy nilly, I was obliged to submit. The
quieter Lepi offered me her cheek, which I pretended to kiss. I saw that
the Astrodi was i