It would be nothing short of cruelty on my part to wish to see you, since this would cause you to be so ill that it would require an enormous quantity of cakes to cure you. I can not imagine where you have conceived the idea that I have friends in the four corners of the globe. You know perfectly well that I have only one or two friends in Madrid. Believe me, I am very grateful for the kindness you showed me at the Italian opera the other night. I appreciate, as I should, your condescension in letting me see your face for two hours; and truth compels me to say that I admired it extremely, as I did your hair also, which I had never seen so closely before. As for your assertion that you have never refused me anything that I asked, you will have to remain several million years in purgatory for that pretty fib. I see that you are anxious to have my Etruscan stone, and as I am more magnanimous than you, I shall not say, like Leonidas, “Come and take it!” but I shall ask you again how you wish me to send it to you. I have no recollection of comparing you to Cerberus; yet both have, indeed, several points of resemblance, not only because, like him, you love tarts, but also because you have three heads. I mean to say three brains; one, that of a shocking coquette; another, that of an experienced diplomatist; the third I shall not tell you, because I am not going to say anything amiable to you to-day. I am very ill and miserable on account of several misfortunes that have descended on my head. If you have any influence with Destiny, pray him to treat me kindly for the next two or three months. I have just been to see _Frédégonde_, which bored me to death, in spite of Mademoiselle Rachel, who has magnificent black eyes, without any white, like the devil’s, they say. XXVI PARIS, _Tuesday night_. I do not understand you, and I am tempted to believe you to be the very worst of coquettes. Your former letter, in which you tell me that you no longer know me, put me in a bad humour, and I have not replied to it promptly. You say, also, with a great deal of civility, that you do not care to see me, for fear of becoming tired of me. Unless I am mistaken, we have seen each other six or seven times in six years, and if we add together the minutes, we may have passed three or four hours together, half the time saying nothing. However, we are well enough acquainted for you to have learned to like me a little, the proof of which you gave me Thursday. We know each other really better than people who meet in society, considering the length of time we have conversed in our letters with a certain amount of freedom.