I could hardly throw the blame upon intractable, ridiculous relations; all the relations in the world would have welcomed such a match with delirious joy. Even if Rosette had not been what she was, sweet and lovely, and of gentle birth, the eighty thousand francs a year would have removed every obstacle.--To say that I did not love her would have been neither true nor honorable, for I really loved her dearly, more dearly than one woman loves another. I was too young to pretend to be engaged to somebody else: the best expedient I could invent was to give her to understand that, as I was a younger son, family interests required that I should enter the Order of Malta, and thus made it impossible for me to think of marriage: which fact caused me the greatest sorrow imaginable since I had seen Rosette. That answer was not worth the breath required to put it into words and I was perfectly conscious of it. The old lady was not deceived by it and did not look upon it as definitive; she thought that I had spoken thus in order to have time to reflect and consult my relations.--In truth, such a marriage was so advantageous and so far beyond my hopes that it was not possible that I should refuse it, even if I had loved Rosette only a little or none at all; it was an opportunity not to be neglected. I am unable to say whether the aunt opened the subject to me at her niece's instigation, but I am inclined to think that Rosette was not a party to it; she loved me too simple-mindedly and ardently to think of anything else than immediate possession of me, and marriage would certainly have been the last method she would have employed.--The dowager, who had not failed to notice our intimacy, which she probably believed to be much greater than it was, had arranged this plan in her head, in order to keep me with her, and to replace, as far as possible, her dear son Henri, killed in the army, to whom she discovered such a striking resemblance in me. She had taken great pleasure in the idea and had taken advantage of that brief tête-à-tête to come to an understanding with me. I saw by her manner that she did not consider herself defeated, and that she proposed to return soon to the charge, which vexed me to the last degree. Rosette, for her part, in the evening of that same day, took a step which had such serious results, that I must tell you the story by itself and not in this letter, which has already exceeded all bounds.--You will see to what extraordinary adventures I am predestined, and that Heaven plainly cut me out for a hero of romance; upon my word, I don't know just what moral can be drawn from all this,--but lives are not like fables, each chapter hasn't a rhymed sentence for a tailpiece.--Very often the meaning of life is that it is not death. Nothing more. Adieu, my dear, I kiss your lovely eyes. You will soon receive the sequel of my triumphant biography. XIII