"Victorin, I shall not speak to you of my virtue; you will laugh at the virtue of a strolling Bohemian singer. But you may believe me when I say that long before I saw you, your glorious name had reached me. Your renown for valor and goodness made my heart beat, unworthy of you as that heart is, seeing that I am a poor, degraded creature. Believe me, Victorin," she added with tears in her eyes, "if I were pure, you would have my love and my life; but I am soiled; I do not deserve your attention. I love you too passionately, I honor you too much ever to offer to you the remains of an existence debased by men, who are not worthy of being compared with you." So far from cooling, the hypocritical language fired the ardor of Victorin; it exalted him beyond measure. His sensual whim for the woman was speedily transformed into a consuming and mad passion. Despite his protestations of devotion, despite his entreaties, despite his tears--he actually wept at the feet of the execrable woman--the Bohemian remained inexorable. Victorin's nature underwent thereupon a marked change. From mirthful, pleasant and open, it became retired and morose. He grew somber and taciturn. Both his mother and I were ignorant at the time of the cause of the change. To our pressing questions the young general would answer that, being struck by the manifestations of displeasure that the army had shown towards him, he did not wish to expose himself to a recurrence of their anger; thenceforth his life was to be austere and retired. With the exception of a few hours that he consecrated every day to his mother, Victorin now rarely left his house, and he avoided the company of his former boon companions. Struck, on their part, by his sudden change of deportment, the soldiers saw in it only the salutary effect of the remonstrances made to their young general in their name by Douarnek. They cherished him more than ever before. I later learned that, in his self-imposed solitude, the unhappy man habitually drank himself into utter stupor in order to forget his fatal passion, and that every evening he repaired to the Bohemian dancer's, only, however, to find her pitiless as ever. About a month passed in this manner. Tetrik remained in Mayence in order to overcome Victoria's repugnance to the idea of having her grandson acclaimed the heir of his father's office. But Victoria ever answered the Governor of Gascony, saying: