My mother begins to be uneasy at my dullness; she has asked twice if I were sick--I have fallen off already a quarter of a pound; for nothing is more enraging than to be deserted at the most critical period of one's infatuation! Ixion of Normandy, my Juno is a screen-painter, I open my arms and clasp only a cloud! My position, similar to yours, cannot, however, be compared with it--mine only relates to a trifling flirtation, a thwarted fancy, while yours is a serious passion for a woman of your own rank who has accepted your hand, and therefore has no right to trifle with you,--she must be found, if only for vengeance! Remorse consumes me because of my sentimental stupidity by moonlight. Had I profited by the night, the solitude and the occasion, Louise had not left me; she saw clearly that I loved her, and was not displeased at the discovery. Women are strange mixtures of timidity and rashness. Perhaps she has gone to join her lover, some saw-bones, some counting-house Lovelace, while I languish here in vain, like Celadon or Lygdamis of cooing memory. This is not at all probable, however, for Madame Taverneau would not compromise her respectability so far as to act as chaperon to the loves of Louise Guérin. After all, what is it to me? I am very good to trouble myself about the freaks of a prudish screen-painter! She will return, because the hired piano has not been sent back to Rouen, and not a soul in the house knows a note of music but Louise, who plays quadrilles and waltzes with considerable taste, an accomplishment she owes to her mistress of painting, who had seen better days and possessed some skill. Do not be too much flattered by this letter of grievances, for I only wanted an excuse to go to the post-office to see if Louise has returned--suppose she has not! the thought drives the blood back to my heart. Isn't it singular that I should fall desperately in love with this simple shepherdess--I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I have passed safe and sound through the most dangerous defiles to be worsted in open country; I could swim in the whirlpool, and now drown in a fish-pond; every celebrated beauty, every renowned coquette finds me on my guard. I am as circumspect as a cat walking over a table covered with glass and china. It is hard to make me pose, as they say in a certain set; but when the adversary is not to be feared, I allow him so many advantages that in the end he subdues me. I was not sufficiently on my guard with Louise at first. I said to myself: "She is only a grisette"--and left the door of my heart open--love entered in, and I fear I shall have some trouble in driving him out.