Melle. Nadine had another admirer in the person of Doctor Bianchi, a forty-year old cherub, who worshipped the very ground that she trod on, and cooed his romance into her ears like a real troubadour. But he is far from being the ideal Lohengrin, with his bald head and prominent abdomen. He wouldn’t have been my hero even with more hair on his head, being rather a fool and very ignorant, especially of geography. To him Russia represented only snow, bears, and tallow candles. “May I ask you if you are English?” he inquired when being presented to me.—“Russian?” he exclaimed in blank astonishment. “Oh! I can’t believe it, you look quite European.” Stupid fellow! I detested him after that, for I am exceedingly tenacious in questions of patriotic pride. Doctor Bianchi had made several times the offer of his hand and heart to Melle. Nadine, but she refused him flatly over and over again. She treats him very harshly and hates the very sight of him. When Doctor Bianchi enters one door she goes out by the other. But the long-suffering physician makes an ass of himself and continues to persecute his lady-love with his tenacious wooing and poor Melle. Nadine doesn’t know how to get rid of him. As for me I would have known how to knock the calf-love out of him soon enough. What awful idiots men make themselves when they are in love. Our landlord, Signor Bonsignore, is a magnificent old beau, awfully stuck up and prim, belonging to the ancient school, and suited rather to the eighteenth century than to our modern era. He affected an antiquated style of dress, his chin resting within the points of a high collar, which reached to his ears. One day he came to keep me company whilst I had my lunch in my room, and remained quite a long time paying me old-fashioned compliments. He said that he regretted that he had not met my second-self in his young days, and that it was the reason why he is still single. Signor Bonsignore is an awful old screw, one could see it by the motto carved over the door of our dining-room saying: “One never repents of having eaten too little.” Frau Weidemann follows the motto to the letter in respect of her boarders, practising rigorous economy, rarely varying her scanty menus and making mental photographs of the joints before they are removed. My frugal breakfast, day after day, has been coffee, one egg and insufficient bread and butter. My lunch is brought in to me on a tray; the limited menu is unvariably composed of cold meat, green beans and a dessert of two biscuits and half an apple. Marie, the household treasure, whilst clearing away my scanty repasts, always asks as if in derision: “_Madame a bien mangé?_” which made me groan inwardly.