Convent Affairs | Page 5

heart was beating furiously; I was waiting with great impatience;
yet that expectation was not without charm, for I dreaded the beginning
of the interview. An hour passed pretty rapidly, but I began then to find

the time rather long, and thinking that, perhaps, the attendant had not
rightly understood me, I rang the bell, and enquired whether notice of
my visit had being given to Sister M---- M----. A voice answered
affirmatively. I took my seat again, and a few minutes afterwards an
old, toothless nun came in and informed me that Sister M---- M---- was
engaged for the whole day. Without giving me time to utter a single
word, the woman left the parlour. This was one of those terrible
moments to which the man who worships at the shrine of the god of
love is exposed! They are indeed cruel moments; they bring fearful
sorrow, they may cause death.
Feeling myself disgraced, my first sensation was utter contempt for
myself, an inward despair which was akin to rage; the second was
disdainful indignation against the nun, upon whom I passed the severe
judgment which I thought she deserved, and which was the only way I
had to soothe my grief. Such behaviour proclaimed her to be the most
impudent of women, and entirely wanting in good sense; for the two
letters she had written to me were quite enough to ruin her character if I
had wished to revenge myself, and she evidently could not expect
anything else from me. She must have been mad to set at defiance my
revengeful feelings, and I should certainly have thought that she was
insane if I had not heard her converse with the countess.
Time, they say, brings good counsel; it certainly brings calm, and cool
reflection gives lucidity to the mind. At last I persuaded myself that
what had occurred was after all in no way extraordinary, and that I
would certainly have considered it at first a very common occurrence if
I had not been dazzled by the wonderful beauty of the nun, and blinded
by my own vanity. As a very natural result I felt that I was at liberty to
laugh at my mishap, and that nobody could possibly guess whether my
mirth was genuine or only counterfeit. Sophism is so officious!
But, in spite of all my fine arguments, I still cherished the thought of
revenge; no debasing element, however, was to form part of it, and
being determined not to leave the person who had been guilty of such a
bad practical joke the slightest cause of triumph, I had the courage not
to shew any vexation. She had sent word to me that she was engaged;

nothing more natural; the part I had to play was to appear indifferent.
"Most likely she will not be engaged another time," I said to myself,
"but I defy her to catch me in the snare again. I mean to shew her that I
only laugh at her uncivil behaviour." Of course I intended to send back
her letters, but not without the accompaniment of a billet-doux, the
gallantry of which was not likely to please her.
The worse part of the affair for me was to be compelled to go to her
church; because, supposing her not to be aware of my going there for
C---- C----, she might imagine that the only object of my visits was to
give her the opportunity of apologizing for her conduct and of
appointing a new meeting. I wanted her to entertain no doubt of my
utter contempt for her person, and I felt certain that she had proposed
the other meetings in Venice and at the casino of Muran only to deceive
me more easily.
I went to bed with a great thirst for revenge, I fell asleep thinking of it,
and I awoke with the resolution of quenching it. I began to write, but,
as I wished particularly that my letter should not show the pique of the
disappointed lover, I left it on my table with the intention of reading it
again the next day. It proved a useful precaution, for when I read it over,
twenty-four hours afterwards, I found it unworthy of me, and tore it to
pieces. It contained some sentences which savoured too much of my
weakness, my love, and my spite, and which, far from humiliating her,
would only have given her occasion to laugh at me.
On the Wednesday after I had written to C---- C---- that very serious
reasons compelled me to give up my visits to the church of her convent,
I wrote another letter to the nun, but on Thursday it had the same fate
as the first, because upon a second perusal I found the same
deficiencies.