my sojourn there. Agriculture became to me familiar enough to protect
me from being cheated by any agents or bailiffs, and it strengthened
my frame so that it could withstand the life I later on led in Paris.

The years following I spent either in Koine or in Paris, not to
mention short stays at Warsaw, where my aunt summoned me now and then
in order to introduce me to some special favorite of hers with a view
to matrimony.

Paris and its life attracted me greatly. With the truly excellent
opinion I had then of myself, with more confidence in my intelligence
and the self-possession an independent position gives, I still played
a very unsophisticated part on this scene of the world. I began by
falling desperately in love with Mademoiselle Richemberg of the
Comédie Française, and absolutely insisted upon marrying her. I will
not dwell now upon the many tragicomic imbroglios, as I am partly
ashamed of those times, and partly inclined to laugh at them. Still
later on it happened that I took counterfeits for pure gold. The
French women, and for the matter of that, my own countrywomen, of
whatever class and in spite of all their virtues when young, remind me
of my fencing lessons. As the fencer has his hour of practice with the
foils so as to keep his hand in, so women practise with sentimental
foils. As a mere youth, fairly good looking, I was sometimes invited
to a passage of arms, and as I took the matter seriously, received
many a scratch. They were not mortal wounds and healed quickly.
Besides, everybody has to pay for his apprenticeship in this
world, especially in a world like that. My time of probation was,
comparatively speaking, a short one. Then came a period one might call
"la revanche." I paid back in the same coin, and if now and then I was
still taken in, it was with my eyes open to the fact.