true Querilinthos from the Milky Way on the seventh night of my worship
of the moon. Finally the oracle declared that I was to embrace Semiramis
two days before the end of the ceremonies, after an Undine had purified
us by bathing us in the room where we were.

I had thus undertaken to regenerate the worthy Semiramis, and I began to
think how I could carry out my undertaking without putting myself to
shame. The marchioness was handsome but old, and I feared lest I should
be unable to perform the great act. I was thirty-eight, and I began to
feel age stealing on me. The Undine, whom I was to obtain of the moon,
was none other than Marcoline, who was to give me the necessary
generative vigour by the sight of her beauty and by the contact of her
hands. The reader will see how I made her come down from heaven.

I received a note from Madame Audibert which made me call on her before
paying my visit to Marcoline. As soon as I came in she told me joyously
that my niece's father had just received a letter from the father of the
Genoese, asking the hand of his daughter for his only son, who had been
introduced to her by the Chevalier de Seingalt, her uncle, at the
Paretti's.

"The worthy man thinks himself under great obligations to you," said
Madame Audibert. "He adores his daughter, and he knows you have cared for
her like a father. His daughter has drawn your portrait in very
favourable colors, and he would be extremely pleased to make your
acquaintance. Tell me when you can sup with me; the father will be here
to meet you, though unaccompanied by his daughter."

"I am delighted at what you tell me, for the young man's esteem for his
future wife will only be augmented when he finds that I am her father's