"I don't want to lodge cheaply, but I should like to punish the audacious
author of that notice."

"How would you punish me?"

"By making you fall in love with me, and then tormenting you. It would
have amused me immensely."

"Then you think that you can inspire me with love, and at the same time
form the dreadful plan of tyrannising over the victim of your charms.
Such a project is monstrous, and unhappily for us poor men, you do not
look a monster. Nevertheless, I am obliged to you for your frankness, and
I shall be on my guard."

"Then you must take care never to see me, or else all your efforts will
be in vain."

As the Charpillon had laughed merrily through the whole of this dialogue,
I took it all as a jest, but I could not help admiring her manner, which
seemed made for the subjugation of men. But though I knew it not, the day
I made that woman's acquaintance was a luckless one for me, as my readers
will see.

It was towards the end of the month of September, 1763, when I met the
Charpillon, and from that day I began to die. If the lines of ascent and
declination are equal, now, on the first day of November, 1797, I have
about four more years of life to reckon on, which will pass by swiftly,
according to the axiom 'Motus in fine velocior'.