Bettina, "I made up my mind to hear that monster; but my determination
being fixed, I put in my pocket my father's stilletto, and holding my
door ajar I waited for him there, unwilling to let him come in, as my
closet is divided only by a thin partition from the room of my father,
whom the slightest noise might have roused up. My first question to
Cordiani was in reference to the slander contained in the letter he
threatened to deliver to my brother: he answered that it was no slander,
for he had been a witness to everything that had taken place in the
morning through a hole he had bored in the garret just above your bed,
and to which he would apply his eye the moment he knew that I was in your
room. He wound up by threatening to discover everything to my brother and
to my mother, unless I granted him the same favours I had bestowed upon
you. In my just indignation I loaded him with the most bitter insults, I
called him a cowardly spy and slanderer, for he could not have seen
anything but childish playfulness, and I declared to him that he need not
flatter himself that any threat would compel me to give the slightest
compliance to his wishes. He then begged and begged my pardon a thousand
times, and went on assuring me that I must lay to my rigour the odium of
the step he had taken, the only excuse for it being in the fervent love I
had kindled in his heart, and which made him miserable. He acknowledged
that his letter might be a slander, that he had acted treacherously, and
he pledged his honour never to attempt obtaining from me by violence
favours which he desired to merit only by the constancy of his love. I
then thought myself to some extent compelled to say that I might love him
at some future time, and to promise that I would not again come near your
bed during the absence of my brother. In this way I dismissed him
satisfied, without his daring to beg for so much as a kiss, but with the
promise that we might now and then have some conversation in the same
place. As soon as he left me I went to bed, deeply grieved that I could
no longer see you in the absence of my brother, and that I was unable,