Oh, now I'm thinking of that generous, humane woman, so long-suffering with my contemptible failings--not that she's been altogether long-suffering, but what have I been with my horrid, worthless character! I'm a capricious child, with all the egoism of a child and none of the innocence.

For the last twenty years she's been looking after me like a nurse, _cette pauvre_ auntie, as Lise so charmingly calls her....

And now, after twenty years, the child clamours to be married, sending letter after letter, while her head's in a vinegar-compress and...

now he's got it--on Sunday I shall be a married man, that's no joke....

And why did I keep insisting myself, what did I write those letters for?
Oh, I forgot.