She only kept her bed two days,
continuing to discourse cheerfully with those about her to the very
last. At last, when she could hardly speak, and in her death agony,
she let a big wind escape. "Well!" said she, turning around, "a
woman that can f... is not yet dead!" These were her last words.
She had bequeathed a year's wages to all the under servants, but,
not being on the household list, I had nothing: the Count de la Roque,
however, ordered me thirty livres, and the new coat I had on, which M.
Lorenzy would certainly have taken from me. He even promised to
procure me a place; giving me permission to wait on him as often as
I pleased. Accordingly, I went two or three times, without being
able to speak to him, and as I was easily repulsed, returned no
more; whether I did wrong will be seen hereafter.
Would I had finished what I have to say of my living at Madame de
Vercellis's. Though my situation apparently remained the same, I did
not leave her house as I had entered it: I carried with me the long
and painful remembrance of a crime; an insupportable weight of remorse
which yet hangs on my conscience, and whose bitter recollection, far
from weakening, during a period of forty years, seems to gather
strength as I grow old. Who would believe, that a childish fault
should be productive of such melancholy consequences? But it is for
the more than probable effects that my heart cannot be consoled. I
have, perhaps, caused an amiable, honest, estimable girl, who surely
merited a better fate than myself, to perish with shame and misery.
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