Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 3.djvu/163

Rh I should kill one of my rivals in a duel, and I should pretend to poison myself with a feeble dose of laudanum. After a few months they would not notice my deformity, and then I should be on the watch for the first signs of affection. With women who aspire to originality conquest is easy. Only persuade them that it is a hard-and-fast rule that a deformed person can never have a love affair, they will immediately then wish to prove the opposite."

"What a Don Juan!" cried Jules.

"As we have not had the misfortune of being born deformed," said Colonel Beaujeu, "we had better get our legs broken, gentlemen."

"I fully agree with Saint-Clair," said Hector Roquantin, who was only three and a half feet high." We constantly see beautiful and fashionable women giving themselves to men whom you fine fellows would never dream of."

"Hector, just ring the bell for another bottle, will you? " said Thémines casually.

The dwarf got up and everyone smiled, recalling the fable of the fox without a tail.

"As for me," said Thémines, renewing the conversation, "the longer I live, the more clearly I see that the chief singularity which attracts even the most obdurate, is passable features" — and he threw a complaisant glance in a mirror