I told her I did not know how to draw, and inquired whether it was one of her accomplishments.
"I am learning," she answered, "and when you call upon us I will shew you Adam and Eve, after the Chevalier Liberi; I have made a copy which has been found very fine by some professors, although they did not know it was my work." "Why did you not tell them ?" "Because those two figures are too naked." "I am not curious to see your Adam, but I will look at your Eve with pleasure, and keep your secret." This answer made her laugh again, and again her mother turned round.

I put on the look of a simpleton, for, seeing the advantage I could derive from her opinion of me, I had formed my plan at the very moment she tried to teach me how to offer my arm to a lady.
She was so convinced of my simplicity that she ventured to say that she considered her Adam by far more beautiful than her Eve, because in her drawing of the man she had omitted nothing, every muscle being visible, while there was none conspicuous in Eve.

"It is," she added, "a figure with nothing in it." "Yet it is the one which I shall like best." "No; believe me, Adam will please you most." This conversation had greatly excited me.

I had on a pair of linen breeches, the weather being very warm....

I was afraid of the major and the countess, who were a few yards in front of us, turning round ....