I only occasionally attended her soirées intimes, but she always received me well. I felt that she did not have any real attachment for me, nothing more than the absentminded affection of an indulgent old lady. And yet I almost loved her. I loved her slightly puffy hands on which her rings were tight, her tired eyes, and her limpid diction. Like my mother, the princess used that soft, liquid French from the century of Versailles which gives the slightest words the old-fashioned grace of a dead language. I rediscovered with her, as I did later with you, some of my natal speech. She did her best to improve my knowledge of the world; she lent me books of poetry; she chose those that were tender, superficial, and difficult. The Princess de Mainau thought me a correct young man; it was the one fault she did not forgive. She questioned me, laughing, about the young women whom I met at her house; she was surprised that I was not taken with any of them. Her simple questions tortured me. Naturally, she perceived that. She found me shy and younger than my age; I was grateful to her for judging me in that way. There is something reassuring, when one is unhappy and believes oneself very sinful, in being treated like an insignificant child.

She knew that I was very poor. Poverty, like sickness, was something unattractive from which she averted her gaze. For nothing in the world would she have consented to climb five flights. Yet you must not, my dear, be too quick to blame her. She had an infinite delicacy. It was, doubtless, in order not to offend me that she gave me only useless presents; but then, the most useless are the most necessary. When she learned that I was sick, she sent me flowers. Flowers do not mind if you live in squalid surroundings. It was more than I expected from anyone. I did not think there was a single person on earth good enough to send me flowers. At that period, she had a passion for mauve lilacs; thanks to her, my convalescence was redolent. I have told you how sad my room was. Possibly, without the lilacs from Princess Catherine, I should never have had the courage to get well.