“I am the established lover of the lady in rose; it is almost a calling or a charge, and gives one stability in society. I am no longer like a schoolboy seeking good luck among the grandmothers, and not venturing to utter a madrigal to a woman unless she is a centenarian. I perceive that since my installation people think more of me, that all the women speak to me with jealous coquetry, and put themselves very much about on my account. The men, on the contrary, are colder, and there is something of hostility and constraint in the few words that we exchange. They feel that they have in me a rival who is already formidable, and who may become more so.
“I have been told that many of them had criticized my manner of dress with bitterness, and said that it was too effeminate; that my hair was curled and glossed with over much care; that this, joined to my beardless face, gave me the most ridiculously foppish appearance; that for my garments I affected rich and splendid materials which had the odor of the theatre about them, and that. I was more like an actor than a man-all the commonplaces in fact that people utter in order to give themselves the right of being dirty and of wearing sorry and badly-cut coats. But all this only serves to whitewash me, and all the ladies think that my hair is the handsomest in the world, and that my refinements in dress are in the best taste, and they seem very much inclined to indemnify me for the expense I have gone to on their account-for they are not so foolish as to believe that all this elegance is merely intended for my own personal adornment.
“The lady of the house seemed at first somewhat piqued by my choice, which she had thought must of necessity have fallen upon herself, and for a few days she harbored some bitterness on account of it (towards her rival only; for she has always spoken in the same way to me), which manifested itself in sundry little 'My dears,' uttered in that sharp, jerky manner which is the exclusive property of women, and in sundry unkind opinions respecting her toilet given in as loud a tone as possible, such as: 'Your hair is dressed a great deal too high, and does not suit your face in the least;' or, 'Your bodice is creased under the arms; whoever made that dress for you?' or, 'You look very wearied; you seem quite changed;' and a thousand other small observations, to which the other failed not to reply when an opportunity presented itself with all the malice that could be desired; and if the opportunity did not come soon enough, she herself provided one for her own use, and gave back more than she had received. But another object diverting the attention of the slighted Infanta, this little wordy war soon came to an end, and things returned to their usual order.
“I have told you summarily that-1 am the established lover of the lady in rose, but that is not enough for so exact a man as you. You will no doubt ask me what she is called. As to her name, I will not tell it to you; but if you like, to facilitate the narrative, and in memory of the color of the dress in which I saw her for the first time, we will call her Rosette; it is a pretty name, and it was thus that my little puss was called.
“You will wish to know in detail-for you love precision in matters of this kind-the history of our loves with this fair Bradamant, and by what successive gradations I passed from the general to the particular, and from the condition of simple spectator to that of actor; how from being an indifferent onlooker I have become a lover. I will gratify your wish with the greatest pleasure. There is nothing sinister in our romance. It is rose-colored, and no tears are shed in it save those of pleasure; no delays or repetitions are to be met with in it; and everything advances towards the end with the haste and swiftness so strongly recommended by Horace; it is a truly French romance.
“Nevertheless, do not imagine that I carried the fortress at the first assault The Princess, though very humane towards her subjects, is not so lavish of her favors as one might think at first. She knows the value of them too well not to make you buy them; and she further knows too well the eagerness given to desire by apt delay, and the flavor given to pleasure by a show of resistance, to surrender herself to you all at once, however strong the liking may be with which you have inspired her.
“To tell you the story in full I must go a little further back. I gave you a sufficiently circumstantial narrative of our first interview. I had one or two more in the same house, or perhaps three, and then she invited me to go and see her; I did not wait to be pressed, as you may well believe; I went at first with discretion, then somewhat oftener, then oftener still, and at last whenever I felt so inclined, and I must confess that that happened at least three or four times a day. The lady, after a few hours' absence, always received me as if I had just returned from the East Indies; I was very sensible of this, and it obliged me to show my gratitude in a manner marked with the greatest gallantry and tenderness in the world, to which she responded to the best of her ability.
“Rosette, since we have agreed to call her so, is a woman of great sense, and one who understands men admirably; and although she delayed the conclusion of the chapter for some time, I was never once out of temper with her. This is truly wonderful, for you know the fine passions I fall into when I have not at once what I desire, and when a woman exceeds the time that I have assigned her, in my head, for her surrender.
“I do not know how she managed it, but from the first interview she gave me to understand that she would be mine, and I was more sure of it than if I had had the promise written and signed with her own hand. It will be said, perhaps, that the boldness and ease of her manners left the ground clear for the rashness of hopes. I do not think that this can be the true reason: I have seen some women whose extraordinary freedom excluded in a measure the very shadow of a doubt, who have yet not produced this effect upon me, and with whom I have experienced timidity and disquietude when they were at the least out of place.
“What makes me much less amiable with the women whom I wish to overcome than with those about whom I am unconcerned, is the passionate waiting for the opportunity, and the uncertainty in which I am respecting the success of my undertaking: this makes me gloomy, and throws me into a delirium, which robs me of many of my talents and much of my presence of mind. When I see the hours which I had destined for a different employment escaping one by one, anger seizes me in spite of myself, and I cannot prevent myself from saying very sharp and bitter things, which are sometimes even brutal, and which throw things back a hundred leagues. With Rosette I felt nothing of all this; never, even when she was resisting me the most, had I the idea that she wished to escape my love. I allowed her quietly to display all her little coquetries, and I endured with patience the somewhat long delays which it pleased her to inflict on my ardor. Her severity had something smiling in it which consoled you as much as possible, and in her most Hyrcanian cruelties you had a glimpse of a background of humanity which hardly allowed you to have any serious fear.
“Virtuous women, even when they are least so, have a cross and disdainful appearance which to me is intolerable. They always look as if they were ready to ring the bell and have you kicked out of the house by their lackeys; and I really think that a man who takes the trouble to pay his addresses to a woman (which as it is, is not so agreeable as one would fain believe) does not deserve to be looked at in that way.
“Our dear Rosette has no such looks-and, I assure you, that it is to her advantage. She is the only woman with whom I have been myself, and I have the conceit to say that I have never been so good. My wit is freely displayed, and by the dexterity and the fire of her replies she has made me discover more than I credited myself with, and more, perhaps, than I really have. It is true that I have not been very logical; that is scarcely possible with her. It is not, however, that she has not her poetical side, in spite of what De C- said about it; but she is so full of life, and force, and movement, she seems so well off in the atmosphere in which she is, that one has no wish to leave it in order to ascend into the clouds. She fills real life so agreeably, and makes such an amusing thing of it for herself and others, that dreamland has nothing better to offer you.
“What a wonderful thing! I have known her now for nearly two months, and during that time I have felt weary only when I was not with her. You will acknowledge that it is no ordinary woman that can produce such an effect, for usually women produce just the reverse effect upon me, and please me much more at a distance than when close at hand.
“Rosette has the best disposition in the world, with men, be it understood, for with women she is as wicked as a devil. She is gay, lively, alert, ready for everything, very original in her way of speaking, and always with some charming and unexpected drolleries to say to you. She is a delicious companion, a pretty comrade whom one is fond of, rather than a mistress, and if I had a few years more and a few romantic ideas less, it would be all one to me, and I should even esteem myself the most fortunate mortal in existence. But-but-a particle which announces nothing good, and this little limiting devil of a word is unfortunately more used than any other in all human languages; — but I am a fool, an idiot, a veritable ninny who can be satisfied with nothing, and who is always conjuring up difficulties where none exist, and I am only half happy instead of being wholly so. Half is a good deal for this world of ours, and yet I do not find it enough.
“In the eyes of all the world I have a mistress whom many wish for and envy me, and whom no one would disdain. My desire is therefore apparently fulfilled, and I have no longer any right to pick quarrels with fate. Yet I do not seem to have a mistress; I understand by reasoning that such is the case, but I do not feel it to be so, and if some one were to ask me unexpectedly whether I had one, I believe I should answer 'No.' Nevertheless, the possession of a woman who has beauty and wit constitutes what at all times and in all lands has been and is called having a mistress, and I do not think that any other mode exists. This does not prevent me from having the strangest doubts on the subject, and it has gone so far that if several persons were to conspire to affirm to me that I am not Rosette's favored lover, I should, in spite of the palpable evidence to the contrary, end by believing them.
“Do not imagine from what I have told you that I do not love her, or that she displeases me in any way. On the contrary, I love her very much, and I find her, as all the rest of the world will find her, a pretty, piquant creature. I simply do not feel that she is mine, and that is all. And yet no woman has ever made herself more engaging, and if ever I have understood what voluptuousness is, it was in her arms. A single kiss from her, the chastest of her endearments, makes me quiver to the soles of my feet, and sends all my blood flowing back to my heart. Account for all this if you can. It is just as I tell you. But the heart of man is full of such absurdities, and if it were necessary to reconcile all its contradictions, we should have enough to do.
“What can be the origin of this? In truth I do not know.
“I see her the whole day, and even the whole night if I wish. I give her all the caresses that I please when we are by ourselves both in town or in the country. Her complaisance is inexhaustible, and she enters thoroughly into all my caprices, however whimsical they may be. One evening I was seized with a fancy to roughly fondle her in the drawing-room, with the lustre and candles lighted, a fire on the hearth, the easy chairs arranged as if for a great evening reception, she dressed for a ball with her bouquet and fan, all her diamonds on her fingers and neck, plumes on her head, and in the most splendid costume possible, while I myself was dressed like a bear. She consented to my whim. When all was ready the servants were greatly surprised to receive an order not to allow anybody to come up; they did not seem to understand it in the least, and they went off with a dazed look which made us laugh greatly. Without doubt they thought that their mistress was distinctly mad, but what they did or did not think was of little moment to us.
“It was the drollest evening of my life. Imagine to yourself the appearance I must have presented with my plumed hat under my paw, rings on all my claws, a little sword with a silver guard, and a sky-blue ribbon at the hilt. I approached the fair one, and after making her a most graceful bow, seated myself by her side, and laid siege to her in all due form. The affected madrigals, the exaggerated gallantries which I addressed to her, all the jargon of the occasion was singularly set off by passing through my bear's muzzle, for I had a superb head of painted cardboard, which, however, I was soon obliged to throw under the table, so adorable was my deity that evening, and so greatly did I long to kiss her hand, and something better than her hand. The skin followed close on the head, for, not being accustomed to play the bear, I was greatly stifled in it more so than was necessary.
“The ball costume had then a fine time of it, as you may believe; the plumes fell like snow around my beauty, her round white shoulders were scarcely confined by the sleeves, her bosom heaved above her corset, her feet emerged from her shoes. The necklaces become unstrung and rolled on the floor, and I think that never was more fresh a dress more piteously crushed and rumpled; the dress was of silver gauze, with a lining of white satin. Rosette displayed on this occasion a heroism which was quite beyond that of her sex, and which gave me the highest opinion of her. She looked on at the wreck of her toilet as though she were a disinterested spectator, and not for a single instant did she show the least regret for her dress and her laces; on the contrary, she was madly gay, and even assisted herself in the ill-treatment to which her finery was subjected by me at the height of my frenzy.
“Do you not think this fine enough to be recorded in history beside the most splendid deeds of the heroes of antiquity? The greatest proof of love that a woman can give her lover is not to say to him: 'Take care not to rumple me or stain me,' especially if her dress is new. A new dress is a stronger motive for a husband's security than is commonly believed. Rosette must worship me, or she possesses a philosophy superior to that of Epictetus.
“However, I think that I paid Rosette the worth of her dress in caresses-a coin which is not the less esteemed and prized that it does not pass current with the shopkeepers. So much heroism as she displayed well deserved a reward, and, like a generous woman, she well repaid what I bestowed on her. I experienced a mad delight, such as I did not believe myself capable of feeling. Those sounding kisses mingled with piercing laughs, those quivering and impatient caresses, all that irritating enjoyment-that incomplete pleasure, a hundred times keener than if it had been without impediment, had such an effect upon my nerves that I was seized with acute spasms, from which I recovered with difficulty.
“You cannot imagine the tender and proud air with which Rosette looked at me, and the manner, full of joy and disquietude, in which she busied herself about me. Her face still radiated the pleasure which she felt at producing such an effect upon me, while at the same time, her eyes, bathed in gentle tears, bore witness to the fear that she experienced at seeing me ill, and the interest that she took in my health. Never has she appeared to me so beautiful as she did at that moment. There was something so maternal and so chaste in her look, that I totally forgot the more than Anacreonic scene which had just taken place, and, kneeling before her, asked permission to kiss her hand. This she granted me with singular gravity and dignity.
“Assuredly such a woman is not so depraved as De C- pretends, and as she has often seemed to myself. Her corruption is of the mind, and not of the heart.
“I have quoted this scene to you from among twenty others, and it seems to me that after this a man might, without extreme conceit, believe himself to be a woman's lover. Well, it is what I do not do. I had scarcely returned home when the same thought again took possession of me, and began to torment me as usual. I remembered perfectly all that I had done and seen done. The most trivial gestures and attitudes, all the most petty details, were very clearly delineated in my memory; I recalled everything, to the lightest inflections of voice and the most fleeting shades of enjoyment; and yet I did not seem to realize that all these things had happened to myself rather than to another. I was not sure that it was not an illusion, a phantasmagoria, a dream, or that I had not read it somewhere, or even that it was not a tale composed by myself just as similar ones had often been made by me. I was afraid of being the dupe of my own credulity and the butt of some hoax; and in spite of the witness borne by my lassitude, and the material proofs that I had slept elsewhere, I would have been ready to believe that I had put myself under my bedclothes at my usual time, and had slept till morning.
“I am very unfortunate in not having the capacity to acquire the moral certainty of a thing, the physical certainty of which I possess. Generally the reverse happens, and it is the fact that proves the idea. I would fain prove the fact to myself by the idea; I cannot do so; though this is singular enough, it is the case. The possession of a mistress depends upon myself up to a certain point, but I cannot bring myself to believe that I have one while having her all the time. If I have not the necessary faith within me, even for something so evident as this, it is as impossible for me to believe in so simple a fact as it is for another to believe in the Trinity. Faith has not acquired it; it is purely a gift, a special grace from Heaven.
“Never has any one desired so strongly as myself to live the life of others, and to assimilate another nature; never has any one succeeded less in doing so. Whatever I may do, other men are to me scarcely anything but phantoms, and I have no sense of their existence; yet it is not the desire to recognize their life and to participate in it that is wanting in me. It is the power, or the lack of real sympathy for anything. The existence or non-existence of a thing or person does not interest me sufficiently to affect me in a sensible and convincing manner.
“The sight of a woman or a man who appears to me in real life leaves no stronger traces upon my soul than the fantastic vision of a dream. About me there moves, with dull humming sound, a pale world of shadows and semblances false or true, in the midst of which I am as isolated as possible, for none of them acts on me for good or evil, and they seem to me to be of quite a different nature. If I speak to them, and they reply to me with something like common-sense, I am as much surprised as if my dog or my cat were suddenly to begin to speak and mingle in the conversation. The sound of their voice always astonishes me, and I would be very ready to believe that they are merely fleeting appearances whose objective mirror I am. Inferior or superior, I am certainly not of their kind.
“There are moments when I recognize none save God above me, and others, when I judge myself scarcely the equal of the wood-louse beneath its stone, or the mollusc on its sand-bank; but in whatever state of mind I may be, whether lofty or depressed, I have never been able to persuade myself that men were really my fellows. When people call me 'Sir,' or in speaking about me, say 'this man,' it appears very singular to me. Even my name seems to me but an empty one, and not in reality mine, yet no matter in how low a tone it be pronounced amidst the loudest noise, I turn suddenly with a convulsive and feverish eagerness for which I have never been able to account to myself. Can it be the dread of finding in this man who knows my name, and to whom I am no longer one of the crowd, an antagonist or an enemy?
“It is especially when I have been living with a woman that I have most felt the invincible repugnance of my nature to any alliance or mixture. I am like a drop of oil in a glass of water. It is in vain that you turn and move the latter; the oil can never unite with it. It will divide itself into a hundred thousand little globules which will' reunite and mount again to the surface as soon as there is a moment's calm. The drop of oil and the glass of water — such is my history. Even voluptuousness, that diamond chain which binds all creatures together, that devouring fire which melts the rocks and metals of the soul, and makes them fall in tears, as material fire causes iron and granite to melt, has never, all powerful as it is, succeeded in taming and affecting me. Yet my senses are very keen, but my soul is to my body a hostile sister, and the happy couple, lawful or unlawful, live in a state of perpetual war. A woman's arms, the closest bonds on earth, so people say, are the very feeblest ties, so far as I am concerned, and I have never been further removed from my mistress than when she was pressing me to her heart. I was stifled, that was all.
“How many times have I been angered with myself! How many efforts have I made not to be as I am! How have I exhorted myself to be tender, amorous, impassioned! How often have I taken my soul by the hair, and dragged her to my lips in the midst of a beautiful kiss! Whatever I did she always retreated as soon as I released her. What torture for this poor soul to be exposed to these mad caprices of mine, and to sit everlastingly at banquets where she has nothing to eat!
“It was with Rosette that I resolved, once for all, to try whether I was not decidedly unsociable, and whether I could take sufficient interest in the existence of another to believe in it. I pushed my experiments to the point of exhaustion, and I did not become much clearer amid my doubts. With her, pleasure is so keen that often enough the soul is, if not moved, at least diverted, and this somewhat prejudices the exactness of my observations. But after all I came to see that it did not pass beyond the skin, and that I had only an epidermic enjoyment in which the soul took no part save from curiosity. I have pleasure, because I am young and ardent; but this pleasure comes to me from myself and not from another. The cause of it is in myself rather than in Rosette.
“My efforts are in vain, I cannot come out of myself. I am still what I was, something, that is to say, very wearied and very wearisome, and this displeases me greatly. I have not succeeded in getting into my brain the idea of another, into my soul the feeling of another, into my body the pain or joy of another. I am a prisoner within myself, and all invasion is impossible. The prisoner wishes to escape, the walls would most gladly fall in, and the gates open up to let him through, but some fatality or other invincibly keeps each stone in its place, and each bolt in its socket. It is as impossible for me to admit any one to see me as ill is for me to go to see others, I can neither pay visits nor receive them, and I live in the most mournful isolation in the midst of the crowd. My bed perhaps is not widowed, but my heart is so always.
“Ah! to be unable to increase one's self by a single particle, a single atom; to be unable to make the blood of others flow in one's veins; to see over with one's own eyes, and not more clearly, nor further, nor differently; to hear sounds with the same ears and the same emotion; to touch with the same fingers; to perceive things that are varied with an organ that is invariable; to be condemned to the same quality of voice, to the return of the same tones, the same phrases, and the same words, and to be unable to go away, to avoid one's self, to take refuge in some corner where there is no self-pursuit; to be obliged to keep one's self always, to dine with it, and go to bed with it; to be the same man for twenty new women; to drag into the midst of the strangest situations in the drama of our life a reluctant character whose role you know by heart; to think the same things, and to have the same dreams: what torment, what weariness!
“I have longed for the horn of the brothers Tangut, the cap of Fortunatus, the staff of Abaris, the ring of Gyges; I would have sold my soul to snatch the magic wand from the hand of a fairy; but I have never wished so much for anything as, like Tiresias the soothsayer, to meet on the mountains the serpents which cause a change of sex: and what I envy most in the monstrous and whimsical gods of India are their perpetual avatars and their countless transformations.
“I began by desiring to be another man; then, on reflecting that I might by analogy nearly foresee what I should feel, and thus not experience the surprise and the change that I had looked for, I would have preferred to be a woman. This idea has always come to me when I had a mistress who was not ugly-for to me an ugly woman is simply a man-and at particular moments I would willingly have changed my part, for it is very provoking to be unaware of the effect that one produces, and to judge of the enjoyment of others only by one's own. These thoughts, and many others, have often given me, at times when it was most out of place, a meditative and dreamy air, which has led to my being accused, really most undeservedly, of coldness and infidelity.
“Rosette, who very happily does not know all this, believes me the most amorous man on earth; she takes this impotent transport for a transport of passion; and to the best of her ability she lends herself to all the experimental caprices that enter my head.
“I have done all that I could to convince myself that I possess her. I have tried to descend into her heart, but I have always stopped at the first step of the staircase, at her skin or on her mouth. In spite of the particular intimacy of our relations, I am very sensible that there is nothing in common between us. Never has an idea similar to mine spread its wings in that young and smiling head; never has that heart, full of life and fire, that heaves with its throbbing so firm and pure a breast, beaten in unison with my heart. My soul has never united with that soul. Cupid, the god with hawk's wings, has not kissed Psyche on her beautiful ivory brow. No! this woman does not belong to me.
“If you knew all that I have done to compel my soul to share in the love of my body, the frenzy with which I have plunged my mouth into hers, and steeped my arms in her hair, and how closely I have strained her round and supple form! Like the ancient Salmacis enamoured of the young Hermaphrodite, I strove to blend her frame with mine; I drank her breath and the tepid tears caused by voluptuousness to overflow from the brimming chalice of her eyes. The more she drew me towards her, and the closer our embraces, the less I loved her. My soul, seated mournfully, gazed with an air of pity on this lamentable marriage to which she was not invited, or veiling her face in disgust, wept silently beneath the skirt of her cloak. All this comes perhaps from the fact that in reality I do not love Rosette, worthy as she is of being loved, and wishful as I am to love her.
“To get rid of the idea that I was myself, I devised very strange surroundings, in which it was altogether improbable that I would encounter myself, and not being able to cast my individuality to the dogs, I endeavored to place it in such a different element that it would recognize itself no longer. I had but indifferent success, and this devil of a self pursues me obstinately; there are no means of getting rid of it. I cannot resort to telling it like other intruders that I am out, or that I have gone to the country.
“When my mistress has been in her bath, I have tried to play the Triton. The sea was a very large tub of marble. As to the Nereid, what was seen of her accused the water, all transparent as it was, of not being sufficiently so for the exquisite beauty of what it concealed. I have been with her, too, at night by the light of the moon in a gondola accompanied by music.
“This would be common enough at Venice, but it is not at all so here. In her carriage, flying along at full gallop, amid the noise of the wheels, with leaps and joltings, now lit up by the lamps, and now plunged into the most profound darkness, I have loaded her with caresses and found a pleasure therein which I advise you taste. But I was forgetting that you are a venerable patriarch, and that you do not go in for such refinements. I have come into her house through the window with the key of the door in my pocket I have made her come to me at noon-day; and, in short, I have compromised her in such a fashion that nobody now (myself, of course, excepted) has any doubt that she is my mistress.
“By reason of all these devices, which, if I were not so young, would look like the expedients of a worn-out libertine, Rosette worships me chiefly and above all others. She sees in them the eagerness of a petulant love which nothing can restrain, and which is the same notwithstanding the diversity of times and places. She sees in them the constantly reviving effect of her charms, and the triumph of her beauty; truly, I wish that she were right, and to be just, it is neither my fault nor hers that she is not.
“The only respect in which I wrong her is that I am myself. If I were to tell her this, the child would very quickly reply that it is just my greatest merit in her eyes; which would be more kind than sensible.
“Once-it was at the beginning of our union-I believed that I had attained my end, for one minute I believed that I had loved-I did love. Oh! my friend, I have never lived save during that minute, and had that minute been an hour I should have become a god. We had both gone out on horseback, I on my dear Ferragus, she on a mare as white as snow, and with the look of a unicorn, so slim were its legs and so slender its neck. We were following a large avenue of elms of prodigious height; the sun was descending upon us lukewarm and golden, sifted, through the slashings in the foliage; lozenges of ultramarine sparkled here and there through the dappled clouds, great lines of pale blue strewed the edge of the horizon, changing into an apple green of exquisite tenderness when they met with the orange-colored tints of the west. The aspect of the heavens was charming and strange, the breeze brought to us an odor of wild flowers that was ravishing in the extreme. From time to time a bird rose before us, and crossed the avenue singing.
“The bell of a village that was not visible was gently ringing the Angelas, and the silver sounds, which reached us weakened by the distance, were infinitely sweet. Our animals were at a walk, and were going so equally side by side, that one was not in advance of the other. My heart expanded, and my soul overflowed my body. I had never been so happy. I said nothing, nor did Rosette, and yet we had never understood each other so well. We were so close together that my leg was touching the body of Rosette's horse. I leaned over to her, and passed my arm about her waist; she made the same movement on her side, and laid back her head on my shoulder. Our lips clung together; oh! what a chaste and delicious kiss! Our horses were still walking with their bridles floating on their necks. I felt Rosette's arm relax, and her loins yield more and more. For myself I was growing weak, and was ready to swoon. Ah! I can assure you that at that moment I thought little of whether I was myself or another. We went thus as far as the end of the avenue, when the noise of feet made us abruptly resume our positions; it was some people of our acquaintance, also on horseback, who came up and spoke to us. If I had had pistols, I believe that I should have fired upon them.
“I looked at them with a gloomy and furious air, which must have appeared very singular to them. After all, I was wrong to become so angry with them, for they had, without intending it, done me the service of interrupting my pleasure at the very moment when, by reason of its own intensity, it was on the point of becoming a pain, or of sinking beneath its own violence. The science of stopping in time is not regarded with all the respect which is its due. Sometimes when toying with a woman you pass your arm around her waist; it is at first most voluptuous to feel the gentle warmth of her frame, to come almost in contact with her soft and velvety flesh, the polished ivory of her skin, and to watch the heaving of her swelling and quivering breast. The fair one falls asleep in this amorous and charming position; the curve of her body becomes less pronounced, her breast becomes calm; her sides heave with the larger and more regular respiration of sleep; her muscles relax, her head rolls over in her hair.
“Your arm, however, is pressed more than before, and you begin to perceive that it is a woman and not a sylphid; yet you would not take away your arm for anything in the world, and for this there are many reasons. First, it is rather dangerous to awake a woman who has fallen asleep beside you; you must be prepared to substitute for the delicious dream that she has been having a reality more delicious still. Secondly, by asking her to raise herself that you may withdraw your arm, you tell her indirectly that she is heavy and in your way, which is not polite, or perhaps you give her to understand that you are weak or fatigued-a most humiliating thing for you, and one which will prejudice you infinitely in her mind. Thirdly, you believe that as you have experienced pleasure in this position, you may do so again by maintaining it, and in this you are mistaken. The poor arm finds itself caught beneath the mass that oppresses it, the blood stops, the nerves twitch, and the numbness pricks you with its millions of needles. You are a sort of little Milo of Crotona, and the surface of your couch and the back of your divinity represent with sufficient exactness the two parts of the tree which are joined together again. Day comes at last to release you from this martyrdom, and you leap down from this rack with more eagerness than any husband displays in descending from the nuptial stage.
“Such is the history of many passions.
“It is that of all pleasures.
“Be that as it may, in spite of the interruption, or by reason of it, never did such voluptuousness pass over my head; I really felt myself to be another. The soul of Rosette had entered in its integrity into my body. My soul had left me, and filled her heart as her own soul filled mine. No doubt they had met on the way in that long equestrian kiss, as Rosette afterwards called it (which, by the way, annoyed me), and had crossed each other, and mingled together as intimately as is possible for the souls of two mortal creatures on a grain of perishable mud.
“The angels must surely embrace one another thus, and the true paradise is not in the sky, but on the lips of one we love.
“I have waited in vain for a similar moment, and I have tried, but without success, to provoke its return. We have very often gone to ride in the avenue of the wood during beautiful sunsets; the trees had the same verdure, the birds were singing the same song, but the sun looked dull to us, and the foliage yellowed; the singing of the birds seemed harsh and discordant, for there was no longer harmony within ourselves. We have brought our horses to a walk, and we have tried the same kiss. Alas I our lips only were united, and it was but the spectre of the old kiss. The beautiful, the sublime, the divine, the only true kiss that I have ever given and received in my life had disappeared forever. Since that day I have always returned from the wood with a depth of inexpressible sadness. Rosette, gay and playful as she usually is, cannot escape from the impression of this, and her reverie is betrayed by a little, delicately wrinkled pout, which at the least is worth her smile.
“There is scarcely anything but the fumes of wine, and the brilliancy of wax-candles that can recall me from these melancholy thoughts. We both drink like persons condemned to death, silently and continually, until we have reached the necessary dose; then we begin to laugh and to make fun most heartily of what we call our sentimentality.
“We laugh-because we cannot weep. Ah! who will cause a tear to spring in the depths of my exhausted eye?
“Why had I so much pleasure that evening? It would be very difficult to say. Nevertheless I was the same man and Rosette the same woman. It was not the first time that either of us was out riding. We had seen the sun set before, and the spectacle had only affected us like the sight of a picture which is admired according as its colors are more or less brilliant. There are more avenues of elms and chestnut trees than one in the world, and it was not the first that we were passing through. Who, then, caused us to find in it so sovereign a charm, who metamorphosed the dead leaves into topazes, and the green leaves into emeralds, who had gilded all those fluttering atoms, and changed into pearls all those drops of water scattered on the sward, who gave so sweet a harmony to the sounds of a usually discordant bell, and to the carolling of sundry little birds? There must have been some very searching poetry in the air, since even our horses appeared to be sensible of it.
“Yet nothing in the world could have been more pastoral and more simple. Some trees, some clouds, five or six blades of wild thyme, a woman, and a ray of the sun falling across it all like a golden chevron on a coat of arms. I had, further, no sensation of surprise or astonishment! I knew where I was very well. I had never come to the place before, but I recollected perfectly both the shape of the leaves and the position of the clouds; the white dove which was crossing the sky was flying away in the same direction — the little silvery bell which I heard for the first time had very often tinkled in my ear, and its voice seemed to me like the voice of a friend; without having ever been there I had many times passed through the avenue with princesses mounted on unicorns; my most voluptuous dreams used to resort thither every evening, and my desires had given kisses there precisely similar to that exchanged by Rosette and myself.
“The kiss had no novelty to me, but it was such a one as I had thought that it would be. It was perhaps the only time in my life that I was not disappointed, and that the reality appeared to me as beautiful as the ideal. If I could find a woman, a landscape, a piece of architecture, anything answering to my intimate desire as perfectly as that minute answered to the minute of my dreams, I should have no reason to envy the gods, and I would very willingly resign my stall in paradise. But in truth, I do not believe that a man of flesh could withstand such penetrating voluptuousness for an hour-two kisses such as that one would pump out an entire existence, and would make a complete void in soul and body. This is not a consideration that would stop me, for, not being able to prolong my life indefinitely, I am indifferent to death, and I would rather die of pleasure than of old age or weariness.
“But this woman does not exist. Yes, she does exist. It may be that I am separated from her merely by a partition. It may be that I have jostled her yesterday or today.
“What is lacking in Rosette that she is not that woman? She lacks my belief in her. What fatality is it that causes me ever to have for my mistress a woman whom I do not love? Her neck is smooth enough to hang on it necklaces of the finest workmanship; her fingers are tapering enough to do honor to the finest and richest rings; rubies would blush with pleasure to sparkle at the rosy extremity of her delicate ear; her waist might gird on the cestus of Venus; but it is love alone who can knot his mother's scarf.
“All the merit that Rosette possesses is in herself, I have lent her nothing. I have not cast over her beauty that veil of perfection with which love envelops the loved one; the veil of Isis is transparent beside such a one as that. Nothing but satiety can raise a corner of it.
“I do not love Rosette; at least the love, if any, which I have for her has no resemblance to the idea that I have formed of love. Still my idea is perhaps not correct I do not venture to give any decision. However, she renders me quite insensible to the merit of other women, and I have never wished for anybody with any consistency since possessing her. If she has cause to be jealous of any, it is only of phantoms, and they do not disquiet her much. Yet my imagination is her most formidable rival; it is a thing which, with all her acuteness, she will probably never find out.
“If women knew this! Of what infidelities is not the least volatile lover guilty towards his most worshipped mistress! It is to be presumed that the women pay us back with interest; but they do as we do, and say nothing about it. A mistress is an obbligato, which usually disappears beneath its graces and flourishes. Very often the kisses she receives are not for her; it is the idea of another woman that is embraced in her person, and she often profits (if such can be called a profit) by the desires which are inspired by {mother. Ah! how many times, poor Rosette, have you served to embody my dreams, and given a reality to your rivals! How many the infidelities in which you have been the involuntary accomplice! If you could have thought at those moments when my arms clasped you with so much intensity, when my lips were united most closely to yours, that your beauty and your love counted for nothing, and that the thought of you was a thousand leagues away from me! If you had been told that those eyes, veiled with amorous languor, were cast down only that they might not see you and so dissipate the illusion that you merely served to complete, and that instead of being a mistress you were but an instrument of voluptuousness, a means of deceiving, a desire impossible of realization!
“O celestial creatures, beautiful virgins, frail and diaphanous, who bend your pervinca eyes and clasp your lily hands on the golden background of the pictures of the old German masters, window saints, missal-martyrs who smile so sweetly amid the scrolls of arabesques, and emerge so fair and fresh from the bells of flowers! O beautiful courtesans lying veiled by your hair only, on beds strewn with roses, beneath broad purple curtains with your bracelets and necklaces of huge pearls, your fan and your mirrors where the west hangs in the shadow a flaming spangle! brown daughters of Titian, who display so voluptuously to us your undulating hips, your firm and compact limbs, your smooth bodies, and your supple and muscular frames! ancient goddesses, who rear your white phantom in the shadows of the garden! — you form a part of my seraglio; I have possessed you all in turn. Saint Ursula, on Rosette's beautiful hands I have kissed thine; I have played with the black hair of the Muranese, and never had Rosette more trouble in dressing her hair again; maidenly Diana, I have been with thee more than Acteon, and I have not been changed into a stag: I have replaced thy beautiful Endymion! How many rivals who are unsuspected, and on whom no vengeance can be taken! Yet they are not always painted or sculptured!
“Women, when you see your lover become more tender than is his wont, and strain you in his arms with extraordinary emotion; when he sinks his head into your lap, and raises it again with humid and wandering eyes; when enjoyment only augments his desire, and he stifles your voice with kisses, as though he feared to hear it, be certain that he does not know even whether you are there; that he is keeping tryst at this moment with a chimera which you render palpable, and whose part you play. Many chamber-maids have profited by the love inspired by queens. Many women have profited by the love inspired by goddesses and a vulgar enough reality has often served as a socle for an ideal idol. That is the reason why poets usually take trollops for their mistresses. A man might live ten years with a woman without having ever seen her; such is the history of many great geniuses whose ignoble or obscene connections have astonished the world.
“I have been guilty only of infidelities of this description towards Rosette. I have betrayed her only for pictures and statues, and she has shared equally in the betrayal. I have not the smallest material trespass on my conscience to reproach myself with. I am in this respect as white as the snow on the Jungfrau, and yet, without being in love with any one, I would wish to be so with some one. I do not seek an opportunity, and I should not be sorry were it to come; if it came I should perhaps not avail myself of it, for I have an intimate conviction that it would be the same with another, and I had rather it were thus with Rosette than with any other; for, putting the woman on one side, there remains to me at least a pretty companion, full of wit, and very agreeably demoralized; and this consideration is not one of the least that restrain me, for, in losing the mistress, I should be grieved to lose the friend.”