Mademoiselle de Maupin

XII

I promised you the continuation of my adventures; but I am so lazy about writing, that I really must love you as the apple of my eye, and know that you are more inquisitive than eve or Psyche, to be able to sit down before a table with a large sheet of white paper which is to be turned quite black, and an ink-bottle deeper than the sea, whose every drop must turn into thoughts, or something like them, without coming to the sudden resolution of mounting on horseback and going at full speed over the eighty enormous leagues which separate us, to tell you viva-voce what I am going to scrawl to you in imperceptible lines, so that I may not be frightened myself at the prodigious volume of my Picaresque odyssey.

“Eighty leagues! to think that there is all this space between me and the person whom I love best in the world! I have a great mind to tear up my letter and have my horse saddled. But I forgot; in the dress that I am wearing I could not approach you and resume the familiar life which we used to lead together when we were very ingenuous and innocent little girls. If I ever go back to petticoats it will certainly be from this motive.

“I left you, I think, at the departure from the inn where I had passed such a comical night, and where my virtue was nearly making shipwreck as it was leaving the harbor. We all set out together, going in the same direction. My companions were in the greatest raptures over the beauty of my house, which is, in fact, a thoroughbred, and one of the best coursers in existence; this raised me at least half a cubit in their estimation, and they added all my mount's deserts to my own. Nevertheless, they seemed to fear that it was too frisky and spirited for me. I bade them calm their fears, and to show them that there was no danger, made it curvet several times; then I cleared rather a high fence, and set off at a gallop.

“The band tried in vain to follow me; I turned bridle when I was far enough away, and returned at full speed to meet them; when I was close to them I checked my horse as he was launched out on his four feet and stopped him short, which, as you know, or, as you do not know, is a genuine feat of strength.

“From esteem they passed at a bound to the profoundest respect. They had not suspected that a young scholar, who had only just left the university, was so good a horseman as all that. This discovery that they made was of greater service to me than if they had recognized in me every theological and cardinal virtue;-instead of treating me as a youngster they spoke to me with a tone of obsequious familiarity which was very gratifying to me.

“I had not laid aside my pride with my clothes: being no longer a woman, I wished to be in every respect a man, and not to be satisfied with having merely the external appearance of one. I had made up my mind to have as a gentleman the success to which, in the character of a woman, I could no longer pretend. What I was most anxious about was to know how I should proceed in order to possess courage; for courage and skill in bodily exercises are the means by which men find it easiest to establish their reputation. It is not that I am timid for a woman, and I am devoid of the idiotic pusillanimity to be seen in many; but from this to the fierce and heedless brutality which is the glory of men there still remains a wide interval, and my intention was to become a little fire-eater, a hector like men of fashion, so that I might be on a good footing in society and enjoy all the advantages of my metamorphosis.

“But the course of events showed me that nothing was easier, and that the recipe for it was very simple.

“I will not relate to you, after the custom of travellers, that I did so many leagues on such a day, and went from such a place to such another, that the roast at the White Horse or the Iron Cross was raw or burnt, the wine sour, and the bed in which I slept hung with figured or flowered curtains; such details are very important and fitting to be preserved for posterity; but posterity must do without them for once, and you must submit to be ignorant of the number of dishes composing my dinner, and whether I slept well or ill during the course of my travels.

“Nor shall I give you an exact description of the different landscapes, the corn-fields and forests, the various modes of cultivation and the hamlet-laden hills which passed in succession before my eyes: it is easy to imagine them; take a little earth, plant a few trees and some blades of grass on it, daub on a bit of greyish or pale blue sky behind, and you will have a very sufficient idea of the moving background against which our little caravan was to be seen. If, in my first letter, I entered into some details of the kind, pray excuse me, I will not relapse into the same fault again: as I had never gone out before, the least thing seemed, to me of enormous importance.

“One of the gentlemen, the sharer of my bed, he whom I had nearly pulled by the sleeve in that memorable night the agonies of which I have described to you at length, conceived a great passion for me, and kept his horse by the side of mine the whole time.

“Except that I would not have accepted him for a lover though he brought me the fairest crown in the world, he was not at all displeasing; he was well-informed, and was not without wit and good humor: only, when he spoke of women, he did so with an air of contempt and irony, for which I would most willingly have torn both his eyes out of his head, and this the more because, for all its exaggeration, there was a great deal in what he said that was cruelly true, and the justice of which my man's attire compelled me to admit.

“He invited me so pressingly and so often to go with him on a visit to one of his sisters, whose widowhood was nearly over, and who was then living at an old mansion with one of his aunts, that I could not refuse him. I made a few objections for form's sake, for in reality I was as ready to go there as anywhere else, and I could attain my end as well in this fashion as in another; and, as he assured me that he would feel quite offended if I did not give him at least a fortnight, I replied that I was willing, and that the matter was settled.

“At the branching of the road, my companion, pointing to the right stroke of this natural Y, said to me: 'It is down there!' The rest gave us a grasp of the hand and departed in the other direction.

“After a few hours' travelling we reached our destination.

“A moat, which was rather broad, but which was filled with abundant and bushy vegetation instead of with water, separated the park from the high-road; it was lined with freestone, and the angles bristled with gigantic iron spikes, which looked as if they had grown like natural plants between the disjointed blocks of the wall. A little one-arched bridge crossed this dry channel and gave access to the gateway.

“An avenue of lofty elms, arched like an arbor and cut in the old style, appeared before you first of all; and, after following it for some time, you arrived at a kind of crossroads.

“The trees looked superannuated rather than old; they appeared to be wearing wigs and white powder; only a little tuft of foliage had been spared to them quite at the top; all the remainder was carefully pruned, so that they might have been taken for huge plumes planted at intervals in the ground.

“After leaving the cross-way, which was covered with fine, carefully-rolled grass, you had then to pass beneath a curious piece of foliage architecture ornamented with fire-pots, pyramids and rustic columns, all wrought with the assistance of shears and hedgebills in an enormous clump of box. In different perspectives to right and left might be seen now a half-ruined rock-work castle, now the moss-eaten staircase of a dried-up waterfall, or perhaps a vase, or a statue of a nymph and shepherd with nose and fingers broken and some pigeons perched on their shoulders and head.

“A large flower-garden, laid out in the French style, stretched before the mansion; all the divisions were traced with box and holly in the most rigorously symmetrical manner; it had quite as much the appearance of a carpet as of a garden: large flowers in ball-dress, with majestic bearing and serene air, like duchesses preparing to dance a minuet, bent their heads slightly to you as you passed; others, apparently less polished, remained stiff and motionless, like dowagers working tapestry. Shrubs of every possible shape, always excepting the natural one, round, square, pointed and triangular, in green and grey boxes, seemed to walk in procession along the great avenue, and lead you by the hand to the foot of the steps.

“A few turrets, half entangled in more recent constructions, rose above the line of the building by the whole height of their slate extinguishers, and their dove-tailed vanes of sheet-iron bore witness to a sufficiently honorable antiquity. The windows of the pavilion in the centre all opened upon a common balcony ornamented with a very rich and highly-wrought iron balustrade, and the rest were surrounded with stone facings sculptured in figures and knots.

“Four or five large dogs ran up with open-mouthed barkings and prodigious gambols. They frisked about the horses, jumping up to their noses, and gave a special welcome to my comrade's horse, which probably they often visited in the stable or followed out-of-doors.

“A kind of servant, looking half laborer and half groom, at last appeared at all this noise, and taking our beasts by the bridle led them away. I had not as yet seen a living soul, with the exception of a little peasant girl, as timid and wild as a deer, who had fled at the sight of us and crouched down in a furrow behind some hemp, although we had called to her over and over again, and done all we could to reassure her.

“No one was to be seen at the windows; you would have thought that the mansion was not inhabited at all, or only by spirits, for not the slightest sound could be heard from without.

“We were beginning to ascend the steps, jingling our spurs, for our legs were rather numb, when we heard a noise inside like the opening and shutting of doors, as if some one were hastening to meet us.

“In fact, a young woman appeared at the top of the steps, cleared the space separating her from my companion at a single bound, and threw herself on his neck. He embraced her most affectionately, and putting his arm round her waist, and almost lifting her up, carried her in this way to the top.

“'Do you know that you are very amiable and polite for a brother, my dear Alcibiades? It is not at all unnecessary, sir, is it, to apprise you that he is my brother, for he certainly has scarcely the ways of one?' said the young and fair one turning towards me.

“To which I replied that a mistake might possibly be made about it, and that it was in some measure a misfortune to be her brother and be thus excluded from the list of her adorers; and that were this my case, I should become at once the happiest and most miserable cavalier on the earth. This made her smile gently.

“Talking thus we entered a parlor, the walls of which were decorated with high-warped Flanders tapestry. There were large trees, with sharp-pointed leaves, supporting swarms of fantastic birds; the colors, altered by time, showed strange transpositions of tints; the sky was green, the trees royal blue with yellow lights, and in the drapery of the figures the shadow was often of an opposite color to the ground formed by the material; the flesh resembled wood, and the nymphs walking beneath the faded shades of the forest looked like unswathed mummies; their mouths alone, the purple of which had preserved its primitive tint, smiled with an appearance of life. In the foreground bristled tall plants of singular green, with broad-striped flowers, the pistils of which resembled peacocks' crests. Herons with serious and thoughtful air, their heads sunk between their shoulders, and their long beaks resting on their plump crops, stood philosophically on one of their thin legs in black and stagnant water streaked with tarnished silver threads; through the foliage there were distant glimpses of little mansions with turrets like pepper-boxes and balconies filled with beautiful ladies in grand attire watching processions or hunts pass by.

“Capriciously indented rockeries, with torrents of white wool falling from them, mingled with dappled clouds on the edge of the horizon.

“One of the things that struck me most was a huntress shooting a bird. Her open fingers had just released the string and the arrow was gone; but, as this part of the tapestry happened to be at a corner, the arrow was on the other side of the wall and had described a sharp curve, while the bird was flying away on motionless wings, and apparently desirous of gaining a neighboring branch.

“This arrow, feathered and gold-tipped, always in the air and never reaching the mark, had a most singular effect; it was like a sad and mournful symbol of human destiny, and the more I looked at it, the more I discovered in it mysterious and sinister meanings. There stood the huntress with her foot advanced, her knee bent, and her eye, with its silken lashes, wide open, and no longer able to see the arrow which had deviated from its path. She seemed to be looking anxiously for the mottled-plumed phenicopter which she was desirous of bringing down and expecting to see fall before her pierced through and through. I do not know whether it was a mistake of my imagination, but I thought that the face had as dull and despairing an expression as that of a poet dying without having written the work which he expected to establish his reputation, and seized by the pitiless death-rattle while endeavoring to dictate it.

“I am talking to you at length about this tapestry, certainly at a greater length than the importance of the subject demands; but that fantastic world created by the workers in high warp is a thing which has always strangely preoccupied me.

“I am passionately fond of its imaginary vegetation, the flowers and plants which have no existence in reality, the forests of unknown trees wherein wander unicorns and snowy caprimules and stags with golden crucifixes between their antlers, and commonly pursued by red-bearded hunters in Saracen costume.

“When I was a child, I scarcely ever entered a tapestried chamber without experiencing a kind of shiver, and when there I hardly dared to stir.

“All the figures standing upright against the wall, and deriving a sort of fantastic life from the undulation of the material and the play of light, seemed to me so many spies engaged in watching my actions in order to give an account of them at a proper time and place, and I would not have eaten a stolen apple or cake in their presence.

“How many things would these grave personages have to tell could they open their lips of red thread, and could sounds penetrate into the concha of their embroidered ears! Of how many murders, treasons, infamous adulteries and monstrosities of all kinds are they not silent and impassible witnesses!

“But let us leave the tapestry and return to our story.

“'Alcibiades, I will have my aunt informed of your arrival'

“'Oh! there is no great hurry about that, my dear sister; let us sit down first of all and talk a little. I have to introduce to you a gentleman, Theodore de Serannes, who will spend some time here. I have no need to recommend you to give him a hearty welcome; he is himself a sufficient recommendation,' (I am telling you what he said; do not accuse me unreasonably of conceit.)

“The fair one slightly bent her head as though to give assent, and we spoke of something else.

“While conversing; I looked at her minutely, and examined her with more attention than I had found possible until then.

“She was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, and her mourning was most becoming to her; truth to tell, she had not a very lugubrious or disconsolate appearance, and I suspect that she would have eaten the ashes of her Mausolus in her soup like rhubarb. I do not know whether she had wept plenteously for her deceased spouse; if so, there was, at all events, little appearance of it, and the pretty cambric handkerchief which she held in her hand was as perfectly dry as it was possible to be.

“Her eyes were not red, but, on the contrary, were the brightest and most brilliant in the world, and you would have sought in vain on her cheeks for the furrow where her tears had flowed; there were in fact only two little dimples hollowed by an habitual smile, and it is right to say that, for a widow, her teeth were very frequently to be seen-certainly not a disagreeable sight, for they were small and very regular. I esteemed her at the very first for not having believed that, because a husband had died, she was obliged to discolor her eyes and give herself a violet nose. I was also grateful to her for not assuming a doleful little air, and for speaking naturally, with her sonorous and silvery voice, without drawling her words and breaking her phrases with virtuous sighs.

“This appeared to me in very good taste; I judged her from the first to be a woman of sense, as indeed she is.

“She was well made, with a very becoming hand and foot; her black costume was arranged with all possible coquettishness, and so gaily that the lugubriousness of the color completely disappeared, and she might have gone to a ball dressed as she was without any one considering it strange. If ever I marry and become a widow, I shall ask for a pattern of her dress, for it becomes her angelically.

“After some conversation we went up to see the old aunt.

“We found her seated in a large, easy-backed arm-chair, with a little stool under her foot, and beside her an old dog, bleared and sullen, which raised its black muzzle at our arrival, and greeted us with a very unfriendly growl.

“I have never looked at an old woman without horror. My mother died when quite young; no doubt, if I had seen her slowly growing old, and seen her features becoming distorted in an imperceptible progression, I should have quietly come to be used to it. In my childhood I was surrounded only by young and smiling faces, so that I have preserved an insurmountable antipathy towards old people. Hence I shuddered when the beautiful “widow” touched the dowager's yellow forehead with her pure, vermilion lips. It is what I could not undertake to do. I know that I shall be like her when I am sixty years old; but it is all the same, I cannot help it, and I pray God that He may make me die young like my mother.

“Nevertheless, this old woman had retained some simple and majestic traces of her former beauty which prevented her from falling into that roast-apple ugliness which is the portion of women. who have been only pretty or simply fresh; her eyes, though terminating at their corners in claws of wrinkles, and covered with large, soft eyelids, still possessed a few sparks of their early fire, and you could see that in the last reign they must have darted dazzling lightnings of passion. Her thin and delicate nose, somewhat curved like the beak of a bird of prey, gave to her profile a sort of serious grandeur, which was tempered by the indulgent smile of her Austrian lip, painted with carmine, after the fashion of the last century.

“Her costume was old-fashioned without being ridiculous, and was in perfect harmony with her face; for headdress she had a simple mob-cap, white, with small lace; her long, thin hands, which you could see had been very beautiful, trembled in mittens without either fingers or thumb; a dress of dead-leaf color, figured with flowerings of deeper hue, a black mantle and an apron of pigeon's neck paduasoy, completed her attire.

“Old women should always dress in this way, and have sufficient respect for their approaching death not to harness themselves with feathers, garlands of flowers, bright-colored ribbons, and a thousand baubles which are becoming only to extreme youth. It is vain for them to make advances to life, life will have no more of them; with the expenses to which they put themselves, they are like superannuated courtesans who plaster themselves with red and white, and are spurned on the pavement by drunken muleteers with kicks and insults.

“The old lady received us with that exquisite ease and politeness which is the gift of those who belonged to the old court, and the secret of which seemingly is being lost from day to day, like so many other excellent secrets, and with a voice which, broken and tremulous as it was, still possessed great sweetness.

“I appeared to please her greatly, and she looked at me for a very long time with much attention and with apparently deep emotion. A tear formed in the corner of her eye and crept slowly down one of her great wrinkles, wherein it was lost and dried. She begged me to excuse her and told me that I was very like a son of hers who had been killed in the army.

“Owing to this real or imaginary likeness, the whole time that I stayed at the mansion I was treated by the worthy dame with extraordinary and quite maternal kindness. I discovered more charms in her than I should have at first believed possible, for the greatest pleasure that elderly people can give me is never to speak to me, and to go away when I- arrive.

“I shall not give you a detailed account of my daily doings at B- If I have been somewhat diffuse through all this commencement, and have sketched you these two or three physiognomies of persons or places with some care, it is because some very singular though very natural things befell me there, things which I ought to have foreseen when assuming the dress of a man.

“My natural levity caused me to be guilty of an indiscretion of which I cruelly repent, for it has filled a good and beautiful soul with a perturbation which I cannot allay without discovering what I am and compromising myself seriously.

“In order to appear perfectly like a man, and to divert myself a little, I thought that I could not do better than woo my friend's sister. It appeared very funny to me to throw myself on all fours when she dropped her glove and restore it to her with profound obeisances, to bend over the back of her easy-chair with an adorably languorous little air, and to drop a thousand and one of the most charming madrigals into the hollow of her ear. As soon as she wished to pass from one room to another I would gracefully offer her my hand; if she mounted on horseback I held the stirrup, and when walking I was always by her side; in the evening I read to her and sang with her; in brief, I performed all the duties of a 'cavaliere servente' with 'scrupulous exactness.'

“I pretended everything that I had seen lovers do, which amused me and made me laugh like the true madcap that I am, when I was alone in my room, and reflected on all {he impertinent things I had just uttered in the most serious tone in the world. “Alcibiades and the old marchioness appeared to view this intimacy with pleasure and very often left us together. I sometimes regretted that I was not really a man, that I might have profited better by it; had I been one, the matter would have been in my own hands, for our charming widow seemed to have totally forgotten the deceased, or, if she did remember him, she would willingly have been faithless to his memory.

“After beginning in this fashion I could not honorably draw back again, and it was very difficult to effect a retreat with arms and baggage; yet I could not go beyond a certain limit, nor had I much knowledge of how to be amiable except in words; I hoped to be able to reach in this way the end of the month which I was to spend at B- and then to retire, promising to return, but without the intention of doing so. I thought that at my departure the fair one would console herself, and seeing me no more would soon forget me.

“But in my sport I had aroused a serious passion, and things turned out differently-an illustration of a long well-known truth, namely, that you should never play either with fire or with love.

“Before seeing me, Rosette knew nothing of love. Married very young to a man much older than herself, she had been unable to feel for him anything more than a sort of filial friendship; no doubt she had been courted, but, extraordinary as it may appear, she had not had a lover: either the gallants who had paid her attention were sorry seducers or, what is more likely, her hour had not yet struck. Country squires and lordlings, always talking of fumets and leashes, hog-steers and antlers, morts and stags of ten, and mingling the whole with almanac charades and madrigals mouldy with age, were certainly little adapted to suit her, and her virtue had not to struggle much to resist them.

“Besides, the natural gaiety and liveliness of her disposition were a sufficient defence to her against love, that soft passion which has such a hold upon the pensive and melancholy; the idea which her old Tithonus had been able to give her of voluptuousness must have been a very indifferent one not to cause her to be greatly tempted to make still further trials, and she was placidly enjoying the pleasure of being a widow so soon and having still so many years in which to be beautiful.

“But on my arrival everything was quite changed. I at first believed that if I had kept within the narrow limits of cold and scrupulous politeness towards her, she would not have taken much notice of me; but, in truth, the sequel obliged me to admit that it would have been just the same, neither more nor less, and that though my supposition was a very modest, it was a purely gratuitous one. Alas! nothing can turn aside the fatal ascendant, and no one can escape the good or evil influence of his star.

“Rosette's destiny was to love only once in her lifetime, and with an impossible love; she must fulfil it, and she will fulfil it.

“I have been loved, O Graciosa! and it is a sweet thing, though it was only by a woman, and though there was an element of pain in such an irregular love which cannot belong to the other;-oh! a very sweet thing! When you awake in the night and rise upon your elbow and say to yourself: 'Some one is thinking or dreaming of me; some one is occupied with my life; a movement of my eyes or lips makes the joy or the sadness of another creature; a word that I have chanced to let fall is carefully gathered up and commented on and turned over for whole hours; I am the pole to which a restless magnet points, my eye is a heaven, my mouth a paradise more desired than the true one; were I to die, a warm rain of tears would revive my ashes, and my tomb would be more flowery than a marriage gift; were I in danger some one would rush between the sword's point and my breast; everything would be sacrificed for me!'-it is glorious; I do not know what more one can wish for in the world.

“This thought gave me pleasure for which I reproached myself, since I had nothing to give in return for it all, but was in the position of a poor person accepting presents from a rich and generous friend without the hope of ever being able to do the like for him in turn. It charmed me to be adored in this way, and at times I abandoned myself to it with singular complacency. From hearing every one call me 'Sir,' and seeing myself treated as though I were a man, I was insensibly forgetting that I was a woman; my disguise seemed to me my natural dress, and I was forgetting that I had ever worn another; I had ceased to remember that I was after all only a giddy girl who had made a sword of her needle, and cut one of her skirts into a pair of breeches.

“Many men are more womanish than I. I have little of the woman, except her breast, a few rounder lines, and more delicate hands; the skirt is on my hips, and not in my disposition. It often happens that the sex of the soul does not at all correspond with that of the body, and this is a contradiction which cannot fail to produce great disorder. For my own part, for instance, if I had not taken this resolution-mad in appearance, but in reality very wise-and renounced the garments of a sex which is mine only materially and accidentally, I should have been very unhappy: I like horses, fencing, and all violent exercises; I take pleasure in climbing and running about like a youth; it wearies me to remain sitting with my feet close together and my elbows glued to my sides, to cast my eyes modestly down, to speak in a little, soft, honeyed voice, and to pass a bit of wool ten million times through the holes in a canvas; I have not the least liking for obedience, and the expression that I most frequently employ is: 'I will.' Beneath my smooth forehead and silken hair move strong and manly thoughts; all the affected nonsense which chiefly beguiles women has never stirred me to any great degree, and, like Achilles disguised as a young girl, I should be ready to relinquish the mirror for a sword. The only thing that pleases me in women is their beauty; in spite of the inconveniences resulting from it, I would not willingly renounce my form, however ill-assorted it may be with the mind which it contains.

“There was an element of novelty and piquancy in such an intrigue, and I should have been greatly amused by it had it not been taken seriously by poor Rosette. She began to love me most ingenuously and conscientiously, with all the power of her good and beautiful soul-with the love that men do not understand and of which they could not form even a remote conception, tenderly and ardently, as I would wish to be loved, and as I should love, could I meet with the reality of my dream. What a splendid treasure lost, what white transparent pearls, such as divers will never find in the casket of the sea! what sweet breaths, what soft sighs dispersed in air, which might have been gathered by pure and amorous lips!

“Such a passion might have rendered a young man so happy! so many luckless ones, handsome, charming, gifted, full of intellect and heart, have vainly supplicated on their knees insensible and gloomy idols! so many good and tender souls have in despair flung themselves into the arms of courtesans, or have silently died away like lamps in tombs, who might have been rescued from debauchery and death by a sincere love!

“What whimsicality is there in human destiny I and what a jester is chancel

“What so many others had eagerly longed for came to me, to me who did not and could not desire it. A capricious young girl takes a fancy to ramble about the country in man's dress in order to obtain some knowledge as to what she may depend upon in the matter of her future lovers; she goes to bed at an inn with a worthy brother who conducts her with the tip of his finger to his sister, who finds nothing better to do than fall in love with her like a puss, like a dove, like all that is most amorous and languorous in the world. It is very evident that, if I had been a young man and this state of things might have been of some service to me, it would have been quite different, and the lady would have abhorred me. Fortune loves thus to give slippers to those who have wooden legs, and gloves to those who have no hands; the inheritance which might have enabled you to live at your ease usually comes to you on the day of your death.

“Sometimes, though not so often as she would have wished, I visited Rosette at her bedside; usually she received only when she was up, but this rule was overlooked in my favor. Many other things might have been overlooked, had I wished; but, as they say, the most beautiful girl can only give what she has, and what I had would not have been of much use to Rosette.

“She would stretch out her little hand for me to kiss- and I confess that I did not kiss it without pleasure, for it is very smooth, very white, exquisitely scented, and softly tender with incipient moisture; I could feel it quiver and contract beneath my lips, the pressure of which I would maliciously prolong. Then Rosette, quite moved and with a look of entreaty, would turn towards me her long eyes laden with voluptuousness and bathed in humid and transparent light, and let her pretty head, raised a little for my better reception, fall back again upon her pillow. Beneath the clothes I could see the undulations of her restless bosom and the sudden movements of her whole frame. Certainly any one in a condition to venture might have ventured much; he would surely have met with gratitude for his temerity, and thankfulness for having skipped some chapters of the romance.

“I used to remain an hour or two with her, without relinquishing the hand I had replaced on the coverlet; we had charming and interminable talks, for although Rosette was very much preoccupied with her love, she believed herself too sure of success to lose much of her freedom and playfulness of disposition. Only now and then would her passion cast a transparent veil of sweet melancholy upon her gaiety, and this rendered her still more pleasing.

“In fact, it would have been an unheard of thing that a young beginner, such as I was to all appearance, should not have deemed himself very well off with such good fortune and have profited by it to the best of his ability. Rosette, indeed, was by no means one likely to encounter great cruelties, and not knowing more about me, she counted on her charms and on my youth in default of my love.

“Nevertheless, as the situation was beginning to be prolonged beyond its natural limits, she became uneasy about it, and scarcely could a redoubling of flattering phrases and fine protestations restore her to her former state of unconcern. Two things astonished her in me, and she noticed contradictions in my conduct which she was unable to reconcile: they were my warmth of speech and my coldness of action.

“You know better than anyone, my dear Graciosa, that my friendship has all the characteristics of a passion; it is sudden, eager, keen, exclusive, with love even to jealousy, and my friendship for Rosette was almost exactly similar to the friendship I have for you. A mistake might have been caused by less. Rosette was the more completely mistaken about it, because the dress I wore scarcely allowed of her having a different idea.

“As I have never yet loved a man, the excess of my tenderness has, in a measure, found a vent in my friendships with young girls and young women; I have displayed the same transport and exultation in them as I do in everything else, for I find it impossible to be moderate in anything, and especially in what concerns the heart. In my eyes there are only two classes of people-those whom I worship and those whom I execrate; the others are to me as though they did not exist, and I would urge my horse over them as I would over the highway: they are identical in my mind with pavements and milestones.

“I am naturally expansive, and have very caressing manners. When walking with Rosette, I would sometimes, forgetful of the import of such demonstrations, pass my arm about her person as I used to do when we walked together in the lonely alley at the end of my uncle's garden; or, perhaps, leaning on the back of her easy-chair while she was working embroidery, I would roll the fair down on the plump round nape of her neck between my fingers, or with the back of my hand smooth her beautiful hair stretched by the comb and give it additional lustre, — or, perhaps, it would be some other of those endearments which, as you know, I habitually employ with my dear friends.

“She took very good care not to attribute these caresses to mere friendship. Friendship, as it is usually understood, does not go to such heights; but seeing that I went no further, she was inwardly astonished and scarcely knew what to think; she decided thus: that it was excessive timidity on my part, caused by my extreme youth and a lack of experience in love affairs, and that I must be encouraged by all kinds of advances and kindnesses.

“In consequence, she took pains to contrive for me a multitude of opportunities for private conversations in places calculated to embolden me by their solitude and remoteness from all noise and intrusion; she took me for several walks in the great woods, to try whether the voluptuous dreaming and amorous desires with which tender souls are inspired by the thick and kindly shade of the forests might not be turned to her advantage.

“One day, after having made me wander for a long time through a very picturesque park which extended for a great distance behind the mansion, and which was unknown to me with the exception of those parts which were in the neighborhood of the buildings, she led me, by a little capriciously winding path bordered with elders and hazel trees, to a rustic cot, a kind of charcoal-burner's hut built of billets placed transversely, with a roof of reeds, and a door coarsely made of five or six pieces of roughly-planed wood, the interstices of which were stopped up with mosses and wild plants; quite close, amid the green roots of tall ashes with silvery bark, dotted here and there with dark patches, gushed a vigorous spring, which, a few feet further on, fell over two marble steps into a basin filled with cress of more than emerald green.

“At places where there was no cress might be seen fine sand as white as snow; the water had the transparency of crystal and the coldness of ice; issuing suddenly from the ground, and never touched by the faintest sun-ray, beneath those impenetrable shades, it had no time to become warm or troubled. In spite of its crudity I love such spring water, and, seeing it there so limpid, I could not resist a desire to drink of it; I stooped down and took some several times in the hollow of my hand, having no other vessel at my disposal

“Rosette intimated a wish to drink also of this water to quench her thirst, and requested me to bring her a few drops, for she dared not, she said, stoop down far enough to reach it herself. I plunged both my hands, which I had joined together as accurately as possible, into the clear fountain, then raised them like a cup to Rosette's lips, and kept them thus until she had drained the water contained in them-not a long time, for there was very little, and that little trickled through my fingers, however tightly I closed them; it made a very pretty group, and it is almost a pity that there was no sculptor present to take a sketch of it.

“When she had almost finished, and my hand was close to her lips, she could not refrain from kissing it, in such a way, however, as to make it look like an act of suction for the purpose of draining the last pearl of water gathered in my palm; but I was not deceived by it, and the charming blush which suddenly overspread her countenance betrayed her plainly enough.

“She took my arm again, and we proceeded towards the cot. The fair one walked as close to me as possible, and when speaking to me leaned over in such a way that her bosom rested entirely on my sleeve-a very cunning position, and one capable of disturbing any one else but me; I could feel its pure, firm outline and soft warmth perfectly well-nay, I could even remark a hurried undulating motion which, whether affected or real, was none the less flattering and engaging.

“In this way we reached the door of the cot, which I opened with a kick, and I was certainly not prepared for the sight that met my eyes. I had thought that the hut was carpeted with rushes with a mat on the floor and a few stools to rest on: not at all.

“It was a boudoir furnished with all imaginable elegance. The frieze panels represented the gallantest scenes in Ovid's Metamorphoses: Salmacias and Hermaphrodite, Venus and Adonis, Apollo and Daphne, and other mythological loves in bright lilac camaieu; the piers were formed of pompon roses very delicately sculptured, and little daisies, which, with a refinement of luxury, had only their hearts gilded, their leaves being silvered. All the furniture was edged with silver cord which relieved a tapestry of the softest blue that could possibly be found, and one marvellously adapted to set off the whiteness and lustre of the skin; mantlepiece, consoles, and what-nots were laden with a thousand charming curiosities, and there was such a luxurious number of settees, couches and sofas, as pretty clearly showed that this nook was not designed for very austre occupations, and that certainly no maceration went on in it.

“A handsome rock-work clock, standing on a richly-inlaid pedestal, faced a large Venetian mirror, and was repeated in it with singular gleamings and reflections. It had stopped, moreover, as though it would have been something superfluous to mark the hours in a place intended to forget them.

“I told Rosette that this refinement of luxury pleased me, that I thought it in very good taste to conceal the greatest choiceness beneath an appearance of simplicity, and that I greatly approved of a woman having embroidered petticoats and lace-trimmed chemises with an outer covering of simple material; that to the lover whom she had or might have it was a delicate attention for which he could not be sufficiently grateful, and that it was unquestionably better to put a diamond into a nut than a nut into a golden box.

To prove to me that she was of my opinion, Rosette raised her dress a little and showed me the edge of a petticoat very richly embroidered with large flowers and leaves; it only rested with myself to be let into the secret of greater internal magnificence; but I did not ask to see whether the splendor of the chemise corresponded with that of the petticoat: it is probable that it was equally luxurious. Rosette let the fold of her dress fall again, vexed at not having shown more.

“Nevertheless, the exhibition had been sufficient to display the beginning of a perfectly turned calf, suggesting the most excellent ascensional ideas. The leg which she held out in order to show off her petticoat to better advantage was indeed miraculously delicate and graceful in its neat well-drawn stocking of pearl-grey silk, and the little heeled shoe, adorned with a tuft of ribbons in which it terminated, was like the glass slipper worn by Cinderella. I paid her very sincere compliments about it, and told her that I had never known a prettier leg or a smaller foot, and that I did not think that they could possibly be of a better shape. To which she replied with charming and lively frankness and ingenuousness:

“'Tis true.'

“Then she went to a panel contrived in the wall, took out one or two flagons of liquors and some plates of sweetmeats and cakes, placed the whole on a little round table, and came and sat down beside me in a somewhat narrow easy-chair, so that, in order not to be very uncomfortable, I was obliged to pass my arm behind her waist. As she had both hands free, and I had just my left to make use of, she filled my glass herself, and put fruits and sweets upon my plate; and soon even, seeing that I was rattier awkward, she said to me: 'Come, leave it alone; I am going to feed you, child, since you are not able to eat all by yourself.' Then she herself conveyed the morsels to my mouth, and forced me to swallow them more quickly than I wished, pushing them in with her pretty fingers, just as people do with birds that are being crammed, and laughing very much over it.

“I could scarcely dispense with paying her fingers back the kiss which she had lately given to the palms of my hands, and, as though to prevent me from doing so, but really to enable me to impart a greater pressure to my kiss, she struck my mouth two or three times with the back of her hand.

“She had drunk a few drops of Crime des Barbades, with a glass of Canary, and I about as much; but it was certainly not a great deal; but it was sufficient to enliven a couple of women accustomed to drink scarcely anything stronger than water. Rosette leaned backwards, throwing herself across my arm in very amorous fashion. She had cast aside her mantle, and the upper part of her bosom, strained and stretched by this arched position, could be seen; it was enchantingly delicate and transparent in tone, while its shape was one of marvelous daintiness and solidity combined. I contemplated her for some time with indefinable emotion and pleasure, and the reflection occurred to me that men were more favored in their loves than we, seeing that we gave them possession of the most charming treasures while they had nothing similar to offer us.

“What a pleasure it must be to let their lips wander over this smooth fine skin, and these rounded curves which seem to go out to meet the kiss and challenge it! this satin flesh, these undulating and mutually involving lines, this silky hair so soft to the touch; what exhaustless sources of delicate voluptuousness which we do not possess in common with men! Our caresses can scarcely be other than passive, and yet it is a greater pleasure to give than to receive.

“These are remarks which undoubtedly I should not have made last year, and I might have seen all the bosoms and shoulders in the world without caring whether their shape was good or bad; but, since I have laid aside the dress belonging to my sex and have lived with young men, a feeling which was unknown to me has developed within me: the feeling of beauty. Women are usually denied it, I know not why, for at first sight they would seem better able to judge of it than men; but as they are the possessors of beauty, and self-knowledge is more difficult than that of any other description, it is not surprising that they know nothing at all about it.

“Commonly, if one woman thinks another woman pretty, you may be sure that the latter is very ugly, and that no man will take any notice of her. On the other hand, all women whose beauty and grace are extolled by men are unanimously considered abominable and affected by the whole petticoated tribe; there are cries and clamors without end. If I were what I appear to be, I should be guided in my choice by nothing else, and the disapprobation of women would be a sufficient certificate of beauty for me.

“At present I love and know beauty; the dress I wear separates me from my sex, and takes away from me all species of rivalry; I am able to judge it better than another. I am no longer a woman, but I am not yet a man, and desire will not bind me so far as to make me take puppets for idols; I can see coldly without any prejudice for or against, and my position is as perfectly disinterested as it could possibly be.

“The length and delicacy of the eyelashes, the transparency of the temples, the limpidity of the crystalline, the curvings of the ear, the tone and quality of the hair, the aristocracy of foot and hand, the more or less slender joints of leg and wrist, a thousand things of which I used to take no heed, but which constitute real beauty and prove purity of race, guide me in my estimates, and scarcely admit of a mistake. I believe that if I had said of a woman: 'Indeed, she is not bad,' you might accept her with your eyes shut.

“By a very natural consequence I understand pictures better than I did before, and though I have but a very superficial tincture of the masters, it would be difficult to make me pass a bad work as a good one; I find a deep and singular charm in this study; for, like everything else in the world, beauty, moral or physical, requires to be studied, and cannot be penetrated all at once.

“But let us return to Rosette; the transition from this subject to her is not a difficult one, for they are two ideas which are bound up in each other.

“As I have said, the fair one had thrown herself back across my arm and her head was resting against my shoulder; emotion shaded her beautiful cheeks with a tender rose-color which was admirably set off by the deep black of a very coquettishly placed little patch; her teeth gleamed through her smile like raindrops in the depths of a poppy, and the humid splendor of her large eyes was still further heightened by her half-drooping lashes; a ray of light caused a thousand metallic lustres to play on her silky clouded hair, some locks of which had escaped and were rolling in ringlets along her plump round neck, and relieving its warm whiteness; a few little downy hairs, more mutinous than the rest, had got loose from the mass, and were twisting themselves in capricious spirals, gilded with singular reflections, and, traversed by the light, assuming all the shades of the prism: you would have thought that they were such golden threads as surround the heads of the virgins in the old pictures. We both kept silence, and I amused myself with tracing her little azure-blue veins through the nacreous transparency of her temples, and the soft insensible depression of the down at the extremities of her eyebrows.”

“The fair one seemed to be inwardly meditating and to be lulling herself in dreams of infinite voluptuousness; her arms hung down along her body as undulating and as soft as loosened scarfs; her head bent back more and more as though the muscles supporting it had been cut or were too feeble for their task. She had gathered up her two little feet beneath her petticoat, and had succeeded in crouching down altogether in the corner of the lounge that I was occupying, in such a way that, although it was a very narrow piece of furniture, there was a large empty space on the other side.

“Her easy, supple body modelled itself on mine like wax, following its external outline with the greatest possible accuracy: water would not have crept into all the sinuosity of line with more exactness. Clinging thus to my side, she suggested the double stroke which painters give their drawings on the side of the shadow, in order to render them more free and full. Only with a woman in love can there be such undulations and entwinings. Ivy and willow are a long way behind.

“The soft warmth of her body penetrated through her garments and mine; a thousand magnetic currents streamed around her; her whole life seemed to have left her altogether and to have entered into me. Every minute she was more languishing, expiring, yielding; a light sweat stood in beads upon her lustrous brow; her eyes grew moist, and two or three times she made as though she would raise her hands to hide them; but half-way her wearied arms fell back upon her knees, and she could not succeed in doing so;-a big tear overflowed from her eyelid and rolled along her burning cheek where it was soon dried.

“My situation was becoming very embarrassing and tolerably ridiculous; I felt that I must look enormously stupid, and this provoked me extremely, although no alternative was in my power. Enterprising conduct was forbidden me, and such was the only kind that would have been suitable. I was too sure of meeting with no resistance to risk it, and I was, in fact, at my wits' end. To play compliments and repeat madrigals would have been excellent at the beginning, but nothing would have appeared more insipid at the stage that we had reached; to get up and go but would have been unmannerly in the extreme; and besides I am not sure that Rosette would not have played the part of Potiphar's wife, and held me by the corner of my cloak.

“I could not have assigned any virtuous motive for my resistance; and then, I confess it to my shame, the scene, equivocal as its nature was for me, was not without a charm which detained me more than it should have done; this ardent desire kindled me with its flame, and I was really sorry to be unable to satisfy it; I even wished to be, as I actually appeared to be, a man, that I might crown this love, and I greatly regretted that Rosette was deceived. My breathing became hurried, I felt blushes rising to my face, and I was little less troubled than my poor lover. The idea of our similitude in sex gradually faded away, leaving behind only a vague idea of pleasure; my gaze grew dim. my lips trembled, and, had Rosette been a man instead of what she was, she would assuredly have made a very easy conquest of me.

“At last, unable to bear it any longer, she got up abruptly with a sort of spasmodic movement, and began to walk about the room with great activity; then she stopped before the mirror and adjusted some locks of her hair which had lost their folds. During this promenade I cut a poor figure, and scarcely knew how to look.

“She stopped before me and appeared to reflect.

“She thought that it was only a desperate timidity that restrained me, and that I was more of a schoolboy than she had thought at first. Beside herself and excited to the last degree of amorous exasperation, she would try one supreme effort and stake all on the result at the risk of losing the game.

“She came up to me, sad down on my knees more quickly than lightning, passed her arms around my neck, crossed her hands behind my head, and clung with her lips to mine in a furious embrace; I felt her half-naked and rebellious bosom bounding against my breast, and her twined fingers twitching in my hair. A shiver ran through my whole body and my heart beat violently.

“Rosette did not release my mouth; her lips enveloped mine, her teeth struck against my teeth, our breaths were mingled. I drew back for an instant, and turned my head aside two or three times to avoid this kiss; but a resistless attraction made me again advance, and I returned it with nearly as much ardor as she had given it. I scarcely know how it would have all ended had not a loud barking been heard outside the door, together with the sound of scratching feet. The door yielded, and a handsome white greyhound came yelping and gambolling into the cot.

“Rosette rose up suddenly, and with a bound sprang to the end of the room. The handsome white greyhound leaped gleefully and joyously about her, and tried to reach her hands in order to lick them; she was so much agitated that she found great difficulty in arranging her mantle upon her shoulders.

“This greyhound was her brother Alcibiades's favorite dog; it never left him, and whenever it appeared, its master to a certainty was not far off; this is what had so greatly frightened poor Rosette.

“In fact Alcibiades himself entered a minute later, booted and spurred, and whip in hand. 'Ah! there you are,' he said; 'I have been looking for you for an hour past, and I should certainly not have found you had not my good greyhound Snug unearthed you in your hiding-place.' And he cast a half-serious, half-playful look upon his sister which made her blush up to the eyes. 'Apparently you must have had very knotty subjects to treat of, to retire into such profound solitude? You were no doubt talking about theology and the twofold nature of the soul?

“'Oh! dear no; our occupation was not nearly so sublime; we were eating cakes and talking about the fashions, that is all.'”

“'I don't believe a word of it; you appeared to me to be deep in some sentimental dissertation; but to divert you from your vaporish conversation, I think that it would be a good thing if you came and took a ride with me. I have a new mare that I want to try. You shall ride her as well, Theodore, and we will see what can be made of her.'

“We went out all three together, he giving me his arm, and I giving mine to Rosette. The expressions on our faces were singularly different. Alcibiades looked thoughtful, I quite at ease, and Rosette excessively annoyed.

“Alcibiades had arrived very opportunely for me, but very inopportunely for Rosette, who thus lost, or thought she lost, all the fruits of her skilful attacks and ingenious tactics. No progress had been made; a quarter of an hour later and the devil take me if I know what issue the adventure could have had-I cannot see one that would not have been impossible. Perhaps it might have been better if Alcibiades had not come in at the ticklish moment like a god in his machine: the thing must have ended in one way or another. During the scene I was two or three times on the point of acknowledging who I was to Rosette; but the dread of being thought an adventuress and of seeing my secret revealed kept back the words that were ready to escape from my lips.

“Such a state of things could not last. My departure was the only means of cutting short this bootless intrigue, and accordingly I announced officially at dinner that I should leave the very next day. Rosette, who was sitting, beside me, nearly fainted on hearing this piece of news, and let her glass fall. A sudden paleness overspread her beautiful face; she cast on me a mournful and reproachful look which made me nearly as much affected and troubled as she was herself.

“The aunt raised her old wrinkled hands with a movement of painful surprise, and said in her shrill, trembling voice, which was even more tremulous than, usual: 'My dear Monsieur Theodore, are you going to leave us in that fashion? That is not right; yesterday you did not seem in the least disposed to go. The post has not come, and so you have received no letters, and are without any motive. You had granted us a fortnight longer, and now you are taking it back; you have really no right to do so: what has been given cannot be taken away again. See how Rosette is looking at you, and how angry she is with you; I warn you that I shall be at least as angry as she is, and look quite as sternly at you, and a stern face at sixty-eight is a little more terrible than one at twenty-three. See to what you are voluntarily exposing yourself: the wrath both of aunt and niece, and all on account of some caprice which has suddenly entered your head at dessert.'

“Alcibiades, giving the table a great blow with his fist, swore that he would barricade the doors of the mansion and hamstring my horse sooner than let me go.

“Rosette cast another look upon me, and one so sad and supplicating that nothing short of the ferocity of a tiger that had been fasting for a week could have failed to be moved by it. I did not withstand it, and though it gave me singular annoyance, I made a solemn promise to stay. Dear Rosette would willingly have fallen on my neck and kissed me on the mouth for this kindness; Alcibiades enclosed my hand in his huge one and shook my arm so violently that he nearly dislocated my shoulder, made my rings oval instead of round, and cut three of my fingers somewhat deeply.

“The old lady, rejoicing, took an immense pinch of snuff.

“Rosette, however, did not completely recover her gaiety; the idea that I might go away and that I wished to do so, an idea which had never yet come clearly before her mind, plunged her deep in thought. The color which had been chased from her cheeks by the announcement of my departure did not return to them with the same brilliance as before; there still was paleness on her cheek and disquiet in the depths of her soul. My conduct towards her surprised her more and more. After the marked advances which she had made, she could not understand the motives which induced me to put so much restraint into my relations with her; her object was to lead me up to a perfectly decisive engagement before my departure, not doubting that afterwards she would find it extremely easy to keep me as long as she liked.

“In this she was right, and, had I not been a woman, her calculation would have been correct; for, whatever may have been said about the satiety of pleasure and the distaste which commonly follows possession, every man whose heart is at all in the right place, and who is not miserably used up and without resource, feels his love increased by his good fortune, and frequently the best means of retaining a lover who is ready to leave you is to surrender yourself unreservedly to him.

“Rosette intended to bring me to something decisive before my departure. Knowing how difficult it is to subsequently take up a liaison just where it had been dropped, and being besides not at all sure of finding me again under such favorable circumstances, she neglected no opportunity that presented itself of placing me in a position to speak out clearly and abandon the evasive demeanor behind which I had entrenched myself. As on my part, I had the most formal intention of avoiding every species of meeting similar to that in the rustic pavilion, and yet could not, without being ridiculous, affect much coolness towards Rosette and assume girlish prudery in my relations with her, I scarcely knew how to behave, and tried always to have a third person with us.

“Rosette, on the contrary, did everything in her power to secure being alone with me, and, as the mansion was at a distance from the town and seldom visited by the neighboring nobility, she frequently succeeded in her design. My obtuse resistance saddened and surprised her; there were moments when she had doubts and hesitations about the power of her charms, and, seeing herself so little loved, she was sometimes not far from believing herself ugly. Then she would redouble her attention and coquetry, and although her mourning did not permit her to make use of all the resources of the toilet, she nevertheless knew how to give it grace and variety in such a manner as to be twice or thrice as charming every day-which is Baying a great deal. She tried everything; she was playful, melancholy, tender, impassioned, kind, coquettish, and even affected; she put on in succession all those adorable masks which become women so well that it is impossible to say whether they are veritable masks or real faces;-she assumed eight or ten contrasted individualities one after another in order to see which pleased me, and to fix upon it. In herself alone she provided me with a complete seraglio wherein I had only to throw the handkerchief; but she had, of course, no success.

“The failure of all these strategems threw her into a state of profound stupefaction. She would, indeed, have turned Nestor's brain, and melted the ice of the chaste Hippolytus himself, — and I appeared to be anything but Nestor or Hippolytus. I am young, and I had a lofty and determined air, boldness of speech and everywhere except in solitary interviews, a resolute countenance.

“She might have thought that all the witches of Thrace and Thessaly had cast their spells upon my person, or that I was at least unmanned, and have formed a most detestable opinion of my virility, which is in fact poor enough. Apparently, however, the idea did not occur to her, and she attributed this singular reserve only to my lack of love for her.

“The days passed away without any advancement of her interests, and she was visibly affected by it; an expression of restless sadness had taken the place of the ever fresh-blooming smile on her lips; the corners of her mouth, so joyously arched, had become sensibly lower, and formed a firm and serious line; a few little veins appeared in a more marked fashion on her tender eyelids; her cheeks, lately so like the peach, had now nothing of it left save its imperceptible velvet down. I often saw her, from my window, crossing the garden in a morning gown; scarcely raising her feet, she would walk as though she were gliding along, both arms loosely crossed upon her breast, her head bent more than a willow-branch dipping into the water, and with something undulating and sinking about her like a drapery which is too long and the edge of which touches the ground. At such moments she looked like one of the amorous women of antiquity, victims to the wrath of Venus, and furiously assailed by the pitiless goddess; it is thus, to my fancy, that Psyche must have been when she had lost Cupid.

“On the days when she did not endeavor to vanquish my coldness and reluctance, her love had a simple and primitive manner which might have charmed me; it was a silent and confiding surrender, a chaste facility of caress, an exhaustless abundance and plenitude of heart, all the treasures of a fine nature poured forth without reserve. She had none of that bitterness and meanness to be seen in nearly all women, even in those that are the best endowed; she sought no disguise, and tranquilly suffered me to see the whole extent of her passion. Her self-love did not revolt for an instant at my failure to respond to so many advances, for pride leaves the heart on the day that love enters it; and if ever anyone was truly loved, I was loved by Rosette.

“She suffered, but without complaint or bitterness, and she attributed the failure of her attempts only to herself. Nevertheless her paleness increased every day; a mighty combat had been waged on the battle-field of her cheeks between the lilies and the roses, and the latter had been decisively routed; it distressed me, but in all truth I was less able than anyone to remedy it. The more gentle and affectionate my words and the more caressing my manner, the more deeply I plunged into her heart the barbed arrow of impossible love. To comfort her to-day I made ready a much greater despair for the future; my remedies poisoned her wound while appearing to soothe it. I repented in a measure of all the agreeable things I had ever said to her, and owing to my extreme friendship for her, I would fain have discovered the means to make her hate me. Disinterestedness could not be carried further, for such a result would unquestionably have greatly grieved me;-but it would have been better.

“I made two or three attempts to speak harshly to her, but I soon turned to madrigals, for I dread her tears even more than her smile. On such occasions, although the honesty of my intention fully acquitted me in my conscience, I was more touched than I should have been, and felt something not far removed from remorse. A tear can scarcely be dried except by a kiss; the office cannot decently be left to a handkerchief, be it of the finest cambric in the world. I undid what I had done, the tear was quickly forgotten, more quickly than the kiss, and there always ensued an increase of embarrassment for me.

“Rosette, seeing that I am going to escape her, again fastens obstinately and miserably upon the remnants of her hope, and my position is growing more and more complicated. The strange sensation which I experienced in the little hermitage, and the inconceivable confusion into which I was thrown by the ardent caresses of my fair mistress, have been several times renewed though with less violence; and often when seated beside Rosette with her hand in mine, and listening to her speak to me in her soft cooing voice, I fancy that I am a man as she believes me to be, and that it is pure cruelty on my part not to respond to her love.

“One evening, by some chance or other, I happened to be alone with the old lady in the green room;-she had some tapestry work in her hand, for, in spite of her sixty-eight years, she never remained idle, wishing, as she said, to finish before she died a task which she had commenced and at which she had now wrought for a long time. Feeling somewhat fatigued, she laid her work aside and lay back in her large easy-chair. She looked at me very attentively, and her grey eyes sparkled through her spectacles with strange vivacity; she passed her hand two or three times across her wrinkled forehead, and appeared to be reflecting deeply. The recollection of times that were no more and that she regretted imparted an expression of emotion to her face. I did not speak lest I should disturb her in her thoughts, and the silence lasted for some minutes. At last she broke it.

“'They are Henri's-my dear Henri's very eyes; the same humid and brilliant gaze, the same carriage of the head, the same sweet and proud physiognomy; one would think it were he. You cannot imagine the extent of this likeness, Monsieur Theodore; when I see you I cannot believe that Henri is dead; I think that he has only been on a long journey, and has now at last come back. You have given me much pleasure and much pain, Theodore; pleasure by reminding me of my poor Henri, and pain by showing me how great has been my loss; sometimes I have taken you for his phantom. I cannot reconcile myself to the idea that you are going to leave us; it seems to me like losing my Henri once more.'

“I told her that if it were really possible for me to remain longer I should do so with pleasure, but that my stay had already been prolonged far beyond the limits it should have had; besides, I quite expected to return, and I should retain memories of the mansion far too agreeable to forget it so quickly.

“'However sorry I may be at your departure, Monsieur Theodore,' she resumed, pursuing her own train of thought, 'there is some one here who will feel it more than I. You understand whom I mean without my telling you. I do not know what we shall do with Rosette when you are gone; but this old place is very dull. Alcibiades is always hunting, and for a young girl like her the society of a poor, infirm woman like me is not very diverting.'”

“'If anyone should have regrets, it is not you, madame, nor Rosette, but I; you are losing little, I much; you will easily discover society more charming than mine, but it is more than doubtful whether I shall ever be able to replace Rosette's and yours.'

“'I do not wish to pick a quarrel with your modesty, my dear sir, but I know what I know, and what I say is fact. It will probably be a long time before we see Madame Rosette in a good humor again, for at present her smiles and tears depend only on you. Her mourning is about to end, and it would be a pity if she laid aside her gaiety with her last black dress; it would be a very bad example, and quite contrary to natural laws. This is a thing which you could prevent without much trouble, and which you will prevent, no doubt,' said the old lady, laying great emphasis on the last words.

“'Unquestionably I will do all in my power that your dear niece may not lose her charming gaiety, since you suppose me to have such influence over her. Nevertheless, I scarcely see what method I can adopt.'

“'Oh! really, you scarcely see! What are your handsome eyes for? I did not know that you were so shortsighted. Rosette is free; she has an income of eighty thousand livres wholly under her own control, and women twice as ugly as she is are often considered pretty. You are young, handsome, and, as I imagine, unmarried; it appears to me to be the simplest thing in the world, unless you have an unsurmountable horror of Rosette, which it is difficult to believe-'

“Which is not and could not be the case, for her soul is as excellent as her person, and she is one of those who might be ugly without our noticing it or wishing them otherwise…”

“'She might be ugly with impunity and she is charming. That is to be doubly in the right; I have no doubt of what you say, but she has taken the wisest course. So far as she is concerned I would willingly answer for it that there are a thousand whom she hates more than you, and that if she were asked several times she would perhaps end by confessing that you do not altogether displease her. You have a ring on your finger which would suit her perfectly, for your hand is nearly as small as hers, and I am almost sure that she would accept it with pleasure.'

“The good lady stopped for a few moments to see what effect her words would produce on me, and I do not know whether she had reason to be satisfied with the expression of my face. I was cruelly embarrassed and did not know what to reply. From the beginning of the conversation I had perceived the tendency of all her insinuations; and, although I almost expected what she had just said, I was quite surprised and confused by it; I could not but refuse; but what valid motives could I give for such a refusal? I had none, except that I was a woman: an excellent motive it is true, but precisely the only one that I was unwilling to state.

“I could hardly fall back upon stern and ridiculous parents; all the parents in the world would have accepted such a union with enthusiasm. Had Rosette not been what she was, good, fair and well-born, the eighty thousand livres a year would have removed all difficulty. To say that I did not love her would have been neither true nor honorable, for I did really love her very much and more than any woman loves a woman. I was too young to pretend that I was engaged in another quarter. What I thought it best to do was to let it be understood that being a younger son the interests of my house required me to enter the Maltese Order, and did not permit to think of matrimony, a circumstance which had caused me all the sorrow in the world since I had seen Rosette.

“This reply was not worth much, and I was perfectly sensible of the fact. The old lady was not deceived by it, and did not regard it as definite; she thought that I had spoken in this way to gain time for reflection and for consulting my parents. Indeed, such a union was so advantageous for me, and one so little to be expected, that it would not have been possible for me to refuse it even though I had felt little or no love for Rosette; it was a piece of good fortune that was not to be slighted.

“I do not know whether the aunt made this overture at the instance of her niece, but I am inclined to believe that Rosette had nothing to do with it; she loved me too simply and too eagerly to think of anything else but the immediate possession of me, and marriage would assuredly have been the last of the means that she would have employed. The dowager, who had not failed to remark our intimacy, and doubtless thought it much greater than it was, had contrived the whole of this plan in her head in order to keep me near her, and as far as possible replace her dear son. Henri, who had been killed in the army, and to whom, as she considered, I bear so striking a likeness. She had been pleased by this idea and had taken advantage of the moment of solitude to come to an explanation with me. I saw by her mien that she did not look upon herself as beaten, and that she intended to return soon to the charge — at which I felt extremely annoyed.

“That same night Rosette, on her part, made a last attempt which had such serious results that I must give you a separate account of it, and cannot relate it in this letter, which is already swelled to an extravagant size. You will see to what singular adventures I was predestined, and how heaven had cut me out beforehand to be a heroine of romance; I am not quite sure, though, what moral could be drawn from it all, — but existences are not like fables, each chapter has not a rhymed sentence at the end. Very often the meaning of life is that it is not death. That is all. Good-bye, dear, I kiss you on your lovely eyes. You will shortly receive the continuation of my triumphant biography.”