The Romance of Violette

Alexandre Dumas Pere
PREFACE

I have spent thousands of years in this earthly world, it would appear, and the spiritualistic component of my own being must have been successively transmitted in the continuity of human creatures, before it became my privilege to be one of the denizens of the planet of Mars, my present dwelling.

“How happy he will be,” will exclaim those unfortunate mortals who still weep on earth, “for has he not left our vale of tears?”

No such thing! You are entirely mistaken, for I feel very dull here, in spite of the evident superiority, as a place of residence, of the planet I am now exploring.

Indeed, I frequently suffer from fits of depression, and often glance back longingly on a past which was not unmixed with bliss. That is why you behold me now with pen in hand, calling up the most pleasurable recollections of my earthly life and trying to retrace them to the reader.

I must own to many sins in the course of my terrestrial incarnations. My future readers will therefore understand why, among the outlines, which like dim shadows are evoked before my eyes, I look upon those of women with the most gratified feelings.

She who now receives my slumbering sensations, numbed, alas, by the ethereal poetry of the ambient atmosphere in which I breathe when on earth, went by euphonious name of Violette. She gave me all the joys of that paradise promised to the faithful by Mahomet, and when she died my grief was unspeakable.

Nobody now knows who was concealed under this pretty pseudonym. I may therefore freely pen her history, that of our loves! She had no other!

Before entrusting these sheets to the amorous zephyr which is to waft them on to the desk of some enterprising publisher, I would have my future readers know that they are not exactly suitable for young ladies.

And now, squeamish reader, and you, bashful lady, who are fearful of calling a spade a spade, you have had due warning; therefore tarry you a while, or else go no further, for these pages were not designed for you.

Let only those follow me, who understand love, and practise thy sweet science, O voluptas! the author