for both; and, besides, I could never consent to yield the first place to another. My natural pride cannot stoop to such a degradation. I shall never go because another man is coming. Though the woman were to be compromised and lost, and we were to fight with knives each with a foot upon her body, I should remain. Private staircases, cupboards, closets, and all the machinery for deception would be of little service with me.
“I am not much smitten with what is called maidenly ingenuousness, youthful innocence, purity of heart, and other charming things which in verse are most effective; that I call simply nonsense, ignorance, imbecility, or hypocrisy. The maidenly ingenuousness which consists in sitting on the very edge of an easy chair, with arms pressed close to the body, and eyes fixed on the point of the corset, and in not speaking without permission from its grandparents, the innocence which has a monopoly of uncurled hair and white frocks, the purity of heart which wears its dress high up at the neck because it has as yet neither shoulders nor breast to show, do not, in truth, appear wonderfully agreeable to me.
“I do not care much for teaching little simpletons to spell out the alphabet of love. I am neither old enough nor depraved enough for that; besides, I should succeed badly at it, for I never could show anybody anything, even what I knew best myself. I prefer women who read fluently, we arrive sooner at the end of the chapter; and in everything, but especially in love, the end is what we have to consider. In this respect, I am rather like those people who begin a novel at the wrong end, read the catastrophe first of all, and then go backwards to the first page. This mode of reading and loving has its charm. Details are relished more when we are at peace concerning the end, and the inversion introduces the unforeseen.
“Young girls, then, and married women are excluded from the category. It must, therefore, be among the widows that we are to choose our divinity. Alas! though nothing else is left to us, I greatly fear that neither will they afford us what we wish.
“If I happened to love a pale narcissus bathed in a tepid dew of tears, and bending with melancholy grace over the new marble tomb of some happily and recently departed husband, I should certainly, and in a very short while, be as miserable as was the defunct during his lifetime. Widows, however young and charming they may be, have a terrible drawback which other women are without; if you are not on the very best terms with them, and a cloud passes across the heaven of your love, they tell you at once with a little superlative and contemptuous air-
“'Ah! how strange you are to-day! It is just like what he was. When we quarrelled, he used to speak to me in the very same way; it is curious, but you have the same tone of voice and the same look; when you are out of temper, you cannot imagine how like my husband you are; it is frightful!”
“It is pleasant to have things of this sort said to your very face! There are some even who are impudent enough to praise the departed one like an epitaph, and to extol his heart and his leg at the expense of your leg and your heart. With women who have only one or more lovers, you have at least the unspeakable advantage of never hearing about your predecessor, and this is a consideration of no ordinary interest. Women have too great a regard for what is appropriate and legitimate not to observe a diligent silence in such an event, and all matters of the kind are consigned to oblivion as soon as possible. It is an understood thing that a man is always a woman's first lover.
“I do not think that an aversion so well founded admits of any serious reply. It is not that I consider widows altogether devoid of charm, when they are young and pretty and have not yet laid aside their mourning. They have little languishing airs, little ways of letting the arms droop, of arching the neck and of bridling up like unmated turtledoves; a lot of charming affectations sweetly veiled beneath the transparency of crape, a well-ordered affectation of despair, skilfully managed sighs, and tears which fall so opportunely and lend such lustre to the eyes!
“Truly, next to wine-perhaps even before it-the liquid I love best to drink is a beautiful tear, clear and limpid, trembling at the tip of a dark or a blonde eye-lash. What means are there of resisting that? We do not resist it; and then black is so becoming to women! A white skin, poetry apart, turns to ivory, snow, milk, alabaster, to everything spotless that there is in the world for the use of composers of madrigals; while a dark skin has but a dash of brown that is full of vivacity and fire.
“Mourning is a happy opportunity for a woman, and the reason I shall never marry, is the fear lest my wife should get rid of me in order to go into mourning for me. There are, however, some women who cannot turn their sorrow to account, and who weep in such a way that they make their noses red, and distort their features like the faces that we see on fountains; this is a serious danger. There is need of many charms and much art to weep agreeably; otherwise, there is a risk of not being comforted for a long time. Yet notwithstanding the pleasure of making some Artemisia faithless to the shade of her Mausolus, I cannot really choose from among this swarm of lamenting ones her whose heart I shall ask in exchange for my own.
“And now I hear you say: Whom will you take, then? You will not have young girls, nor married women, nor widows. You do not like mammas, and I do not suppose that you are any fonder of grandmothers. Whom the deuce do you like? It is the answer to the charade, and if I knew it, I should not torment myself so much. Up to the present I have never loved any woman, but I have loved and do love — love. Although I have had no mistresses, and the women that I have had have merely kindled desire, I have felt, and I am acquainted with love itself. I have not loved this woman or that, one more than another, but some one whom I have never seen, who must live somewhere, and whom I shall find, if it please God. I know well what she is like, and, when I meet her, I shall recognize her.
“I have often pictured to myself the place where she dwells, the dress that she wears, the eyes and hair that she has. I hear her voice; I should recognize her step among a thousand, and if, by chance, some one uttered her name, I should turn round; it is impossible that she should not have one of the five or six names that I have given her in my head.
“She is twenty-six years old, neither more nor less. She is not without experience, and she is not yet satiated. It is a charming age for making love as it ought to be, without childishness and without libertinism. She is of medium height. I like neither a giantess nor a dwarf. I wish to be able to carry my goddess by myself from the sofa to the bed; but it would be disagreeable to have to look for her in the latter. When raising herself slightly on tiptoe, her mouth should reach my kiss. That is the proper height. As to her figure, she is rather plump than thin. I am something of the Turk in this matter, and I should scarcely like to meet with a corner when I expected a circumference; a woman's skin should be well filled, her flesh compact and firm, like the pulp of a peach that is nearly ripe; and the mistress I shall have is made just so. She is a blonde with dark eyes, white like a blonde, with the color of a brunette, and a red and sparkling smile. The lower lip rather large, the eyeball swimming in a flood of natural moisture, her breast round, small, and firm, her hands long and plump, her walk undulating like a snake standing on its tail, her hips full and yielding, her shoulders broad, the nape of her neck covered with down; a style of beauty at once delicate and compact, graceful and healthy, poetic and real; a subject of Giorgione's wrought by Rubens.
“Here is her costume: she wears a robe of scarlet or black velvet, with slashings of white satin or silver cloth, an open bodice, a large ruff a la Medici, a felt hat capriciously drawn up like Helena Systerman's, and with long feathers curled and crisp, a golden chain or a stream of diamonds about her neck, and a quantity of large, variously enamelled rings on all her fingers.
“I will not excuse her a ring or a bracelet. Her robe must be literally of velvet or brocade; at the very most, I might permit her to stoop to satin. I would rather rumple a silk skirt than a linen one, and let pearls and feathers fall from the hair than natural flowers or a simple bow; I know that the lining of a linen skirt is often at least as tempting as that of a silk one, but I prefer the silk one.
“Thus, in my dreams, I have given myself as mistresses many queens, many empresses, many princesses, many sultanas, many celebrated courtesans, but never a commoner or a shepherdess; and amid my most vagrant desires, I have never taken advantage of any one on a carpet of grass or in a bed of serge d'Aumale. I consider beauty a diamond which should be mounted and set in gold. I cannot imagine a beautiful woman without a carriage, horses, serving-men, and all that belongs to an income of twenty thousand a year; there is a harmony between beauty and wealth. One requires the other: a pretty foot calls for a pretty shoe, a pretty shoe calls for a carpet, and a carriage, and all the rest of it. A beautiful woman, poorly dressed and in a mean house, is, to my mind, the most painful sight that one could see, and I could not feel love towards such a one. It is only the handsome and the rich who can make love without being ridiculous or pitiable. At this rate few people would be entitled to make love: I myself should be the first to be excluded; but such is nevertheless my opinion.
“It will be in the evening, during a beautiful sunset, that we shall meet for the first time; the sky will have
