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.”
IV
Do you know that for nearly five months-yes, for quite five months-for five eternities, I have been Madame Rosette's established Celadon? It is perfectly splendid. I should never have believed that I was so constant, nor, I will wager, would she have believed it either. We are, in truth, a couple of plucked pigeons, for only turtle doves could display such tenderness. What billing! What cooing! What ivy-like entwinings! What a twofold existence I Nothing in the world could have been more touching, and our two poor little hearts might have been put on one cartel, pierced by the same spit, with a gusty flame.
“Five months, tete-a-tete, so to speak, for we have been seeing each other every day and nearly every night-the door always closed to everybody; is it not enough to make one shudder to think of it! Well, to the glory of the peerless Rosette, it must be said that I have not been over-much wearied, and that this period will no doubt prove to have been the most agreeable in my life. I do not believe that it would be possible to occupy a man devoid
