to her! But women never know when to arrive opportunely. The nightingale ceased to sing; the moon, worn out with sleep, drew her cloud-cap over her eyes; and I–I left the garden, for the coldness of the night began to overtake me.
“As I was cold, I very naturally thought I should be warmer in Rosette's bed than in my own, and I went to share her couch. I entered with my pass-key, for every one in the house was slumbering. Rosette herself had fallen asleep, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that it was over an uncut volume of my latest poems. She had both her arms above her head, her mouth smiling and partly open, one leg stretched out and the other slightly bent in a posture of grace and ease; she looked so well that I felt mortal regret at not being more in love with her.
“While gazing upon her, I bethought me that I was as stupid as an ostrich. I had what I had desired so long, a mistress of my own like my horse and my sword, young, pretty, amorous and intellectual-with no high-principled mother, decorous father, intractable aunt, or fighting brother; with the unspeakable charm of a husband duly sealed and nailed in a fine oak coffin lined with lead, and the whole covered over with a big block of freestone-a circumstance not to be despised, for it is, after all, but slight entertainment to be caught in the midst of amorous enjoyment, and to go and complete the sensation on the pavement, after describing an arc of from 40 to 50 degrees, according to the story on which you happen to be-a mistress as free as mountain air, rich enough to indulge in the most exquisite refinements and elegancies, and devoid, moreover, of all moral ideas, never speaking to you of her virtue while trying a new position, nor of her reputation any more than if she had never had one; never intimate with women, and scorning them all nearly as much as if she were a man, making very light of Platonism without any concealment, and yet always bringing the heart into play:- a woman who, had she been placed in a different sphere, would undoubtedly have become the most notorious courtesan in the world, and made the glory of the Aspasias and Imperias grow pale!
“Then this woman so constituted was mine. I did what I would with her; I had the key of her room and her drawer; I opened her letters; I had taken her own name from her and given her another. She was my thing, my property. Her youth, beauty, love all belonged to me and I used and abused them. I made her go to bed during the day and sit up at night, if I took a fancy to do so, and she obeyed me simply, without appearing to make a sacrifice, and without assuming the little airs of a resigned victim. She was attentive, caressing, and, monstrous circumstance, scrupulously faithful; that is to say, that if six months ago, when I was complaining of being without a mistress, I had been given even a distant glimpse of such happiness, I should have gone mad with joy, and sent my hat knocking against the sky in token of my rejoicing. Well! now that I have her, this happiness seems cold to me; I scarcely feel, I do not feel it, and the situation in which I am affects me so little, that I am often doubtful whether I have made a change. Were I to leave Rosette, I have an intimate conviction, that at the end of a month, perhaps before, I should have so completely and carefully forgotten her, that I should no longer be able to tell whether I had known her or not! Would she do as much on her part? I think not.
“I was reflecting, then, upon all these things, and, feeling a sort of repentance, I laid on the fair sleeper's forehead the chastest and most melancholy kiss that ever a young man gave a young woman on the stroke of midnight. She moved a little, and the smile on her lips became somewhat more decided, but she did not awake. I leant over her and stretching out my arms I coiled them around her in snake-like fashion. The contact of my body seemed to rouse her; she opened her eyes, raised herself, and, without speaking to me, she fastened her mouth to mine, and clung so tightly to me as to set my blood coursing rapidly, and I was warmed in less than no time. All the lyrism of the evening was turned into prose; but it was at least poetical prose. That night was one of the fairest sleepless nights that I have ever spent; I can hope for such no longer.
“We still have agreeable moments, but it is necessary that they should have been led up to, and prepared for, by some external circumstance such as I have related, and at the beginning I had no need to excite my imagination by looking at the moon and listening to the nightingale's song, in order to have all the pleasure that is possible to a man who is not really in love. There are no broken threads as yet in our weft, but there are knots here and there, and the warp is not nearly so smooth.
“Rosette, who is still in love, does what she can to obviate these inconveniences. Unfortunately, there are two things in the world which cannot be commanded-love and weariness. On my part, I make superhuman efforts to overcome the somnolence which overtakes me in spite of myself, and, like country people who fall asleep at ten o'clock in town drawing-rooms, I keep my eyes as wide open as possible, and lift up my eyelids with my fingers! It is of no use, and I assume a conjugal freedom from restraint which is most unpleasing.
“The dear child, who the other day found herself the better for the rural system, brought me yesterday into the country.
“It might be to the purpose, perhaps, to give you a little description of the said' country, which is rather pretty; it might enliven our metaphysics somewhat, and, besides, the characters must have a background; the figures cannot stand out against a blank, or against that vague brown tint with which painters fill the field of their canvas.
“The approaches to it are very picturesque. You arrive, by a highway bordered with old trees, at a star, the middle of which is marked by a stone obelisk surmounted by a ball of gilt copper. Five roads form the rays; then the ground becomes suddenly hollow. The road dips into a rather narrow valley, crosses the little stream, that occupies the bottom, by a one-arched bridge, and then with great strides reascends the opposite side, where stands the little village, the slated steeple of which can be seen peeping from among the thatched roofs and round-headed apple- trees. The horizon is not very vast, for it is bounded on both sides by the crest of the hill, but it is cheerful and rests the eye. Besides the bridge there is a mill, and a structure of red stones in the shape of a tower; the nearly perpetual barking, and the sight of some brachs and young bandy-legged turnspits warming themselves in the sun before the door, would tell you that it is there that the gamekeeper dwells, if the buzzards and martins nailed to the shutters could leave you in doubt about it for a moment.
“At this spot there begins an avenue of sorbs, the scarlet fruit of which attracts clouds of birds. As people do not pass there very often, there is only a white band along the middle; all the rest is covered over with a short fine moss, and in the double rut traced by the wheels of vehicles, little frogs, green as chrysoprase, croak and hop. After proceeding for some time you find yourself before a gilded and painted iron grating, its sides adorned with spiked fences and chevaux-de-frise. Then the road turns towards the mansion-which, being buried in the verdure like a bird's nest, cannot as yet be seen-without hastening too much, however, and not infrequently turning aside to visit an elegant kiosk or a fine prospect, crossing and recrossing the stream by Chinese or rustic bridges.
“Owing to the unevenness of the ground, and the dams erected for the service of the mill, the stream has, in several places, a fall of from four to five feet, and nothing can be more pleasant than to hear all these cascades prattling close at hand, most frequently without seeing them, for the osiers and elders which line the bank form an almost impenetrable curtain. But all this portion of the park is in a measure only the ante-chamber of the other part. A high road passing across this property unfortunately cuts it in two, an inconvenience which has been remedied in a very ingenious manner. Two great embattled walls, full of barbicans and loopholes, in imitation of a ruined fortress, stand on either side of the road; a tower on which hangs gigantic ivy, and which flanks the mansion, lets fall on the opposite bastion a veritable drawbridge, with iron chains, which is lowered every morning.
“You pass through a pointed archway into the interior of the donjon, and thence into the second enclosure, where the trees, which have not been cut for more than a century, are of extraordinary height, with knotty trunks swaddled in parasitical plants, and are the finest and most singular that I have ever seen. Some have no leaves except at the top, where they terminate in broad parasols; others taper into plumes. Others, on the contrary, have near the body a large tuft, out of which the stripped stem shoots up to heaven like a second tree planted in the first; you would think that they formed the foreground of an artificial landscape, or the side-scenes of a theatrical decoration, so curiously deformed are they; while ivy passing from one to the other and suffocating them in its embrace, mingles its dark hearts with the green leaves and looks like their shadows. Nothing in the world could be more picturesque. The stream widens at this spot so as to form a little lake, and its shallowness allows the beautiful aquatic plants, which carpet its bed, to be seen beneath the transparent water. These are nymphacese and lotuses floating carelessly in the purest crystal, with the reflections of the clouds and of the weeping-willows that lean over on the bank. The mansion is on the other side, and this little skiff, painted apple-green and light red, will save you going rather a long round to reach the bridge..
“It is a collection of buildings, constructed at different epochs, with uneven gables, and a crowd of little bell- turrets. This pavilion is of brick, with corners of stone; this main building is of a rustic order, full of embossments and vermiculations. This other pavilion is quite modern; it has a flat roof, after the Italian fashion, with vases and a balustrade of tiles, and a vestibule of ticking in the shape of a tent. The windows are all of different sizes, and do
