“In short, notwithstanding the money-box mouth and saw-like teeth of the inn-keeper, the inn had quite an honest and jovial look; and if the inn-keeper's smile had been a fathom longer, and his teeth three times as long and as white, still the rain was beginning to patter on the panes, and the wind to howl in such a fashion as to take away all inclination to leave, for I know nothing more lugubrious than such wailings on a dark and rainy night.
“An idea occurred to me and made me smile, and it was this, — that nobody in the world would come to look for me where I was.
“Who, indeed, would have thought that little Madelaine, instead of being in her warm bed with her alabaster night-lamp beside her, a novel under her pillow, and her maid in the adjoining room ready to hasten to her at the slightest nocturnal alarm, would be balancing herself on a rush bottom chair at a country inn twenty leagues from her home, her booted feet resting on the andirons, and her hands swaggeringly thrust into her pockets?
“Yes, Madelinette did not remain like her companions, idly resting her elbow on the edge of the balcony among the bind-weed and jessamine at the window, and watching the violet fringes on the horizon at the end of the plain, or some little rose-colored cloud rounded by the May breeze. She did not strew lily leaves through mother-of- pearl palaces wherein to house her chimeras; she did not, like you, fair dreamers, clothe some hollow phantom with all imaginable perfections; she wished to be acquainted with men before giving herself to a man; she forsook everything, her beautiful brilliant robes of velvet and silk, her necklaces, bracelets, birds and flowers; she voluntarily gave up adoration, prostrate politeness, bouquets and madrigals, the pleasure of being considered more beautiful and better dressed than you, her sweet woman's name and all that she was, and departed, quite alone, like a brave girl, to learn the great science of life throughout the world.
“If this were known, people would say that Madelaine is mad. You have said it yourself, my dear Graciosa; but the truly mad are those who fling their souls to the wind, and sow their love at random cm stone and rock, not knowing whether a single ear will germinate.
“O Graciosa! there is a thought that I have never had without terror; the thought of loving some one unworthy of being loved! of laying your soul bare before impure eyes, and letting profanity penetrate into the sanctuary of your heart! of rolling your limpid tide for a time with a miry wave! However perfect the separation may be, something of the slime always remains, and the stream cannot recover its former transparency.
“To think that a man has kissed you and touched you; that he has seen your person; that he can say: She is like this or that; she has such a mark in such a place; she has such a shade in her soul; she laughs at this and weeps at that; her dream is of this description; here is a feather from her chimera's wing in my portfolio; this ring is plaited with her hair; a piece of her heart is folded tip in this letter; she used to caress me after such a fashion, and this was her usual expression of fondness!
“Ah! Cleopatra, I can now understand why in the morning you had killed the lover with whom you had spent the night. Sublime cruelty, for which formerly I could not find sufficient imprecations! Great voluptuary, how well you knew human nature, and what penetration was shown in this barbarity! You would not suffer any living being to divulge the mysteries of your bed; the words of love which had escaped your lips should not be repeated. Thus you preserved your pure delusion. Experience came not to strip piecemeal the charming phantom that you had cradled in your arms. You preferred to be separated from him by sudden blow of axe rather than by slow distaste.
“What torture, in fact, it is to see the man whom you have chosen false every minute to the idea you had formed of him; to discover a thousand littlenesses in his character which you had not suspected; to perceive that what had appeared so beautiful to you through the prism of love is really very ugly, and that he whom you took for a true hero of romance is, after all, only a prosaic citizen who wears dressing-gown and slippers!
“I have not Cleopatra's power, and if I had, I should assuredly not possess the energy to make use of it. Hence, being unable or unwilling to cut off the heads of my lovers, as they leave my couch, and being, further, indisposed to endure what other women endure, I must look twice before taking one; I shall do so three times rather than twice if I feel any inclination in that direction, which is doubtful enough after what I have seen and heard; unless, in some happy unknown land, I meet with a heart like my own, as the romances say-a virgin heart and pure, which has never loved, and which is capable of doing so in the true sense of the word, — by no means an easy matter.
“Several gentlemen entered the inn; the storm and darkness had prevented them from continuing their journey. They were all young, and the eldest was certainly not more than thirty. Their dress showed that they belonged to the upper classes, and without their dress the insolent ease of their manners would have readily made this understood. One or two of them had interesting faces; the others all displayed, to a greater or less degree, that species of brutal joviality and careless good-nature which men have among themselves, and which they lay aside completely when in our presence.
“If they could have suspected that the frail young man, half asleep in his chair at the corner of the fireplace, was anything but what he appeared to be, and was really a young girl, and fit for a king, as they say, they would certainly have quickly changed their tone, and you would immediately have seen them bridling up and making a display. They would have approached with many bows, their legs bent, their elbows turned out, and a smile in their eyes, on their lips, in their nose, in their hair, and in their whole bodily appearance; they would have boned the words they made use of, and spoken to me only in velvet and satin phrases; at the least movement, on my part, they would have looked like stretching themselves over the floor, after the manner of a carpet, lest the delicacy of my feet should be offended by its unevenness; all their hands would have been advanced to support me; the softest seat would have been prepared in the best place-but I looked like a pretty boy, and not like a pretty girl.
“I confess that I was almost ready to regret my petticoats when I saw what little attention they paid to me. For a minute I was quite mortified; for, from time to time, I forgot that I was wearing man's clothes, and had to think of the fact in order to prevent myself from growing cross.
“There I was, not speaking a word, my arms folded, looking apparently with great attention at the chicken, which was assuming a more and more rosy-tinted complexion, and the unfortunate dog which I had so unluckily disturbed, and which was striving in its wheel like several devils in the same holy-water basin.
“The youngest of the set came up, and, giving me a clap on the shoulder, which, upon my word, hurt me a good deal, and drew a little involuntary cry from me, asked me whether I would not rather sup with them than quite by myself, seeing that the drinking would go on all the better for plenty of company. I replied that this was a pleasure I should not have dared to hope for, and that I should be very happy to do so. Our covers were then laid together, and we sat down to table.
“The panting dog, after snapping up an enormous porringerful of water with three laps of his tongue, went back to his post opposite the of her dog, which had not stirred any more than if he had been made of porcelain, the new-comers, by heaven's special grace, not having asked for a chicken.
“From some words which they let drop, I learned that they were repairing to the court, which was then at — where they were to join other friends of theirs. I told them that I was a gentleman's son who was leaving the university and going to some relations in the country by the regular pupil's road, namely, the longest he could find. This made them laugh, and after some remark about my innocent and candid looks they asked me whether I had a mistress. I replied that I did not know, and they laughed still more. The bottles followed one another with rapidity; although I was careful to leave my glass nearly always full, my head was somewhat heated, and not losing sight of my purpose, I brought the conversation round to women. This was not difficult; for, next to theology and Aesthetics, they are the subject on which men are the readiest to talk when drunk.
“My companions were not precisely drunk, — they carried their wine too well for that, — but they began to enter into moral discussions at random, and to put their elbows unceremoniously on the table. One of them had even passed his arm around the thick waist of one of the serving women, and was nodding his head in very amorous fashion. Another swore that he would instantly burst, like a toad that had been given snuff, if Jeanette would not let him take a kiss on each of the big red apples which served her for cheeks; and Jeannette, not wishing him to burst like a toad, presented them to him with a very good grace, and did not even arrest a hand that audaciously found its way through the folds of her neckerchief into the moist valley of her bosom, which was very imperfectly guarded by a little golden cross, and it was only after a short whispered parley that he let her go and take away the dish.
“Yet they belonged to the court, and had elegant manners, and unless I had seen it, I should certainly never have thought of accusing them of such familiarities with the servants of an inn. Probably they had just left charming mistresses to whom they had sworn the finest oaths in the world. In truth, I should never have dreamed of charging my lover not to sully the lips on which I had laid my own along the cheeks of a trollop.
“The rogue appeared to take great pleasure in this kiss, neither more nor less than if he had embraced Phyllis
