“Her dress was made of a stuff of varying color, azure in the light, and golden in the shade; a well and close fitting boot was on a foot which, apart from this, was excessively small, and stockings of scarlet silk wound amorously round a most shapely and enticing leg; her arms which were bare to the elbows and emerged from a cluster of lace, were round, plump, and white, as splendid as polished silver, and with unimaginably delicate lineaments; her hands, which were laden with jewelery, were softly swaying a large fan of singularly variegated feathers, which looked like a little pocket rainbow.
“She advanced into the room, her cheeks slightly kindled with a red which was not paint, and everyone was in raptures, crying out and asking whether it was really possible that it could be he, Theodore de Serannes, the daring rider, the demon duellist, the determined hunter, and whether he was perfectly sure that it was not his twin sister.
“But you would think that he had never worn any other costume in his life! His movements are not in the least embarrassed, he walks very well, and does not get entangled in his train; he ogles and flirts with his fan in a ravishing manner! and his waist is so slender! you might enclose it with your fingers! It is extraordinary, inconceivable! The illusion is as complete as it can be: you would almost think, that he had a bosom, his breast is so developed and well filled, and then not a hair on his face, got a single one; and his voice so sweet! Oh! the beautiful Rosalind! and who would not wish to be her Orlando?
“Yes, who would not wish to be the Orlando of such a Rosalind, even at the cost of the torments I have suffered? To love as I did with a monstrous love which could not be confessed and yet which could not be uprooted from your heart; to be condemned to keep the profoundest silence, and to shrink from indulging in what the most discreet and respectful lover might fearlessly say to the most prudish and severe of women; to feel yourself devoured by insane longings without excuse even in the eyes of the most abandoned libertines; what are ordinary passions to such a one as that, a passion ashamed of itself and hopeless, whose improbable success would be a crime and would cause you to die of shame? To be reduced to wish for failure, to dread favorable chances and opportunities, and to avoid them as another would seek them-such was my fate.
“The deepest discouragement had taken possession of me; I looked upon myself with horror, mingled with surprise and curiosity. What was most revolting to me was the thought that I had never loved before, and that this was my first effervescence of youth, the first Easter-daisy in the spring-tide of my love.
“This monstrosity took the place with me of the fresh and chaste illusions of early years; my fondly cherished dreams of tenderness at evening on the skirts of the woods, down the little reddening paths, or along the white marble terraces, near the sheet of water in the park, were then to be metamorphosed into this perfidious sphinx with doubtful smile and ambiguous voice, and before which I stood without venturing to undertake the solution of the enigma! To interpret it wrongly would have caused my death; for, alas! it is the only tie which unites me to the world; when it is broken, all will be over. Take from me this spark and I shall be more gloomy and inanimate than the band-swathed mummy of the most ancient Pharaoh.
“On the occasions when I felt myself most forcibly drawn towards Theodore, I would throw myself back with dismay into the arms of Rosette, although she was infinitely displeasing to me; I tried to interpose her like a barrier and shield between myself and him, and I felt a secret satisfaction when lying beside her in thinking that she had been proved to be a woman, and that although I had ceased to love, I was still loved by her sufficiently well to prevent our union from degenerating into intrigue and debauch.
“Nevertheless, at the bottom of my heart, I felt through all this a kind of regret at being thus faithless to the idea of my impossible passion; I felt resentful against myself for, as it were, an act of treason, and, though I well knew that I should never possess the object of my love, I was discontented with myself, and resumed my coldness towards Rosette.
“The rehearsal was much better than I had hoped for; Theodore especially proved admirable; it was also considered that I acted uncommonly well. This, however, was not because I possess the qualities necessary to make a good actor, and it would be a great mistake to suppose me capable of taking other parts in the same fashion; but, through rather a singular chance, the words which I had to utter agreed with my situation so well, that they seemed to me to have been invented by myself rather than learnt by heart from a book. Had my memory failed me at certain passages, I should certainly not have hesitated for a minute before supplying the void with an improvised phrase. Orlando was I, at least, as much as I was Orlando; it would be impossible to meet with a more wonderful coincidence.
“In the wrestling scene, when Theodore unfastened the chain from his neck and presented it to me, in accordance with his part, he cast upon me so sweetly languorous and promising a look, and uttered the sentence:
'Gentleman,
Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune
That could give more but that her hand lacks means.' with such grace and nobility, that I was really troubled by it and could scarcely go on:
'What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference.
O poor Orlando!'
“In the third act Rosalind, dressed like a man and tinder the name of Ganymede, reappears with her cousin, Celia, who has changed her name to Aliena.
“This made a disagreeable impression upon me. I had already become so well accustomed to the feminine costume which indulged my desires with some hopes, and kept me in a perfidious but seducing error! We very soon come to look upon our wishes as realities on the testimony of. the most fleeting appearances, and I became quite gloomy when Theodore reappeared in his man's dress, more gloomy than I had been before; for joy only serves to make us feel grief more keenly: the sun strives only to give us a better understanding of the horror of darkness, and the gaiety of white is only intended to give relief to all the sadness of black.
“His coat was the most gallant and coquettish in the world, of an elegant and capricious cut, all adorned with trimmings and ribbons, nearly in the style of the wits of the court of Louis XIII.; a pointed felt hat with a long curled feather shaded the ringlets of his beautiful hair, and the lower part of his travelling cloak was raised by a long damascened sword.
“Yet he was dressed in such a way as to give one a presentiment that these manly clothes had a feminine lining; a breadth of hip, a fulness of bosom, and a sort of undulation never seen in cloth on the body of a man, left but slight doubts respecting the person's sex.
“He had a half deliberate, half timid manner which was most diverting, and with infinite art, he assumed as embarrassed an appearance in a costume which was his usual one, as he had seemed to be at his ease in garments which) were not his own.
“My serenity returned to some extent, and I persuaded myself afresh that it was really a woman. I recovered sufficient composure to play my part in a fitting manner.
“Do you know this piece? Perhaps not. For the last fortnight I have done nothing but read it and declaim it, I know it entirely by heart, and I cannot imagine that everybody is not as conversant with its knot and plot as I am myself. I fall commonly enough into the error of believing that when I am drunk all creation is fuddled and incapable, and if I knew Hebrew I would to a certainty ask my servant in Hebrew for my dressing-gown and slippers, and be very much astonished that he did not understand me. You will read it if you wish; I shall assume that you have read it and only touch upon such passages as have some bearing upon my situation.
“Rosalind, when walking in the forest with her cousin, is greatly astonished to find that instead of blackberries and sloes the bushes bear madrigals in her praise: strange fruits which fortunately do not grow on brambles as a rule; for when you are thirsty it is better to find good blackberries on the branches than bad sonnets. She is very anxious to know who has spoiled the bark of the young trees in this way by cutting the letters of her name upon it. Celia, who has already encountered Orlando, tells her, after many entreaties, that the rhymer is none other than the young man who vanquished the Duke's athlete Charles in the wrestling match.
“Soon Orlando himself appears, and Rosalind enters into conversation with him by asking him what o'clock it is. Certes, this opening is simple in the extreme; nothing in the world could be more homely. But be not afraid: from this commonplace and vulgar phrase you will see gathered in a harvest of unexpected conceits, full of flowers and
