left in my heart, and how little her tenderest caresses contented me! I resolved to try a lover, but a long time passed and I met no one who did not displease me. I forgot to tell you that Rosette, having discovered whither I was gone, had written me the most beseeching letter to go and see her; I could not refuse her, and I met her again at a country house where she was. I returned there several times, and even quite lately. Rosette, in despair at not having had me for her lover, had thrown herself into the whirl of society and dissipation, like all tender souls that are not religious and that have been wounded in their first love; she had had many adventures in a short time, and the list of her conquests was already very numerous, for every one had not the same reasons for resisting her that I had.
“She had with her a young man named D'Albert, who was at the time her established lover. I appeared to make quite a peculiar impression upon him, and at the very first he took a strong liking to me.
“Although he treated Rosette with great deference, and his manners towards her were in the main tender enough, he did not love her, — not owing to satiety or distaste, but rather because she did not correspond to certain ideas, true or false, which he had formed concerning love and beauty. An ideal cloud interposed between him and her, and prevented him from being as happy as otherwise he must have been. Evidently his dream was not fufilled, and he sighed for something else. But he did not seek for it, and remained faithful to the bonds which weighed on him; for he has more delicacy and honor in his soul than most men, and his heart is very far from being as corrupted as his mind. Not knowing that Rosette had never been in love except with me, and that she was so still, in spite of all her intrigues and follies, he had a dread of distressing her by letting her see that he did not love her. It was this consideration that restrained him, and he was sacrificing himself in the most generous way.
“The character of my features gave him extraordinary pleasure, for he attaches extreme importance to external form; so much so that he fell in lore with me in spite of my male attire and the formidable rapier which I wear at my side. I confess that I was grateful to him for the acuteness of his instinct, and that I held him in some esteem for having distinguished me beneath these delusive appearances. At the beginning he believed himself endowed with a fancy far more depraved than it really was, and I laughed inwardly to see him torment himself in this way. Sometimes, when accosting me, he had a frightened look which amused me immensely, and the very natural inclination which drew him towards me appeared to him as a diabolical impulse which could not be too strongly resisted. On such occasions he would fall back furiously upon Rosette, and endeavor to recover more orthodox habits of love; then he would come back to me, of course more inflamed than before.
“Then the luminous idea that I might perhaps be a woman crept into his mind. To convince himself of this he set himself to observe and study me with the minutest attention; he must be acquainted with every particular hair, and know accurately how many eyelashes I have on my lids; feet, hands, neck, cheeks, the slightest down at the corner of my lips, he examined, compared, and analyzed them all, and from this investigation, in which the artist aided the lover, it came out as clear as day (when it is clear), that I was well and duly a woman, and, moreover, his ideal, the type of his beauty, the reality of his dream;-a wonderful discovery!
“It only remained to soften me, and obtain the gift of amorous mercy, to completely establish my sex. A comedy which we acted, and in which I appeared as a woman, quite decided him. I gave him some equivocal glances, and made use of some passages in my part, analogous to our own situation, to embolden him and impel him to declare himself. For, if I did not passionately love him, he pleased me well enough not to let him pine away with love; and, as he was the first since my transformation to suspect that I was a woman, it was quite fair that I should enlighten him on this important point, and I was resolved not to leave him a shadow of doubt.
“Several times he came into my room with his declaration on his lips, but he dared not utter it; for, indeed, it is difficult to speak of love to one who is dressed like yourself, and is trying on riding boots. At last, unable to take it upon himself to do this, he wrote me a long, very Pindaric letter, in which he explained to me at great length what I knew better than he did.
“I do not quite know what I ought to do. Admit his request or reject it, — the latter would be immoderately virtuous; besides, his grief at finding himself refused would be too great: if we make people who love us unhappy, what are we to do to those who hate us? Perhaps it would be more strictly becoming to be cruel for a time, and wait at least a month before unhooking the tigress's skin to dress after the human fashion in a chemise. But, since I have resolved to yield to him, immediately is as good as later; I do not well understand those mathematically graduated resistances which surrender one hand to-day, the other to-morrow, then the waist and the neck, and next submit the lips to a lover's kisses; nor those intractable virtues which are always ready to hang themselves to the bell-rope if you pass by a hair's-breadth beyond the territory which they have resolved to grant on that day. It makes me laugh to see those methodical Lucretias walking backwards with the tokens of the most maidenly terror, and from time to time casting a furtive glance over their shoulder to make sure that the sofa on which they are to faint is quite directly behind them. I could never be as careful as that.
“I do not love D'Albert, at least in the sense which I give to the word, but I have certainly a liking and an inclination for him; his mind pleases me and his person does not repel me: there are not many people of whom I can say as much. He has not everything, but he has something; what pleases me in him is that he does not seek to satiate himself brutally like other men; he has a perpetual aspiration and an ever sustained breathing after beauty, — after material beauty alone, it is true, but still it is a noble inclination, and one which is sufficient to keep him in pure regions. His conduct towards Rosette proves honesty of heart, an honesty rarer than the other, if that be possible.
“And then, if I must tell you, I am possessed with the most violent desires, — I am languishing and dying of voluptuousness; for the dress I wear, while involving me in all sorts of adventures with women, protects me only too perfectly against the enterprises of men; an idea of pleasure which is never realized floats vaguely through my head, and this dull, colorless dream wearies and annoys me. So many women placed amid the chastest surroundings lead the most immoral lives, while I, by a somewhat facetious contrast, remain chaste and virgin like cold Diana herself, in the midst of the most disordered dissipation and surrounded by the greatest debauchees of the century.
“This bodily ignorance unaccompanied by ignorance of the mind is the most miserable thing in existence. That my flesh may have no cause to assume airs over my soul, I am anxious to know a man completely and all that his lore is capable of. Since D'Albert has recognized me beneath my disguise, it is quite fair that he should be rewarded for his penetration; he was the first to divine that I was a woman, and I shall prove to him to the best of my ability that his suspicions were well founded. I would be scarcely charitable to let him believe that his fancy was solely a monstrous one.
“D'Albert, it is, then, who will solve my doubts and give me my first lesson in love; the only question now is to bring the matter about in quite a poetical fashion. I am inclined not to reply to his letter and to look coldly on him for a few days. When I see him very sad and despairing, inveighing against the gods, shaking his fist at creation and, looking down the wells to see whether they are not too deep to throw himself into them, — I shall retire like Peau d'Ane to the end of the corridor, and put on my light-blue dress, that is to say my costume as Rosalind; for my feminine wardrobe is very limited. Then I shall go to him as radiant as a peacock displaying its feathers, with but a very low and loose lace tucker, partially unveiling those attractions which I usually conceal with the greatest care, and shall say to him in the most pathetic tone that I can assume:
“'O most elegiac and perspicacious young man! I am truly a young and modest beauty, one who adores you into the bargain, and humbly asks to share your pleasures with you. Tell me whether this suits you, or if you feel any scruples in according her what she wishes.
“This fine discourse ended, I shall let myself fall half-swooning into his arms, and, heaving melancholy sighs, shall skilfully cause the hook of my dress to come undone so that I shall still further disclose certain of my charms. The rest I shall leave to chance, and I hope that on the following morning I shall know what to think of all those fine things which have been troubling my brain for so long. While satisfying my curiosity, I shall have the farther pleasure of making some one happy.
“I also propose to go and pay a visit to Rosette in the same costume, and to show her that, if I have not responded to her love, it was not from coldness or distaste. I do not wish her to preserve such a bad opinion of me, and she deserves, equally with D'Albert, that I should betray my incognito in her favor. How will she look at this revelation? Her pride will be consoled by it, but her love will lament it.
“Good-bye, most fair and good one; pray to heaven that I may not think as little of the pleasure as I do of those who afford it. I have jested throughout this letter, and yet what I am going to essay is a serious matter and something which may affect the rest of my life.”
