That’s not all. I have such a high and subtle idea of harmony that nothing can ever realise my ideal. You will call me mad! Listen. A woman, in my opinion, may have an exquisite soul and a delightful body, and still the body and soul may not be in perfect tune.
What I mean is that people whose noses are a certain shape have no right to think in a certain way. The fat have no right to use the same words and phrases as the thin. You, Madame, with your blue eyes, cannot look at life, and judge of things and events as if they were black. The colour of your eyes must inevitably correspond with the colour of your thoughts. I have the scent of a hound for this sort of thing. You may laugh, but it’s true.
And yet, once, for an hour, for a day, I thought I was in love. Foolishly I had submitted to the influence of propinquity, I allowed myself to be beguiled by the hallucination of a dawn. Shall I tell you about it?
One evening I met a pretty little woman, very emotional, who, driven by a caprice, wanted to spend a night with me in a boat on the river. I would have preferred a room and a bed; however, I consented to the river and the boat.
It was in June. My friend chose a moonlight night so that she might work herself up thoroughly. We had dined at a riverside inn and started off at about ten o’clock. I thought it rather a stupid thing to do, but did not worry much, since my companion was very attractive. I sat down, seized the oars, and off we went. The scene was certainly picturesque. We glided past a wooded isle full of nightingales, the current carrying us swiftly over the water covered with rippling silver. The toads uttered thin clear and monotonous cries; the frogs croaked in the grass by the river’s bank, and the lapping of the water made a confused, muffled murmur, very disquieting and producing a vague sensation of mysterious dread upon us.
Our spirits were stirred by the sweet charm of the warm night and of the river glittering in the moonlight. It was good to be alive, to float idly on the water, to dream and to feel a young loving woman was by my side.
I was slightly agitated, slightly troubled, slightly intoxicated, by the pale brightness of the night and the presence of my companion.
“Come and sit beside me,” she said. I obeyed and she continued: “Recite some poetry to me.”
I did think that was too much of a joke: I refused: she insisted. She was determined to have a full dress performance, with the whole gamut of sentiment, ranging from the moon to the rhymed couplet. In the end I had to yield and mockingly recited a charming little poem by Louis Bouilhet of which the following are the last stanzas:
Je déteste surtout ce barde à l’oeil humide
Qui regarde une étoile en murmurant un nom
Et pour qui la nature immense serait vide
S’il ne portait en croupe ou Lisette ou Ninon
Ces gens-là sont charmants qui se donnent la peine
Afin qu’on s’interésse à ce pauvre univers,
D’attacher des jupons aux arbres de la plaine
Et la cornette blanche au front des coteaux verts
Certe ils n’ont pas compris les musiques divines,
Eternelle nature aux frémissantes voix,
Ceux qui ne vont pas seuls par les creuses ravines
Et rêvent d’une femme au bruit que font les bois.14
I expected to be reproached: nothing of the sort. She murmured: “How true.” I was astonished: could she have understood!
Our boat had gradually reached the bank and become entangled with a willow which stopped it dead. I put my arm round my companion’s waist and very gently approached my lips to her neck. But I was repulsed with an abrupt, angry movement. “That’s enough! How crude you are.” I tried to draw her to me. She resisted, caught hold of the tree, and nearly flung us both into the water. I thought it prudent to give up the pursuit. She said: “I would rather give you a ducking. I am so happy! I am in a dream. It is so delightful.” And she added with a touch of malice: “Have you already forgotten the lines you have just been reciting?”
She was right. I held my tongue.
She continued: “Now then, row,” and I seized the oars again.
I was beginning to find the night very long and my position ridiculous.
My companion said: “Will you promise me something?”
“Yes, what?”
“To keep quite quiet, to behave yourself properly, and to be discreet if I allow you …”
“What? Tell me.”
“This. I want to lie flat on my back in the bottom of the boat, by your side, and look at the stars.”
I said quickly: “I am all for that.”
She exclaimed: “You don’t understand. We are going to lie side by side, but I forbid you to touch me, to kiss me, or to fondle me.”
I promised. She added:
“If you move, I’ll capsize the boat.”
We lay down side by side, our eyes turned toward the sky while the boat floated along. We were rocked by the gentle motion of the water, and the faint sounds peculiar to night that could be heard more distinctly lying in the bottom of the boat, sometimes made us start. I felt a strange and poignant emotion welling up within me, an infinite gentleness like an irresistible impulse stretch out my arms in an embrace, to take someone to my heart, to give myself, my thoughts, my body, my life, my whole being to someone.
My companion murmured as if in a dream: “Where are we? Where are we going? I feel that I am in heaven. How beautiful!
