' Before this last ray of light I might
have believed something--might have taken a woman's word. I left the
shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned I
was as atheistical as a mathematician.
"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were
very beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their
sweetest flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a
moment when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-
room and there are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness,
and when we are most in love, love is so well aware of its own short
duration that we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me? Will
you love me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery,
so full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the
enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man
in the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her
of all her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was
indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had
been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew
that secret; in short, I was her god!"
The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43