Besides, a
woman who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account,
aristocratically speaking."
"Ah! ah!"
"Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one
of those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep
down the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet,
to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this
nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful
when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this
was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her
face seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my
thoughts, of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why
this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, _et cetera_!'
Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my
dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is the most adorable
feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety
which the Romans call _fulva, flava_--the woman of fire.
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