d, she said: "I see nothing that you have
done; not a statue, not one of those wax figures which are prized so
highly in England, not a figurine nor a plaque nor a medal."

"If you think I could find any pleasure in living among my works! I know
my figures too well--they weary me. Whatever is without secret lacks
charm." She looked at him with affected spite.

"You had not told me that one had lost all charm when one had no more
secrets."

He put his arm around her waist.

"Ah! The things that live are only too mysterious; and you remain for
me, my beloved, an enigma, the unknown sense of which contains the light
of life. Do not fear to give yourself to me. I shall desire you always,
but I never shall know you. Does one ever possess what one loves? Are
kisses, caresses, anything else than the effort of a delightful despair?
When I embrace you, I am still searching for you, and I never have you;
since I want you always, since in you I expect the impossible and the
infinite. What you are, the devil knows if I shall ever know! Because I
have modelled a few bad figures I am not a sculptor; I am rather a sort
of poet and philosopher who seeks for subjects of anxiety and torment
in nature. The sentiment of form is not sufficient for me. My colleagues
laugh at me because I have not their simplicity. They are right. And
that brute Choulette is right too, when he says we ought to live without
thinking and without desiring. Our friend the cobbler of Santa
Maria Novella, who knows nothing of what might make him unjust and
unfortunate, is a master of the art of living. I ought to love you
naively, without that sort of metaphysics which is passional and makes
me absurd and wicked. There is nothing good except to ignore and to
forget. Come, come, I have thought of you too cruelly in the tortures of
your absence; come, my beloved! I must forget you with you. It is with
you only that I can forget you and lose myself."

He took her in his arms and, lifting her veil, kissed her on the lips.

A little frightened in that vast, unknown hall, embarrassed by the look
of strange things, she drew the black tulle to her chin.

"Here! You can not think of it."

He said they were alone.

"Alone? And the man with terrible moustaches who opened the door?"

He smiled:

"That is Fusellier, my father's former servant. He and his wife take
charge of the house. Do not be afraid. They remain in their box. You
shall see Madame Fusellier; she i