nce, who cooks only one dish, but a marvellous one at that,
the Castelnaudary _cassoulet_, not to be confused with the _cassoulet_
prepared in the Carcassonne fashion, which is merely a leg of mutton
with haricot beans. The _cassoulet_ of Castelnaudary comprises pickled
goose legs, haricot beans that have been previously bleached, bacon, and
a small sausage. To be good, it must be cooked for a long time over a
slow fire. Clemence's _cassoulet_ has been cooking for twenty years.
From time to time she puts in the saucepan, now a little bit of goose or
bacon, now a sausage or some haricots, but it is always the same
_cassoulet_. The stock remains, and this ancient and precious stock
gives it the flavour which, in the pictures of the old Venetian masters,
one finds in the amber-coloured flesh of the women. Come, I want you to
taste Clemence's _cassoulet_."

CHAPTER XI

Having said her prayer, Nanteuil, without waiting to hear Pradel's
speech, jumped into a carriage in order to join Robert de Ligny, who was
waiting for her in front of the Montparnasse railway station. Amid the
throng of passers-by they shook hands, gazing at one another without a
word. More than ever did they feel that they were bound together. Robert
loved her.

He loved her without knowing it. She was for him, or so he believed,
merely one delight in the infinite series of possible delights. But
delight had assumed for him the form of Felicie, and, had he reflected
more deeply upon the innumerable women whom he promised himself in the
vast remainder of his newly begun life, he would have recognized that
now they were all Felicies. He might at least have realized that,
without having any intention of being faithful to her, he did not dream
of being unfaithful, and that since she had given herself to him he had
not desired any other woman. But he did not realize it.

On this occasion, however, standing in the bustling commonplace square,
on seeing her no longer in the voluptuous shadow of night, nor under the
caressing glimmer of the alcove which gave her naked form the delicious
vagueness of a Milky Way, but in a harsh, diffused daylight, by the
circumstantial illumination of a sunlight devoid of splendour and
without shadows, which revealed beneath her veil her eyelids that were
seared with tears, her pearly cheeks and roughened lips, he realized
that he felt for this woman's flesh a profound and mysterious
inclination.

He did not question h