his
homage to her.

"She gives me a stolen glance, amid her court, a look that exposes the
unreality of all this; that resigns for me the world and all men in
it! Truly I have scorned myself for a passion for a few yards of lace,
velvet, and fine lawn, and the hairdresser's feats of skill; a love of
wax-lights, a carriage and a title, a heraldic coronet painted on window
panes, or engraved by a jeweler; in short, a liking for all that is
adventitious and least woman in woman. I have scorned and reasoned with
myself, but all in vain.

"A woman of rank with her subtle smile, her high-born air, and
self-esteem captivates me. The barriers she erects between herself and
the world awaken my vanity, a good half of love. There would be more
relish for me in bliss that all others envied. If my mistress does
nothing that other women do, and neither lives nor conducts herself like
them, wears a cloak that they cannot attain, breathes a perfume of her
own, then she seems to rise far above me. The further she rises from
earth, even in the earthlier aspects of love, the fairer she becomes for
me.

"Luckily for me we have had no queen in France these twenty years, for I
should have fallen in love with her. A woman must be wealthy to
acquire the manners of a princess. What place had Pauline among these
far-fetched imaginings? Could she bring me the love that is death, that
brings every faculty into play, the nights that are paid for by life? We
hardly die, I think, for an insignificant girl who gives herself to us;
and I could never extinguish these feelings and poet's dreams within
me. I was born for an inaccessible love, and fortune has overtopped my
desire.

"How often have I set satin shoes on Pauline's tiny feet, confined her
form, slender as a young poplar, in a robe of gauze, and thrown a loose
scarf about her as I saw her tread the carpets in her mansion and led
her out to her splendid carriage! In such guise I should have adored
her. I endowed her with all the pride she lacked, stripped her of her
virtues, her natural simple charm, and frank smile, in order to plunge
her heart in our Styx of depravity that makes invulnerable, load her
with our crimes, make of her the fantastical doll of our drawing-rooms,
the frail being who lies about in the morning and comes to life again
at night with the dawn of tapers. Pauline was fresh-hearted and
affectionate--I would have had her cold and formal.

"In the last days of my franti