ces began.

On the day in question, these old fellows, for they were old by this
time, and the older they got the more extraordinary _good fortune_ in
the way of love affairs they had to relate, were quite inexhaustible.
For the last month, to hear them, each of them had played the gallant
with at least one woman a day; and what women! the youngest, the
noblest, the richest, and the most beautiful!

After they had finished their tales, one of them, he who having spoken
first had been obliged to listen to all the others, rose and said:

"Now that we have finished drawing the long-bow, I should like to tell
you, not my last, but my first adventure,--I mean the first adventure
of my life, my first fall,--for it is a moral fall after all, in the
arms of Venus. Oh! I am not going to tell you my first--what shall I
call it?--my first appearance; certainly not. The leap over the first
hedge (I am speaking figuratively) has nothing interesting about it. It
is generally rather a disagreeable one, and one picks oneself up rather
abashed, with one charming illusion the less, with a vague feeling of
disappointment and sadness. That _realization_ of love the first time
one experiences it is rather repugnant; we had dreamt of it as being so
different, so delicate, so refined. It leaves a physical and moral sense
of disgust behind it, just like as when one has happened to have put
one's hand into some clammy matter and feels in a hurry to _wash_ it
off. You may _rub_ it as hard as you like, but the moral feeling
remains.

"Yes! but one very soon gets quite used to it; there is no doubt about
that. For my part, however, I am very sorry it was not in my power to
give the Creator the benefit of my advice when He was arranging these
little matters. I wonder what _I_ should have done? I am not quite sure,
but I think with the English savant, John Stuart Mill, I should have
managed differently; I should have found some more convenient and more
poetical combination; yes--more poetical.

"I really think that the Creator showed Himself to be too much of a
naturalist ... too ... what shall I say? His invention lacks poetry.

"However, what I am going to tell you is about my first woman of the
world, the first woman in society I ever made love to;--I beg your
pardon, I ought to say the first woman of the world that ever triumphed
over me. For at first it is _we_ who allow ourselves to be taken, while,
later on--well, then it is quite anoth