as he said:

"Sometimes, on reading certain passages in your letters, I used to fear
that you might be opposed to my intentions...."

I began to laugh:

"Yes, you will have read fine views concerning independence; and a
tirade against the women who surrender too easily; and any number of
things more or less contrary to your hopes. But do you not agree with me
that our principles are at their soundest when they are least rigid and
that our noblest convictions are those of which we see both sides at
once? Woman even more than man must not be afraid of handling her
morality a little roughly when occasion demands it, just as she
sometimes ruffles her laces for the pleasure of the eyes, easily and
naturally and without attaching too much importance to the matter."

3

He listens to my words as I listen to his, with surprised delight. We
feel as if we were playing with the same thought, for it flashes from
one life to the other without undergoing any alteration.

In point of fact, the human beings whom we see for the first time are
not always new to us. True, we have never seen each other before, but
our sympathies, our enthusiasms, inasmuch as they are common to both of
us, have met more than once; and, now that we are talking, the form of
our thoughts also corresponds, for, without intending it, we often look
at the most abstract things objectively, because he is a painter and I a
woman.

Oh, I know no more exquisite surprises than those chance meetings which
suddenly bring you a friend at a turning in life's road! It is like a
charming landscape which one has seen in a dream and which one now finds
in reality, without even having hoped for it. You speak, laugh,
recognise each other and above all you are astonished and go on being
astonished, adorably and shamelessly, like children.

What we had to say was all interwoven, as though we were both drawing on
the same memories. We were speaking of those friends of a day whom
accident sometimes gives us and whom the very briefness of the emotion
impresses deeply on our heart. They are there for ever, in a few clear,
sharp strokes, like sketches:

"For instance, you go on a matter of business to see somebody whom you
don't know. You chafe with annoyance as you cross the threshold. In
spite of the material duty which you are performing, you consider that
it is so much time wasted. Then, for some unknown reason, the atmosphere
seems kindly. You find familiar things in