uiringly on me. The sudden cooling of my
passion had perhaps left some marks upon me. The stranger believed,
perhaps, that I was an unlucky and desperate player. A player I had
indeed been. I had been about to stake my happiness on a beautiful
form. But I had won the game.

"The wine soon cheered me up and I entered into conversation with the
stranger. We spoke of various things, and finally of the race. As there
was a friendly, confiding expression in the old man's countenance, I
related to him the unhappy fall of the rider, and dwelt sharply on the
impression the hideous spectacle made on Isabella. I told him that such
a degree of callousness and insensibility was new to me, and that this
sad experience had shocked me greatly.

"'This comes,' said he, 'from permitting yourself to be deceived by
appearances, and because you do not know certain classes of society. If
you consider the beautiful Isabella with sensual eyes, you will run
great danger of taking appearances for truth--the false for the real.
Even the plainest exterior is often only sham. Painted cheeks, colored
eyebrows, false hair, false teeth; and even if these forms were not
false, but true--if you penetrate these forms, if, under the constraint
of graceful repose, we see modesty, purity, and even humility--there is
then still greater danger of deception. A wearied, enervated nature,
nerves blunted by the enjoyment of all kinds of pleasures, are
frequently all that remains of womanly nature.

"'Do you wish to see striking examples of this? Go into the gaming
saloons--into, those horrible places where fearful and consuming
passions seethe; where desperation and suicide lurk. Go into the
corrupt, poisonous atmosphere of those gambling hells, and there you
will find women every day and every hour. Whence this disgusting sight?
The violent excitement of gambling alone can afford sufficient
attraction for those who have been sated with all kinds of pleasures.
Is a criminal to be executed? I give you my word of honor that women
give thousands of francs to obtain the best place, where they can
contemplate more conveniently the shocking spectacle and read every
expression in the distorted features of the struggling malefactor.

"'Isabella was one of these exhausted, enervated creatures, and hence
her pleasure at the sight of the mangled rider.'

"Thus spoke the stranger, and I admitted that he was right. At the same
time I tried to penetrate deeper into this