divorce, and obtained it.

MAD[10]

[Footnote 10: This manuscript was found among the papers of Viscount
Jacques de X---- who committed suicide a few years ago, in his room in
an hotel at Piombieres.--R.M.]

PART I

For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamt of that first kiss,
which was to consecrate our engagement, and I knew not on what spot I
should put my lips, that were madly thirsting for her beauty and her
youth. Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor
on her light hair, which mercenary hands had dressed, nor on her eyes,
whose turned up lashes looked like little wings, because that would have
made me think of the farewell caress which closes the eyelids of some
dead woman whom one has adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not,
which I must not possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at
last belong to me altogether and for always, but on that delicious
little dimple which comes in one of her cheeks when she is happy, when
she smiles, and which excited me as much as her voice did with
languorous softness, on that evening when our flirtation began, at the
Souverette's.

Our parents had gone away, and were walking slowly under the chestnut
trees in the garden, and had left us alone together for a few minutes. I
went up to her and took both her hands into mine, which were trembling,
and gently drawing her close to me, I whispered:

"How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you!" and I kissed her almost
timidly, on the dimple. She trembled, as if from the pain of a burn,
blushed deeply and with an affectionate look, she said: "I love you
also, Jacques, and I am very happy!"

That embarrassment, that sudden emotion which revealed the perfect
spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive recoil of virginity, that
childlike innocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above
everything as a presage of happiness. It seemed to me as if I were
unworthy of her; I was almost ashamed of bringing her, and of putting
into her small, saint-like hands the remains of a damaged heart, that
had been polluted by debauchery, that miserable thing which had served
as a toy for unworthy mistresses, which was intoxicated with lies, and
felt as if it would die of bitterness and disgust....

PART II

How quickly she has become accustomed to me, how suddenly she has turned
into a woman and become metamorphosed; already she no longer is at all
like the artless girl, the sens