isite taste. The master in this respect had gone beyond all the
ordinary refinement of luxury, in the hope of reanimating, by the
influence of voluptuous imagery, a physical nature that was dead. Not
knowing what to say, I took refuge in expressions of admiration. The
goddess of the temple, who was quite ready to do the honors, accepted
my compliments.

"You have not seen anything," she said. "I must take you to the
apartments of my husband."

"Madame, five years ago I caused them to be pulled down."

"Oh! Indeed!" said she.

At the dinner, what must she do but offer the master some fish, on
which he said to her:

"Madame, I have been living on milk for the last three years."

"Oh! Indeed!" she said again.

Can any one imagine three human beings as astonished as we were to
find ourselves gathered together? The husband looked at me with a
supercilious air, and I paid him back with a look of audacity.

Madame de T----- smiled at me and was charming to me; Monsieur de
T----- accepted me as a necessary evil. Never in all my life have I
taken part in a dinner which was so odd as that. The dinner ended, I
thought that we would go to bed early--that is, I thought that
Monsieur de T----- would. As we entered the drawing-room:

"I appreciate, madame," said he, "your precaution in bringing this
gentleman with you. You judged rightly that I should be but poor
company for the evening, and you have done well, for I am going to
retire."

Then turning to me, he added in a tone of profound sarcasm:

"You will please to pardon me, and obtain also pardon from madame."

He left us. My reflections? Well, the reflections of a twelvemonth
were then comprised in those of a minute. When we were left alone,
Madame de T----- and I, we looked at each other so curiously that, in
order to break through the awkwardness, she proposed that we should
take a turn on the terrace while we waited, as she said, until the
servants had supped.

It was a superb night. It was scarcely possible to discern surrounding
objects, they seemed to be covered with a veil, that imagination might
be permitted to take a loftier flight. The gardens, terraced on the
side of a mountain, sloped down, platform after platform, to the banks
of the Seine, and the eye took in the many windings of the stream
covered with islets green and picturesque. These variations in the
landscape made up a thousand pictures which gave to the spot,
naturally charming, a thousand