lmost
call fanaticism--would be to her an infallible preservative?

So much for her. But it is not, I see, for her tranquillity, it is mine
for which your friendship is concerned; if Pygmalion had not succeeded
in giving life to his statue, a pretty life his love would have made
him!

To your charitable solicitude I must answer, (1) by asserting my
principles (though the word and the thing are utterly out of date); (2)
by a certain stupid respect that I feel for conjugal loyalty; (3) by the
natural preoccupation which the serious public enterprise I am about to
undertake must necessarily give to my mind and imagination. I must also
tell you that I belong, if not by spiritual height, at least by all the
tendencies of my mind and character, to that strong and serious school
of artists of another age who, finding that art is long and life is
short--_ars longa et vita brevis_--did not commit the mistake of wasting
their time and lessening their powers of creation by silly and insipid
intrigues.

But I have a better reason still to offer you. As Monsieur de l'Estorade
has told you of the really romantic incidents of my first meeting with
his wife, you know already that a _memory_ was the cause of my studying
her as a model. Well, that memory, while it attracted me to the
beautiful countess, is the strongest of all reasons to keep me from
her. This appears to you, I am sure, sufficiently enigmatical and
far-fetched; but wait till I explain it.

If you had not thought proper to break the thread of our intercourse, I
should not to-day be obliged to take up the arrears of our confidence;
as it is, my dear boy, you must now take your part in my past history
and listen to me bravely.

In 1835, the last year of my stay in Rome, I became quite intimate with
a comrade in the Academy named Desroziers. He was a musician and a man
of distinguished and very observing mind, who would probably have gone
far in his art if malarial fever had not put an end to him the following
year. Suddenly the idea took possession of us to go to Sicily, one of
the excursions permitted by the rules of the school; but as we were
radically "dry," as they say, we walked about Rome for some time
endeavoring to find some means of recruiting our finances. On one of
these occasions we happened to pass before the Palazzo Braschi. Its
wide-open doors gave access to the passing and repassing of a crowd of
persons of all sorts.

"_Parbleu_!" exclaimed Desrozie