y eyes; this great dead city has recovered its spirit of life; the
sun once more smiles upon me; the earth bounds under my feet; the soft
summer air fans my burning brow, and whispers into my ear that one
adored name--Irene!

Chance has a treasure-house of atrocious combinations. Chance! The
cunning demon! He calls himself Chance so as to better deceive us. With
an infernal skilfulness he feigns not to watch us in the decisive
moments of our lives, and at the same time leads us like blind fools
into the very path he has marked out for us.

You know the two brothers Ernest and George de S. were planted by their
family in the field of diplomacy: they study Eastern languages and
affect Eastern manners. Well, yesterday we met in the Bois de Boulogne,
they in a calash, and I on horseback--I am trying riding as a moral
hygiene--as the carriage dashed by they called out to me an invitation
to dinner; I replied, "Yes," without stopping my horse. Idleness and
indolence made me say "Yes," when I should have said, "No;" but _Yes_ is
so much easier to pronounce than _No_, especially on horseback. _No_
necessitates a discussion; _Yes_ ends the matter, and economizes words
and time.

I was rather glad I had met these young sprigs of diplomacy. They are
good antidotes for low spirits, for they are always in a hilarious state
and enjoy their youth in idle pleasure, knowing they are destined to
grow old in the soporific dulness of an Eastern court.

I thought we three would be alone at dinner; alas! there were five of
us.

Two female artistes who revelled in their precocious emancipation; two
divinities worshipped in the temple of the grand sculptors of modern
Athens; the Scylla and Charybdis of Paris.

I am in the habit of bowing with the same apparent respect to every
woman in the universe. I have bowed to the ebony women of Senegal; to
the moon-colored women of the Southern Archipelago; to the snow-white
women of Behring's Strait, and to the bronze women of Lahore and Ceylon.
Now it was impossible for me to withdraw from the presence of two fair
women whose portraits are the admiration of all connoisseurs who visit
the Louvre. Besides, I have a theory: the less respectable a woman is,
the more respect we should show her, and thus endeavor to bring her back
to virtue.

I remained and tried to add my fifth share of antique gayety to the
feast. We were Praxiteles, Phidias and Scopas; we had inaugurated the
modest Venus and her