ati. When the
artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that
she trembled from head to foot.

"'What is the matter? You would kill me,' he cried, seeing that she
turned pale, 'if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am,
even innocently, the cause.'

"'A snake!' she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the
edge of a ditch. 'I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.'

"Sarrasine crushed the snake's head with a blow of his foot.

"'How could you dare to do it?' said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead
reptile with visible terror.

"'Aha!' said the artist, with a smile, 'would you venture to say now
that you are not a woman?'

"They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa
Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning
passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded
with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the
daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her
sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries,
her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of
feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out
into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed
to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words,
'Those are brigands!' they all quickened their pace in order to reach
the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal's villa. At that critical
moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella's manner that she no longer
had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some
distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set
his mistress down.

"'Tell me,' he said, 'why it is that this extreme weakness which in
another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest
indication of it would be enough to destroy my love,--why is it that
in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!' he continued.
'All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable
charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong,
courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and
fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel's voice,
that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other
breast than thine.'

"'I can give you no hope,' she said. 'Cease to