herself to be led; to see her
one would think that she would tire her partner, but such was not the
case, for she moved as if by enchantment.

On her bosom rested an enormous bouquet, the perfume of which intoxicated
me. She yielded to my encircling arms as would an Indian vine, with a
gentleness so sweet and so sympathetic that I seemed enveloped with a
perfumed veil of silk. At each turn there could be heard a light tinkling
from her metal girdle; she moved so gracefully that I thought I beheld a
beautiful star, and her smile was that of a fairy about to vanish from
human sight. The tender and voluptuous music of the dance seemed to come
from her lips, while her head, covered with a wilderness of black
tresses, bent backward as if her neck was too slender to support its
weight.

When the waltz was over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly:
"Oh, heaven!" I murmured, "how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster!
Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweet
adder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taught
thee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the apple of
temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! The hearts of men are thine. You know
it well, enchantress, with your soft languor that seems to suspect
nothing! You know very well that you ruin, that you destroy; you know
that he who touches you will suffer; you know that he dies who basks in
your smile, who breathes the perfume of your flowers and comes under the
magic influence of your charms; that is why you abandon yourself so
freely, that is why your smile is so sweet, your flowers so fresh; that
is why you place your arms so gently on our shoulders. Oh, heaven! what
is your will with us?"

Professor Halle has said a terrible thing: "Woman is the nervous part of
humanity, man the muscular." Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, has
said that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves.

I do not quote the dreamers who watch the wheeling flight of
Spallanzani's bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense in nature.
Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powers mighty
enough--that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us--without
our seeking to deepen the shadows that surround us. But where is the man
who thinks he has lived that will deny woman's power over us? Has he ever
taken leave of a beautiful dancer with trembling hands? Has he ever felt
that in