exhaled an ungodly perfume, very faint, almost imperceptible, like a
faded, ghostly odour, yet which excited the nerves in a peculiar way, and
somewhat quickened the pulsation of the heart. These were the archives
of the history of his own heart. There lay in piles packages of letters,
methodically tied with coloured ribbons, withered flowers, whose leaves
fell from the corona if touched ever so lightly, faded bows, torn laces,
which still seemed to palpitate under the rude grasp of a hand rummaging
among them, paper German favours, from which the gloss and gilding had
peeled, other shapeless, disconnected bits of tinsel which were
incomprehensible unless one knew the memory associated with them, and
among the strange, motley chaos, the most personal mementoes: women's
hair smooth, curled, braided, long, and short, arranged by a true eye,
with scandalously cool composure, upon a pale lilac varnished board, in a
wonderful scale of colours, from the highest pitch, the fair locks of the
Englishwoman, resembling a delicate halo, through almost imperceptible
gradations to the deep, shining blue-black of the Sicilian, and portraits
in every form which fashion has devised during the last twenty-five
years, and from which the eternal feminine looked, lured, and smiled in a
hundred charming embodiments. A circle of spectres rose from these
drawers and whirled around him, stretching white arms toward him and
fixing upon him tearful or glowing eyes. All these cheeks had flushed
beneath his kisses, all these bosoms had been pressed to his own, all
these tresses his trembling fingers had smoothed, surely he might call
himself happier than most mortals, since so much of love's bliss had
filled all the hours of his existence.

Doubtless he did say this to himself after such revelling in the past,
but in his inmost heart he did not believe it. Don Juan does not peruse
the list of the thousand and three himself. He leaves it to Leporello
while he, without a glance at the older names, increases the succession.
The day when the cavalier begins to study his list, his wisest course
would be to burn it, for then it will no longer be a triumph, but a
humiliation.

Robert von Linden felt this, but he would not admit it. On the contrary,
he intentionally endeavoured to deceive himself. He who had been a Grand
Seigneur of love, became a snob of love. He sank to the level of the
irresistible travelling salesman who tells the tale of his