usly.

After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances
about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one
salvation for her.

I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not
succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her
recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations,
of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of
disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my
hands convulsively and said:

"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!"

Then my love entered upon its final phase.

"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne,
bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to
yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's
dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure
one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!"

I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious
of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely
body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from
sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!--
oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to
it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position.
First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me.
But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude,
and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual,
like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being
united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something
else, too.

We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but
there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced
ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People
readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success
everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an
artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not
the slightest trace of talent.

She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her
coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster,
fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used
to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat
it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the
night she would eat apples and oranges.