o see you and the dread
of touching a dream lest it perish. Ah, yes, you spoke truly.
Miserable, miserable wretches that we are, our timorous souls
are so afraid of any reality that they dare not think a sympathy
which has taken possession of them capable of surviving an
interview with the person who gave it birth. Yet, in spite of
this fine casuistry, I simply must confess to you--no, no,
nothing. Guess if you can, and forgive me for this banal
letter. Or rather, read between the lines, and perhaps you will
find there a little bit of my heart and a great deal of what I
leave unsaid.

"'A foolish letter with "I" written all over it. Who would
suspect that while I wrote it my sole thought was of You?'"

"So far, so good. This woman at least piqued my curiosity. And what
peculiar ink," he thought. It was myrtle green, very thin, very pale.
With his finger-nail he detached some of the fine dust of rice powder,
perfumed with heliotrope, clinging to the seal of the letters.

"She must be blonde," he went on, examining the tint of the powder, "for
it isn't the 'Rachel' shade that brunettes use. Now up to that point
everything had been going nicely, but then and there I spoiled it. Moved
by I know not what folly, I wrote her a yet more roundabout letter,
which, however, was very pressing. In attempting to fan her flame I
kindled myself--for a spectre--and at once I received this:

"'What shall I do? I neither wish to see you, nor can I consent
to annihilate my overwhelming desire to meet you. Last night, in
spite of me, your name, which was burning me, sprang from my
lips. My husband, one of your admirers, it seems, appeared to be
somewhat humiliated by the preoccupation which, indeed, was
absorbing me and causing unbearable shivers to run all through
me. A common friend of yours and mine--for why should I not tell
you that you know me, if to have met socially is to "know"
anyone?--one of your friends, then, came up and said that
frankly he was very much taken with you. I was in a state of
such utter lack of self-control that I don't know what I should
have done had it not been for the unwitting assistance which
somebody gave me by pronouncing the name of a grotesque person
of whom I can never think without laughing. Adieu. You are
right. I tell myself that I will never write you again, and I go
and do it anyway