Child of a Century, Complete

ting, nothing was lacking. Desgenais was rich and generous. He combined an antique hospitality with modern ways. Moreover on

reply to his questions and he dropped the subject; he was satisfied that I had forgotten my mistres

it is." I have heard, for example, a curious thing spoken of, a medium between good and evil, a certain arrangement between heartless women and men worthy of them-apparently love, but in reality a passing sentiment. They speak of love as of an engine constructed by a wag

tion and that she will not be deceived by it. I have never bent my knee to the ground when my heart did not go with it. So that class of w

in this, I confess, but I do not intend either to boast or abase myself. Above all things I hate those women

women are not. I remember a woman who loved me, and who said to a man many times richer than I, with whom she was livin

that my mistress had left France; that news left in m

kind of bizarre curiosity, at once sad and profound, which made me look timorously at thi

told him that I considered her admirable, as much on account of her attachment for him as because of her b

had retired, and I had been in bed some fifteen minutes I heard a knock at my door. I

rying a bouquet in her hands, to which was attached a piece of p

ction of Desgenais in making me this African gift. It made me think. The poor woman was weeping and d

are beautiful and I am susceptible to temptation, but you weep, and your tears not being shed for me,

pendent of the will, and seizes me like a fit of passion. It comes to me at intervals in its own good time, regardless of my will and

man had lef

enais had not seen fit to send you his mistress he would not have been

ts nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man, who would cure you, can think of nothing

s admired her, but they ran no risk. She might employ a

knows no care or ennui, perhaps, and yet it is clear that a scratch on the finger would fill him with terror, for if his body abandons him, what become

loves him. Some one touches him on the shoulder and says to him: 'She is unfaithful.' Nothing more, he is sure of himself. If some one had said: 'She is a poisoner,' he would

ed, positive, withering, at will. But why? It is

wine and says to you: 'Do not love that, for you can

shion of loving? No, he has not; his fashion of loving is not love, and he cares no more for

not a man. Is he a dwarf or a giant? Is he always so impassive? Upon what does he feed, what be

on earth which has not considered woman either the companion and consolation of man or the sacred instrument of life, and has not under either of these two forms honored her. And yet here is an armed warrior who leaps into the abyss that God has d

at the angels of destruction whisper in the ear of night as it descends upon the earth. That man is better or worse than God has made him.

you are too young for antiquities. Look about you, the pale throng of men surrounds you. The eyes of life's sphynx glitter in the midst of divine hieroglyp