I have seen
many men hasten to give themselves to the woman they love, but I have
always done the contrary, not through calculation, but through natural
instinct. The woman who loves a little and resists does not love enough,
and she who loves enough and resists knows that she is not sincerely
loved.
Madame Pierson gave evidence of more confidence in me, confessing that
she loved me when she had never shown it in her actions. The respect I
felt for her inspired me with such joy that her face looked to me like a
blossomed flower. At times, she would abandon herself to an impulse of
sudden gaiety and then suddenly check herself, treating me like a child,
and then looking at me with eyes filled with tears; indulging in a
thousand pleasantries, as a pretext for a more familiar word or caress,
then quitting me to go aside and abandon herself to reverie. Is there a
more beautiful sight? When she returned she would find me waiting for her
in some spot where I had remained watching her.
"Oh! my friend!" I said. "Heaven itself rejoices to see how you are
loved."
Yet I could neither conceal the violence of my desires, nor the pain I
endured struggling against them. One evening, I told her that I had just
learned of the loss of an important case, which would involve a
considerable change in my affairs.
"How is it," she asked, "that you make this announcement and smile at the
same time?"
"There is a certain maxim of a Persian poet," I replied, "'He who is
loved by a beautiful woman is sheltered from every blow.
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