These are the two related looks that I have named Sensuality and Tenderness, for these reasons: 

The former of these glances is addressed exclusively to the form of its object; it caresses the periphery of it, and, the better to appreciate its totality, moves away from it.  This is what occurs in the retroactive attitude of the head.

The other look, on the contrary, aims at the heart of things without pausing on the surface, disdaining all that is external.  It strives to penetrate the object to its very essence, as if to unite itself more closely within it; it has the expression of confidence, of faith—­in a word, the giving up of self.

Thus, when a man presses a woman’s hand, we may affirm one of three things from the attitude which his head assumes: 

1.  That he does not love her, if his head remains straight or simply bent in facing her.

2.  That he loves her tenderly, if he bows his head obliquely toward her.

3.  Finally, that he loves her sensually—­that is to say, solely for her physical qualities—­if, on looking at her, he moves his head toward the shoulder which is opposite her.

Such are, in brief, the three attitudes of the head and the eyes, which I have named colorless, affectional, sensual.

Henceforth I possessed completely the law of the inclinations of the head, a law which derives from its very complexity the fertility of its applications.

Episode V.

Semeiotics of The Shoulder.

When I found myself the possessor of this law whose triple formula is of a nature to defy every objection, I sought to appropriate to myself, before the mirror, all its applications.

But there arose yet another difficulty that I had not foreseen.

I, indeed, reproduced, and at the proper time, the movements of the head already described, but they remained awkward and lifeless.

What was the cause of this awkwardness and coldness of which I was well aware, but which I could not help?  I strove unceasingly to reproduce the examples that lived so vividly in my memory, but all these laborious reproductions, these efforts from memory, were futile.  The stubbornness of an indomitable will, however, led only to a negative result.  I was vexed at an awkwardness the reason of which I could not find.

One day, almost discouraged by the lack of success in my researches, I sorrowfully said to myself:  “What shall I do?  Alas! the more I labor, the less clearly I see; am I incapable of reproducing nature—­is the difficulty that holds me back invincible?”

As I uttered the preceding words, I noticed that, under the sway of the grief which dictated them, my shoulders were strangely lifted up, and, as then I found myself in the attitude which I had previously tried to render natural, the unexpected movement of my shoulders, joined to that attitude, suddenly impressed it with an expression of life so just, so true, so surprising, that I was overwhelmed.