on my feet, swollen by the new leather of my shoes as well as by the heat.  This disgusted me with the whole affair.  It was impossible to get away; but I took refuge in a corner of a room at the end of an empty bench, where I sat with fixed eyes, motionless and sullen.  Misled by my puny appearance, a woman—­taking me for a sleepy child—­slid softly into the place beside me, with the motion of a bird as she drops upon her nest.  Instantly I breathed the woman-atmosphere, which irradiated my soul as, in after days, oriental poesy has shone there.  I looked at my neighbor, and was more dazzled by that vision than I had been by the scene of the fete.

If you have understood this history of my early life you will guess the feelings which now welled up within me.  My eyes rested suddenly on white, rounded shoulders where I would fain have laid my head, —­shoulders faintly rosy, which seemed to blush as if uncovered for the first time; modest shoulders, that possessed a soul, and reflected light from their satin surface as from a silken texture.  These shoulders were parted by a line along which my eyes wandered.  I raised myself to see the bust and was spell-bound by the beauty of the bosom, chastely covered with gauze, where blue-veined globes of perfect outline were softly hidden in waves of lace.  The slightest details of the head were each and all enchantments which awakened infinite delights within me; the brilliancy of the hair laid smoothly above a neck as soft and velvety as a child’s, the white lines drawn by the comb where my imagination ran as along a dewy path,—­all these things put me, as it were, beside myself.  Glancing round to be sure that no one saw me, I threw myself upon those shoulders as a child upon the breast of its mother, kissing them as I laid my head there.  The woman uttered a piercing cry, which the noise of the music drowned; she turned, saw me, and exclaimed, “Monsieur!” Ah! had she said, “My little lad, what possesses you?” I might have killed her; but at the word “Monsieur!” hot tears fell from my eyes.  I was petrified by a glance of saintly anger, by a noble face crowned with a diadem of golden hair in harmony with the shoulders I adored.  The crimson of offended modesty glowed on her cheeks, though already it was appeased by the pardoning instinct of a woman who comprehends a frenzy which she inspires, and divines the infinite adoration of those repentant tears.  She moved away with the step and carriage of a queen.

I then felt the ridicule of my position; for the first time I realized that I was dressed like the monkey of a barrel organ.  I was ashamed.  There I stood, stupefied,—­tasting the fruit that I had stolen, conscious of the warmth upon my lips, repenting not, and following with my eyes the woman who had come down to me from heaven.  Sick with the first fever of the heart I wandered through the rooms, unable to find mine Unknown, until at last I went home to bed, another man.