“And withal you loved that Savoyard she-monkey, you who have a white skin and distinguished manners!”
“I cannot understand it myself, Catherine. It must have been that at that moment my imagination was full of you. And it was your image only gave me the pluck and strength you reproach me with to-day. Imagine yourself, Catherine, my rapture to press you in my arms, yourself or only a girl who resembled you a little. Because I loved you desperately.”
She took my hand and sighed, and in a tone of sadness I continued to say:
“Yes, I did love you, Catherine, and I could still love you except for that disgusting monk.”
She cried out:
“What a suspicion! You offend me. It is a folly.”
“Then you do not love the Capuchin?”
“Fie!”
As I did not consider it to be any use to press the subject further, I took her round the waist, we embraced, our lips met and all my being seemed to melt in voluptuousness.
After a short moment of luxurious confusion, she disentangled herself, her cheeks rosy, her eyes moistened, her lips half separated. It is from that day that I knew how much a woman is embellished and adorned by a kiss lovingly pressed on her mouth. Mine had made roses of the sweetest hue bloom on Catherine’s cheeks and strewn into the flowery blue of her eyes drops of diamantine dew.