I approached, brothers; I applied, without too much emotion, my right eye to the Mirror of Love. I perceived, between two huge red curtains, a woman leaning against the back of an arm-chair. She was brilliantly illuminated by lamps which I could not see, and stood out in relief against a piece of painted canvas, stretched across the end of the booth; this canvas, cut in places, must formerly have represented a fine grove of blue trees!
Brothers, I saw neither Marie nor Laurence. She who loved me, according to the magician's glass, wore, like a well-bred vision, a long white robe slightly fastened at the waist, flowing upon the floor like a cloud. She had across her forehead a wide veil, also white, held in place by a crown of hawthorn flowers. Thus clad, the dear angel was all whiteness, all innocence.
She leaned coquettishly against the back of the arm-chair, turning towards me large, caressing blue eyes. She seemed to me superb beneath the veil: she had flaxen tresses which were lost amid the muslin, a frank and pure forehead, delicate lips, dimples which were nests for kisses. At the first glance, brothers, I took her for a saint; at the second, I saw she had the air of a good girl and was not in the least conceited.
She lifted three fingers to her lips, and sent me a kiss, with a courtesy which did not in the least suggest the realm of shadows. Observing that she was not disposed to fly away, I fixed her features in my memory and retired from the mirror.
As I was quitting the booth, I saw my acquaintance, the friend of the people, enter. This grave moralist, who seemed to shun me, hastened to set the bad example of culpable curiosity. His long spine, bent in a semi-circle, shook with emotion; then, being unable to get nearer, he kissed the magic glass.
I descended the three plank steps of the platform; I found myself again in the crowd, decided to seek the girl who loved me now that I knew her smile.
The lamps smoked, the tumult was increasing, the people pushed along with such reckless haste that they nearly overturned the booths. The fête was at that hour of ideal joy in which, in order to be happy, one risks being suffocated.
On straightening myself up, I had before me a horizon of linen caps and silk hats. I advanced, pushing the men, cautiously getting around the great skirts of the women. Perhaps the girl who loved me was wrapped in that pink cloak; perhaps her head was beneath that tulle hood ornamented with mauve ribbons; perhaps she wore that delicious straw hat with an ostrich feather in it. Alas! the owner of the cloak was sixty; the hood, which concealed an abominably ugly face, leaned lovingly upon the shoulder of a sapper; she who wore the hat was laughing heartily, opening widely the most beautiful eyes in the world—but I did not recognize those beautiful eyes.
Brothers, above crowds hover I know not what anguish and what sorrow, as if the multitude had sent up a breath of terror and pity. Never do I find myself amid a great assemblage of people without experiencing a vague uneasiness. It seems to me that some frightful misfortune menaces these assembled men, that a single flash of lightning will suffice, amid the excitement of their gestures and voices, to strike them with motionlessness, with eternal silence.
Little by little, I decreased my pace, looking at this joy which wounded me. At the foot of a tree, in the full yellow light of the lamps, an old beggar was standing, his body stiffened, horribly twisted by paralysis. He lifted towards the passers-by his pale face, winking his eyes in a lamentable fashion the better to excite pity. He gave to his limbs sudden quivers of fever which shook him like a withered branch. The young girls, fresh and blushing, passed laughingly before this hideous spectacle.