She was just twenty years of age, and had come into the world at Rio, where her father represented the Spanish government. The family were descended from Cervantes. As she had early been left motherless, her father had sent her over in her fifteenth year to her aunt in Paris. This latter was married to an old monstrosity of a Spaniard, religious to the verge of insanity, who would seem to have committed some crime in his youth and now spent his whole day in the church, which was next door to his house, imploring forgiveness for his sins. He was only at home at mealtimes, when he ate an alarming amount, and he associated only with priests. The aunt herself, however, in spite of her age, was a pleasure- seeking woman, rarely allowed her niece to stay at home and occupy herself as she liked, but dragged her everywhere about with her to parties and balls. In her aunt's company she sometimes felt depressed, but alone she was cheerful and without a care. At the Pagellas' she was like a child of the house. She had the Spanish love of ceremony and magnificence, the ready repartee of the Parisian, and, like a well- brought-up girl, knew how to preserve the balance between friendliness and mirth. She was not in the least prudish, and she understood everything; but there was a certain sublimity in her manner.
While Mademoiselle Louise, the little Parisian, had been brought up in a convent, kept from all free, intelligent, mundane conversation, and all free artistic impressions, the young Spaniard, at the same age, had the education and the style of a woman of the world in her manner.
We two young frequenters of the Pagella salon, felt powerfully drawn to one another. We understood one another at once. Of course, it was only I who was fascinated. When, in an evening, I drove across Paris in the expectation of seeing her, I sometimes murmured to myself Henrik Hertz's verse:
"My beloved is like the dazzling day,
Brazilia's Summer!"
My feelings, however, were much more admiration than love or desire. I did not really want to possess her. I never felt myself quite on a level with her even when she made decided advances to me. I rejoiced over her as over something perfect, and there was the rich, foreign colouring about her that there had been about the birds of paradise in my nursery. She seldom disturbed my peace of mind, but I said to myself that if I were to go away then, I should in all probability never see her again, as her father would be taking her the next year to Brazil or Madrid, and I sometimes felt as though I should be going away from my happiness forever. She often asked me to stay with such expressions and with such an expression that I was quite bewildered. And then she monopolised my thoughts altogether, like the queenly being she was.
A Danish poet had once called the beautiful women of the South "Large, showy flowers without fragrance." Was she a large, showy flower? Forget- me-nots were certainly by no means showy, but they were none the more odorous for that.
Now that I was seeing the radiant Mathilde almost every day, my position with regard to Louise seemed to me a false one. I did not yet know how exceedingly rare an undivided feeling is, did not understand that my feelings towards Mathilde were just as incomplete as those I cherished for Louise. I looked on Mademoiselle Mathilde as on a work of art, but I came more humanly close to Mademoiselle Louise. She did not evoke my enthusiastic admiration; that was quite true, but Mademoiselle Mathilde evoked my enthusiastic admiration only. If there were a great deal of compassion mingled with my feelings for the Parisian, there was likewise a slight erotic element.
The young Frenchwoman, in her passion, found expressions for affection and tenderness, in which she forgot all pride. She lived in a commingling, very painful for me, of happiness at my still being in Paris, and of horror at my approaching departure, which I was now about to accelerate, merely to escape from the extraordinary situation in which I found myself, and which I was too young to carry. Although Mathilde, whom I had never seen alone, was always the same, quite the great lady, perfectly self-controlled, it was the thought of saying good-bye to her that was the more painful to me. Every other day, on the other hand, Louise was trembling and ill, and I dreaded the moment of separation.
VII.
I had not left off my daily work in Paris, but had read industriously at the Imperial Library. I had also attended many lectures, some occasionally, others regularly, such as those of Janet, Caro, Lévêque and Taine.