2
Rose had perhaps insulted a man who was simply taking pleasure in admiring her, I thought to myself. What did she know of his intentions? In any case, is not a silent look enough to keep importunity at a distance?
Generally speaking, those who go after us in this way because of the swing of our hips, or the mass of hair gleaming on our neck, or a shapely shoe under a lifted skirt, are uninteresting; and among all the coarse, silly or timid admirers whom a woman can encounter in the street there are perhaps one or two at most who will leave an ineffaceable mark on her memory. But why not always admit the most charitable construction?
3
I had been wandering a long time at random. Feeling a little tired, I turned into the Parc Monceau, at the time when it was too late for the mothers and babies and too early for the lovers' invasion. I sat down by the transparent lake which so prettily reflects its diadem of arbours. A young willow drooped in gentle sadness over the face of the water; and white ducks glided past me in the evening mist. The waning blue light mingled with the pale vapour that rises over Paris at nightfall; and all this made a mauve sky behind the dark trees. It was soft and melancholy, but not grave; and I lingered on, amid the beauty of the scene, rapt in some woman's reverie. Then a lamp was lighted behind the bench on which I sat; and on the ground before me I saw a shadow beside my own. I understood and did not turn my head.
A man had followed me. I felt his eyes resting heavily on my profile, on my cheek and on my ungloved hands. He was evidently going to speak. Annoyed at this, I took a little volume from my pocket and, to protect my solitude, began to read.
But soon I guessed that he was reading with me; and my mind thus mingling with a stranger's passed over the words without quite following them. His persistency angered me; and I closed the book.
Then he said to me:
"Yes, you are very beautiful."
The words fell into my soul with a disquieting resonance. I rose with a flushed face and then hesitated. It was certainly one of those gross and lying pieces of flattery which we all of us hear at times. Nevertheless, I resisted the instinctive impulse that would have made me move away. Is not modesty in such a case merely another stratagem of our coquetry? We flee, the man pursues and the wrong impression is confirmed.