This separation, which I was expecting, caused me but a brief sorrow. I was holding Elise by the hand, I was holding a certainty.
We were now going silently along the deserted street. The joy that filled my heart lit up the sky, the trees, the houses and everything else.
Soon, like any other couple after a morning walk, we went home. Elise had not at any moment the air of a stranger.
Our day was short, that of two lovers mindful of living. My friend complied with all our customs. But for the memory of the night of magic that had placed her in my arms, I should not have distinguished her divine grace from that of a Parisian.
We made with profound joy the discovery of our souls and of our bodies. It seemed to us that we had known each other always, and always belonged to each other; it seemed also, at every kiss, that we touched each other for the first time: these feelings, no more contradictory than delightful, increased our intoxication, our heads turned, we could no longer find words for our ideas, and we said a great many childish things.
I did not, however, so far lose my reason as to forget that, alone among all men, without doubt, I held in my arms an immortal. Much pride was mingled with my love, and also much curiosity.
My goddess much resembles Giorgione's Venus. While I write this, she is sleeping in the same pose, her right arm folded under her head. The body is tapering, the breasts are two upturned cups; the face, of a pure oval, has great charm, with its very red mouth, and its large lowered eyelids that hide from me beautiful eyes of a glaucous and changeful blue. From head to foot she has the complexion of a blonde, but this whiteness is as if melted in gilded rose, because she is accustomed to wear only light and almost transparent veils. Her hair is of that rare chestnut colour, a colour which we scarcely know but by its name; but her eyelashes are much darker, of a very sombre brown.
I have kissed with piety the miracle of her feet, fresh as a spring, and with nails that shone like drops of dew under my lamp.
She accepts homage like caresses, and caresses as a flower accepts the evening rain. She is more feminine than the most sensitive of women, more trembling than the tenderest violins. The kiss that her mouth gives has first passed like a wave of harmony along her whole body, and the kiss that she receives makes her melt voluptuously like snow that has lingered in the sunlight.
O snow with the odour of violets, O flesh with the taste of figs!