1 have eaten and I have drunken, and now I write the praise of my delight, among some metaphysical memories. Of the life that goes on up there, or yonder, she has told me something more than my master. She has told me that perfect pleasure is a gift too common among the gods much to excite their gratitude. They walk under the trees of the orchard, and pluck the gilded fruit whose weight bends them within reach of their hands. More lively and more sensitive, the divine females feel now and then some vexation at being unable to knot their arms about the conquered male; there is sometimes melancholy in their eyes, at seeing light shoulders moving away that happiness has not crushed, and knees that gratitude has not bowed.

We speak.

ELISE

Tell me, you whom I love, are all men like you?

I

Men are not gods during love, but they are gods afterwards.

ELISE

That is to say that they become indifferent.

I

No, satisfied, and surfeited.