“So that, Joannetti,” said I, “if my room were full of people, that beautiful lady would eye every one, on all sides, at once.”
“Just so, sir.”
“She would smile on every comer and goer, just as she would on me?”
Joannetti gave no further answer. I stretched myself in my easy-chair, and, hanging down my head, gave myself up to the most serious meditations. What a ray of light fell upon me! Alack, poor lover! While thou pinest away, far from thy mistress, at whose side another perhaps, has already replaced thee; whilst thou fixest thy longing eyes on her portrait, imagining that at least in picture, thou art the sole being she deigns to regard,—the perfidious image, as faithless as the original, bestows its glances on all around, and smiles on every one alike!
And in this behold a moral resemblance between certain portraits and their originals, which no philosopher, no painter, no observer, had before remarked.
I go on from discovery to discovery.
XVI.
Solution.
JOANNETTI remained in the attitude I have described, awaiting the explanation he had asked of me. I withdrew my head from the folds of my travelling dress, into which I had thrust it that I might meditate more at my ease; and after a moment’s silence, to enable me to collect my thoughts after the reflections I had just made, I said, turning my arm-chair toward him,—