I will only add, gentlemen, a word of counsel. Impress well upon your minds this fact, that your mistress is no longer yours on the day of a ball.
As soon as dressing begins, a lover is no more thought of than a husband would be; and the ball takes the place of a lover.
Every one knows how little a husband gains by enforcing his love. Take your trouble, then, patiently, cheerfully.
And, my dear sir, do not deceive yourself; if a lady welcome you at a ball, it is not as a lover that you are received, for you are a husband—but as a part of the ball; and you are therefore but a fraction of her new conquest. You are the decimal of a lover. Or, it may be, you dance well, and so give éclat to her graces. After all, perhaps, the most flattering way in which you can regard her kind welcome is to consider that she hopes by treating as her cavalier a man of parts like yourself, to excite the jealousy of her companions. Were it not for that she would not notice you at all.
It amounts then to this. You must resign yourself to your fate, and wait until the husband’s rôle is played. I know those who would be glad to get off at so cheap a rate.
XXXVI.
The Library.
I PROMISED to give a dialogue between my soul and the OTHER. But there are some chapters which elude me, as it were, or rather, there are others which flow from my pen nolens volens, and derange my plans. Among these is one about my library; and I will make it as short as I can. Our forty-two days will soon be ended; and even were it not so, a similar period would not suffice to complete the description of the rich country in which I travel so pleasantly.
My library, then, is composed of novels, if I must make the confession; of novels and a few choice poets.
As if I had not troubles enough of my own, I share those of a thousand imaginary personages, and I feel them as acutely as my own. How many tears have I shed for that poor Clarissa,[7] and for Charlotte’s[8] lover!
But if I go out of my way in search of unreal afflictions, I find in return, such virtue, kindness, and disinterestedness in this imaginary world as I have never yet found united in the real world around me. I meet with a woman after my heart’s desire, free from whim, lightness, and affectation. I say nothing about beauty; this I can leave to my imagination, and picture her faultlessly beautiful. And then, closing the book, which no longer keeps pace with my ideas, I take the fair one by the hand, and we travel together over a country a thousand times more delightful than Eden itself. What painter could represent the fairy land in which I have placed the goddess of my heart? What poet could ever describe the lively and manifold sensations I experience in those enchanted regions?