"Oh! you naughty boy, who never said a word to me, and who stood just looking at me, with his sad eyes ... yes, your beautiful sad eyes that I love ... you naughty!... I had to start it all myself! ... hadn't I? ... otherwise you would have never dared, would you?... Were you afraid of me, tell me? Do you remember when you took me in your arms, that evening? I did not know where I was, I could no longer see anything.... My throat, my chest felt as though I had swallowed something very hot.... isn't that funny.... I thought I was going to die ... burned by you.... It was so sweet, so sweet!... Why, I have loved you since the first day we met.... No, I was in love with you before.... Ah, you are laughing!... You don't believe then that you can love someone without knowing or seeing him?... Well I do!... I am sure of it!..." My heart was beating so fast, these words were so new to me, that I could not find anything to say in reply; I was choking with happiness. All I could do was to clasp Juliette in my arms, mutter some inarticulate words and weep with joy. Suddenly she became thoughtful, the furrow on her forehead deepened, she withdrew her hand from mine. I was afraid I had offended her: "What's the matter, my Juliette?" I asked her. "Why do you look so?... Have I hurt you?" And Juliette, disconsolate, said with a sigh: "The corner-buffet, my dear!... The corner-buffet for the parlor which we have entirely forgotten." She quickly passed from laughter, from kisses to sudden gravity, mingled words of endearment with ceiling measurements, confused love with tapestry.... It was delightful. In our room, in the evening, all this pretty childishness disappeared. Love stamped upon the face of Juliette something austere, deliberate and ferocious which I could not explain; it changed her entirely. She was not depraved; on the contrary, her passion showed itself to be strong and normal, and in her caresses there was awe-inspiring nobility and courage. Her body trembled as if in terrible labor. My happiness lasted but a short time.... My happiness!... It is really remarkable that never, never have I been permitted to enjoy anything fully, and that invariably anxiety came to disturb the brief periods of my happiness. Defenseless and powerless against suffering, not sure of myself and timid in the hours of happiness--such I have been all my life. Is it a tendency peculiar to my nature? A strange perversion of my sensibilities?... Or is it rather that happiness in my own case as well as in the case of everybody else is really deceptive, and that it is nothing but a more tormenting and more refined form of universal suffering?...