As I looked at her I reflected that I was as stupid as an ostrich. I had what I had so long desired, a mistress as entirely my own as my horse and my sword, young, pretty, amorous and clever; with no stern-principled mother, no father with a decoration, no cross-grained aunt, no swaggering brother, and with the priceless advantage of a husband duly sealed and nailed up in a fine oaken casket lined with lead, the whole covered over with a large block of hewn granite, which is not to be despised; for, after all, it is a very doubtful pleasure to be caught in the act in the middle of a blissful paroxysm, and to complete one's sensations on the pavement, after describing an arc of 40 to 45 degrees, according to the floor on which you happen to be;--a mistress as free as the mountain air and rich enough to indulge in the most exquisite refinements and luxuries, and, moreover, free from anything like moral ideas, never talking about her virtue as she tries a new posture, nor of her reputation, any more than if she had never had one; with no intimate female friends, and despising all women almost as much as if she were a man, entertaining a very low opinion of platonic affection and making no secret of it, and always playing with her heart in the game; a woman who, if her lines had fallen in another sphere, would indubitably have become the most admirable courtesan on earth and dimmed the glory of the Aspasias and Imperias! Now, that woman, so made, was mine. I did what I chose with her; I had the key to her room and her drawer; I broke the seals of her letters; I had taken away her name and given her another. She was my chattel, my property. Her youth, her beauty, her love, all belonged to me; I used them, I abused them. I made her go to bed in the daytime and sit up at night, if the whim seized me, and she obeyed simply, without any affectation of making a sacrifice, and without assuming the air of a resigned victim.--She was attentive, caressing, and--a most extraordinary thing!--absolutely faithful; that is to say, if in the days when I was lamenting that I had no mistress, six months ago, any one had given me a glimpse of such happiness, even in the distant future, I should have gone mad with joy and tossed my hat up to knock at the gates of heaven, in token of my delight. And now that I have that happiness, I am cold; I am hardly conscious that I have it, I am _not_ conscious of it, and my present position makes so little impression upon me that I often doubt if I have changed my position at all. If I should leave Rosette, I am convinced in my inmost soul that, at the end of a month, perhaps less, I should have so thoroughly and carefully forgotten her, that I shouldn't know whether I had ever known her or not! Would she do the same? I think not.