I do not love D'Albert, at least in the sense in which I understand the word, but I certainly have a liking and inclination for him;--his wit pleases me and his person does not repel me; there are not many people of whom I can say as much. He hasn't everything, but he has something;--what pleases me, in him is that he does not try to slake his thirst brutally, like other men; he has a constant aspiration and a sustained impulse toward the beautiful--toward material beauty only, it is true, but that is a noble tendency, and sufficient to keep him within the limits of the pure.--His behavior to Rosette proves honesty of heart,--honesty, that is more rare than the other kind, if that be possible. And then, if I must tell you, I am possessed by the most violent desires,--I am languishing and dying with lust;--for the coat I wear, while it leads me into all sorts of adventures with women, protects me too perfectly against the enterprises of men; an idea of pleasure that is never realized floats vaguely in my brain, and the dull, colorless dream fatigues and bores me.--So many women lead the life of prostitutes amid the most chaste surroundings! and I, in most ridiculous contrast to them, remain as chaste and unspotted as the cold Diana herself, in the midst of the most reckless dissipation and surrounded by the greatest rakes of the age.--This ignorance of the body, unaccompanied by ignorance of the mind, is the most wretched thing imaginable. In order that my flesh may not put on airs before my mind, I propose to inflict an equal stain upon it--if indeed it is any more of a stain than eating and drinking, which I doubt.--In a word, I propose to know what a man is, and what sort of pleasure he affords. As D'Albert recognized me through my disguise, it is no more than fair that he should be rewarded for his penetration; he was the first person to guess that I was a woman, and I will do my best to prove to him that his suspicions were well founded.--It would be most uncharitable to let him believe that he has developed an unnatural taste. D'Albert then will solve my doubts, and give me my first lesson in love; it only remains now to bring the thing about in poetic fashion. I am inclined not to answer his letter, and to be cold to him for a few days. When I see that he is very depressed and desperate, cursing the gods, shaking his fist at all creation, and looking into wells to see if they are too deep to throw himself into--then I will withdraw, like Peau d'Ane, to the end of the corridor, and will don my multi-colored dress--that is to say, my Rosalind costume, for my feminine wardrobe is decidedly limited. Then I will go to him, as radiant as a peacock spreading his feathers, showing ostentatiously what I generally conceal with the greatest care, and wearing only a little lace tucker, very low and very coquettish, and I will say to him in the most pathetic tone I can command: