I have been loved, O Graciosa, and it is a sweet experience, although I have been loved only by a woman, and in such an unnatural love there is something painful that there certainly cannot be in the other;--oh! it is a very sweet experience!--When you wake in the night and rest upon your elbow, to say to yourself: "Some one is thinking or dreaming of me; my life is of interest to somebody; a movement of my eyes or my mouth causes joy or sadness to another creature; a word I have let fall at random is carefully treasured up, commented upon and dissected for hours at a time; I am the pole toward which a restless magnet tends; my eye is a heaven, my mouth a paradise more ardently longed for than the real; if I should die, a warm shower of tears would keep my ashes warm, my grave would be brighter with flowers than a wedding-feast; if I were in danger, some one would throw himself between the point of the sword and my breast and sacrifice himself for me!"--it is lovely, and I cannot think what more one can desire in this world. This thought caused me a feeling of pleasure for which I blamed myself, for I had nothing to give in exchange for it all, and I was in the position of a poor person who accepts presents from a rich and generous friend, with no hope of ever being able to repay them. It delighted me to be so adored and at times I gave myself up to it with strange complaisance. By dint of hearing everybody call me _monsieur_ and of being treated as if I were a man, I gradually forgot that I was a woman; my disguise seemed to be my natural attire, and I forgot that I had ever worn any other; I ceased to reflect that I was, after all, only a little empty-headed creature who had made a sword of her needle and a pair of breeches out of one of her petticoats.