The thing that so many others had ardently desired came to me, who did not, could not, want it. A whimsical young woman takes a fancy to travel about the country in a man's clothes in order to find out a little something as to what she is to expect on the part of her future lovers; she sleeps at an inn with an excellent brother who leads her by the end of the finger to his sister, who has nothing better to do than to fall in love with her like a cat, like a dove, like whatever is most amorous and languorous on earth.--It is very clear that, if I had been a young man, and this condition of things could have been of any service to me, it would have turned out very differently and the lady would have taken a violent dislike to me.--Fortune loves to give slippers to those who have wooden legs and gloves to those who have no hands;--the inheritance that would have enabled you to live at your ease, ordinarily falls in on the day of your death. I went sometimes, not as often as she would have liked, to see Rosette in her bed; although she does not usually receive until she is dressed, an exception is made in my favor.--An exception would have been made in my favor in many other respects, if I had wished;--but, as the saying is, the most beautiful woman can give only what she has, and what I had would have been of little service to Rosette. She would give me her little hand to kiss;--I confess that it afforded me some pleasure to kiss it, for it is very smooth, very white, exquisitely perfumed, and made softer by a nascent moisture; I felt it shiver and contract under my lips, whose pressure I maliciously prolonged.--Thereupon Rosette, deeply moved and with a supplicating air, would look up at me with her great eyes laden with desire and flooded with a humid, transparent light, then she would let her pretty head, which she had raised a little, the better to receive me, fall back upon the pillow.--I could see her restless bosom rise and fall under the sheet and her whole body suddenly begin to tremble.--Certainly any one who was in a condition to dare might have dared much, and it is equally certain that she would have been grateful to him for his daring and would have thanked him for skipping a few chapters of the novel. I remained an hour or two with her, not releasing her hand which I had rested on the coverlid; we had interminable, fascinating conversations; for, although Rosette was much engrossed by her love, she believed herself to be too sure of success, not to retain almost all her freedom and playfulness of mind.--From time to time, however, her passion cast a transparent veil of gentle melancholy over her gaiety, which made her even more seductive.