I dare neither erase nor approve the preceding observation. Certain it is that, as I wrote it, I read it in my heart. If to-day I bring it into question, it is [Pg 54] because I have lost the memory of what I saw at that time. The habit of hearing music and dreaming its dreams disposes towards love. A sad and gentle air, provided it is not too dramatic, so that the imagination is forced to dwell on the action, is a direct stimulant to dreams of love and a delight for gentle and unhappy souls: for example, the drawn-out passage on the clarionet at the beginning of the quartet in _Bianca and Faliero_(10), and the recitative of La Camporesi towards the middle of the quartet. A lover at peace with his mistress enjoys to distraction Rossini's famous duet in _Armida and Rinaldo_, depicting so justly the little doubts of happy love and the moments of delight which follow its reconciliations. It seems to him that the instrumental part, which comes in the middle of the duet, at the moment when Rinaldo wishes to fly, and represents in such an amazing way the conflict of the passions, has a physical influence upon his heart and touches it in reality. On this subject I dare not say what I feel; I should pass for a madman among people of the north. [1] Copied from the diary of Lisio. [2] [Written thus in English by Stendhal,--Tr.] [Pg 55] CHAPTER XVII BEAUTY DETHRONED BY LOVE Alberic meets in a box at the theatre a woman more beautiful than his mistress (I beg to be allowed here a mathematical valuation)--that is to say, her features promise three units of happiness instead of two, supposing the quantity of happiness given by perfect beauty to be expressed by the number four. Is it surprising that he prefers the features of his mistress, which promise a hundred units of happiness _for him_? Even the minor defects of her face, a small-pox mark, for example, touches the heart of the man who loves, and, when he observes them even in another woman, sets him dreaming far away. What, then, when he sees them in his mistress? Why, he has felt a thousand sentiments in presence of that small-pox mark, sentiments for the most part sweet, and all of the greatest interest; and now, such as they are, they are evoked afresh with incredible vividness by the sight of this sign, even in the face of another woman. If ugliness thus comes to be preferred and loved, it is because in this case ugliness is beauty.[1] A man was passionately in love with a woman, very thin and scarred with small-pox: death bereft him of her. At Rome, three years after, he makes friends with two women, one more lovely than the day, the other thin, scarred with