spent in reading, writing, or in thought within a few paces of me; and lastly, it was in the fascination of her fantastic beauty, too much seen though scarcely beheld, and which, when I closed my eyes, I still saw through the wall, as though it had been transparent. With this feeling, however, there mingled no desire or eager curiosity, on my part, to find out the secret reason of her solitude, or to break down the fragile barrier of our almost voluntary separation. What to me was this woman whom I had met by chance among the mountains of a foreign land, ill in health and sick at heart though she might be? I had shaken the dust from my feet, or at least I thought I had, and felt no wish to hold to the world once more by any link of the mind, or of the senses, still less by any weakness of the heart. I felt supreme contempt for love, for under its name I had met only with affectation, coquetry, fickleness, and levity; if I except the love of Antonina, which had been but a childish ecstasy, a flower fallen from the stem before its hour of perfume. VIII. Again, who was this woman? Was she a being like myself, or one of those visions which, like living meteors, shoot athwart the sky of our imagination, dazzling the eye? Was she of my own country, or from some distant land, from some island of the tropics, or the far East, whither I could not follow her? After adoring her for a few days, might I not have to mourn forever her absence? Was her heart free to respond to mine? Was it likely that enthralling beauty such as hers should have traversed the world and reached maturity without kindling love in some of those upon whom the glance of her eye had fallen? Had she a father or a mother, brothers or sisters? Was she not married? Was there not one man in the world who, though separated from her by inexplicable circumstances, lived for her only, as she lived for him? All this I said to myself, to drive away this one besetting, hopeless fancy. I scorned even to make inquiries. I was too much of a stoic to strive to penetrate the unknown, and thought it more dignified, or perhaps more pleasant, to go on dreaming in uncertainty. IX. The old doctor and his family had not the pride of heart that induced me to respect her secret. At table our hosts, with the curiosity natural to all those who live by strangers, would interpret every circumstance, discuss every probability, and collect even the vaguest notions concerning the stranger. I soon learned all that had transpired respecting her, although I never interrogated and even studiously avoided making her the subject of our discourse. In vain I sought to turn the conversation into another channel; every day the same subject recurred; men, women, children, bathers, and servants, the guides of the mountains, and the boatmen on the lake, had all been equally struck and charmed by her, although she spoke to no one. She was an object of universal respect and admiration.