The first time I entered the studio after my return I sought with jealous anxiety some trace of the remembrance that haunted me, and seemed to find it on every hand. In a Sappho whose passionate, tragical expression alone had struck me before, and the Bacchante which seemed at once beautiful and repulsive, I imagined I could trace the features, alas! too perfect not to be graven in the imagination of a sculptor in spite of himself.... I saw them, above all, in a Proserpine, hidden by accident, or on purpose, in an obscure corner of the studio, which struck me as a sudden apparition of her fatal beauty. Finally, I saw them also in the other Vestal, to which the one I sat for was the pendant. It was then only I remembered with pleasure he said when he first began it that _no one before me_ had realized the ideal he was trying to embody. Haunted by these recollections, I began to find my sittings in the studio painful and annoying, but I did not manifest my feelings. I had acquired some control over them, and felt it was not for my interest to revive, by a fresh display of jealousy, a remembrance that seemed to be dormant, or again excite a displeasure that appeared to be extinguished. Besides, the likeness that haunted me so persistently became in time more vague and uncertain, and seemed likely to disappear entirely. The current of gayety and pleasure that now surrounded me absorbed me more and more. The very light of the sun at Naples is a feast for the heart as well as the eyes. It is a region that has no sympathy with gloom, or even the serious side of life, and it must be confessed that the social ideal I have spoken of is not the most salutary and elevated in the world. It must also be acknowledged that if it is not absolutely true that this charming region is the classic land of the _far niente_, as it has been called (for the number of people everywhere who do nothing make me think all skies and all climes favorable to them), it is nevertheless indubitable that every one feels a mingled excitement and languor at Naples which oblige him to struggle continually against the double temptation to enjoy at all hours the beauty of the earth and sky, and afterwards to give himself up unresistingly to the repose he feels the need of. When weary of this struggle, when nothing stimulates his courage to continue it, he is soon intoxicated and overpowered by the very pleasure of living. One day follows another without thinking to ask how they have been spent. The interest taken in serious things grows less, the strength necessary for such things diminishes, all effort is burdensome; and as this joyous, futile life does not seem in any way wrong or dangerous, he no longer tries to resist it, but suffers the subtle poison which circulates in the air to infuse inactivity into the mind, indifference and effeminacy in the heart, and even to the depths of the soul itself.