Professor Halle has said a terrible thing: “Woman is the nervous part of humanity, man the muscular.” Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, has said that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves. I do not quote the dreamers who watch the wheeling flight of Spallanzani’s bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense in nature. Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powers mighty enough--that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us--without our seeking to deepen the shadows that surround us. But where is the man who thinks he has lived that will deny woman’s power over us? Has he ever taken leave of a beautiful dancer with trembling hands? Has he ever felt that indefinable enervating magnetism which, in the midst of the dance, under the influence of music, and the warmth, making all else seem cold, that comes from a young woman, electrifying her and leaping from her to him as the perfume of aloes from the swinging censer? I was struck with stupor. I was familiar with that sensation similar to drunkenness which characterizes love; I knew that it was the aureole which crowned my well-beloved. But that she should excite such heart-throbs, that she should evoke such phantoms with nothing but her beauty, her flowers, her motley costume, and a certain trick of dancing she had learned from some merry-andrew; and that without a word, without a thought, without even appearing to know it! What was chaos, if it required seven days to make such a being? It was not love, however, that I felt, and I do not know how to describe it unless I call it thirst. For the first time I felt vibrating in my body a cord that was not attuned to my heart. The sight of that beautiful animal had aroused a responsive roar from another animal in my nature. I felt sure I could never tell that woman that I loved her, or that she pleased me, or even that she was beautiful; there was nothing on my lips but a desire to kiss her, and say to her: “Make a girdle of those listless arms and lean that head on my breast; place that sweet smile on my lips.” My body loved hers; I was under the influence of beauty as of wine. Desgenais passed and asked what I was doing there. “Who is that woman?” I asked. “What woman? Of whom do you speak?” I took his arm and led him into the hall. The Italian saw us coming and smiled. I stopped and stepped back. “Ah!” said Desgenais, “you have danced with Marco?” “Who is Marco?” I asked. “Why, that idle creature who is laughing over there. Does she please you?” “No,” I replied, “I have waltzed with her and wanted to know her name; I have no further interest in her.” Shame led me to speak thus, but when Desgenais turned away I followed him.