Amid such surroundings, I grew up without thought for the present or the future, without making any effort to form or strengthen my character. I was naturally gentle and trustful like my mother; I was content to float along as she did on the current of destiny. I was less vivacious, however; I felt less keenly the attractions of pleasure and vanity; I seemed to lack the little strength that she had, the desire and the faculty of constant diversion. I accepted so easy a lot knowing nothing of its price, and without comparing it with any other. I had no idea of passion. I had been brought up as if I were never to know it; my mother had been brought up in the same way and considered that she was to be congratulated; for she was incapable of feeling passion and had never had any occasion to fight against it. My intelligence had been applied to studies in which the heart had no occasion to exercise control over itself. I performed brilliantly on the piano, I danced beautifully, I painted in water-colors with admirable precision and vigor; but there was within me no spark of that sacred fire which gives life and enables one to understand life. I loved my parents, but I did not know what it was to love in any other way than that. I was wonderfully clever in inditing a letter to one of my young friends; but I had no more idea of the value of words than of sentiments. I loved my girl friends as a matter of habit, I was good to them because I was obliging and gentle, but I did not trouble myself about their characters; I scrutinized nothing. I made no well-reasoned distinction between them; I was fondest of the one who came oftenest to see me. IV I was the sort of person I have described, and sixteen years old, when Leoni came to Brussels. The first time I saw him was at the theatre. I was with my mother in a box near the balcony, where he sat with several of the richest and most fashionable young men in the city. My mother called my attention to him. She was constantly lying in wait for a husband for me, and always looked for him among the men with the finest figures and the most gorgeous clothes; those two points were everything in her eyes. Birth and fortune attracted her only as accessories of things that she considered much more important--dress and manners. A man of superior mind in a simple coat would have inspired nothing but contempt in her. Her future son-in-law must have cuffs of a certain style, an irreproachable cravat, an exquisite figure, a pretty face, coats made in Paris, and a stock of that meaningless twaddle which makes a man fascinating in society. As for myself, I made no comparison between one man and another. I blindly entrusted the selection to my parents, and I neither dreaded nor shrank from marriage.