Such is the magic haze in which Leonardo has enwrapped his Gioconda. Everything is there, but he tells us nothing save that this is she. He barely hints at her subtle mind, her soft, pure flesh; you seem to catch a delicate perfume floating in the air. The world around her seems sunk in torpor; the landscape fades away in indefinite and fantastic suggestions. And the woman dominating it all pursues us with her complex look—the look that all these women have; she seems to be several women superimposed—a succession of appetites, a mingling of languors, thoughts crowded on thoughts, an encumbrance of flesh. Voluptuousness and intelligence are there too, held in reserve. She terrifies us, for she is too richly endowed; she will give nothing: she is a woman of brains. And yet we err in not trying to understand these women! We do not understand them because we set them apart, picture them as solitary in their defensive attitude, shutting our eyes to what engrosses their mistrustful looks—the cruel welter of humanity around them. With Anne of France and Vittoria Colonna we met Michelangelo. But whom shall we find flocking about these gracious priestesses of love? Contemptible drones, ambitious men, empty-headed fools, young fops, youths anxious to push their way in the world, society clowns, scholars in the sere and yellow leaf, a whole herd of men who have their reasons for liking the tame cat’s rôle, and certainly would never think of love unless someone mentioned it. Is it in any real sense cheating to cheat such men? There are sceptics like the excellent Montaigne, who love in order to find relief from their worries; others who love for a wager, like Nifo, who went sweethearting because it amused Cardinal Pompeo Colonna. There are pedants and hair-splitters; men who analyse and refine and talk of social duty—speak too of their love for humanity at large, for irrational things, for the All-in-all, for supernatural beings, for the angels. They make love an amusement like dicing and racing. They tell off on their fingers the various species of love.