"She replied with a laugh: 'So then, this evening was an exception, since you only remarked it for the first time.' "I did not know what rejoinder to make. Certainly my gallantry was not making progress. After a little reflection, however, I managed to say: "'No, but I never dared to tell you.' "She was astonished: "'Why?' "'Because it is--it is a little difficult.' "'Difficult to tell a woman that she's pretty? Why, where did you come from? You should always tell us so, even when you only half think it ... because it always gives us pleasure to hear."... "I felt myself suddenly animated by a fantastic audacity, and, catching her round the waist, I raised my lips towards her mouth. "Nevertheless I seemed to be rather nervous about it, and not to appear so terrible to her. I must also have arranged and executed my movement very badly, for she managed to turn her head aside so as to avoid contact with my face, saying: "'Oh no--this is rather too much--too much.... You are too quick! Take care of my hair. You cannot embrace a woman who has her hair dressed like mine!'... "I resumed my former position in the carriage, disconcerted, unnerved by this repulse. But the carriage drew up before her gate; and she, as she stepped out of it, held out her hand to me, saying in her most gracious tones: "'Thanks, dear monsieur, for having seen me home ... and don't forget my advice!' "I saw her three days later. She had forgotten everything. "And I, monsieur, I am incessantly thinking of the other sort of men--the sort of men to whom a lady's hair is no obstacle, and who know how to seize every opportunity."... THE HORRIBLE The shadows of a balmy night were slowly falling. The women remained in the drawing-room of the villa. The men, seated or astride on garden-chairs, were smoking in front of the door, forming a circle round a table laden with cups and wineglasses. Their cigars shone like eyes in the darkness which, minute by minute, was growing thicker. They had been talking about a frightful accident which had occurred the night before--two men and three women drowned before the eyes of the guests in the river opposite. General de G---- remarked: "Yes, these things are affecting, but they are not horrible. "The horrible, that well-known word, means much more than the terrible. A frightful accident like this moves, upsets, scares; it does not horrify. In order that we should experience horror, something more is needed than the excitation of the soul, something more than the spectacle of the dreadful death; there must be a shuddering sense of mystery or a sensation of abnormal terror beyond the limits of nature. A man who dies, even in the most dramatic conditions, does not excite horror; a field of battle is not horrible, blood is not horrible; the vilest crimes are rarely horrible. "Hold on! here are two personal examples, which have shown me what is the meaning of horror: