Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/verywomansixtine00gouriala VERY WOMAN (Sixtine) A Cerebral Novel by REMY DE GOURMONT Translated from the French by J. L. Barrets Nicholas L. Brown New York MCMXXII CONTENTS I The Dead Leaves XXI The Mystic Bark II Madame Du Boys XXII The Simoniac III Travel Notes XXIII The Adorer IV Reflections XXIV The Color of Marriage V More Travel Notes XXV Departure VI Dream Figure XXVI The Adorer VII Marcelle and Marceline XXVII The Education of Maidens VIII The Transparent Curtain XXVIII The Esthetic Thrill of Time IX The Promenade of Sin XXIX Pantomime X The Unleavened Dough XXX The Man and the Pretty Beast XI Diamond Dust XXXI The Infamy of Being Happy XII The Adorer XXXII Intoxication XIII Christus Patiens XXXIII An Evening in Society XIV The Faun XXXIV Poetic Rapture XV The Carnal Hour XXXV The Adorer XVI The Ideal Bees XXXVI Anger XVII The Adorer XXXVII The Adorer XVIII A Complete Woman XXXVIII Pride XIX New Suggestions XXXIX The Key to the Coffer XX The Twenty-eighth of XL Ultimate Peace December CHAPTER I THE DEAD LEAVES "When Nature produces these masterpieces, she rarely offers them to the man who could best appreciate and be worthy of possessing them." Kant: _Essay on the Beautiful_. They walked side by side, under the gloomy old firs whose heavy branches leaned towards the yellowing lawn. Countess Aubry, with her charm of a negotiator of worldly loves, had just hastily brought them together, as though they were predestined for each other. They were slightly acquainted already. They remembered having met during the past winter in the Marigny Avenue Salon, that haunt of miscarried glories, and, during the past week that they had been staying at the Château de Rabodanges (among several invalids of distinction) they had succeeded in exchanging a few vaguely suggestive words, a few affected witticisms, not without disdain for such a vain communion.