In each of us there is a hidden Satyr.  As to myself, as I said already, I am highly impressionable; therefore, when I think of it, that there is something going on between me and this live statue of a Juno, that some mysterious power pushes us towards each other,—­my head is in a whirl, and I ask myself what would I wish for more perfect than this.

3 April.

As much as ever woman can show kindness and sympathy to a friend in trouble, she has shown to me.  And yet, strange to say, all this kindness has upon me the effect of moonlight,—­radiance without warmth; she possesses perfection of form, but there is no soul; with her all is premeditation, but not nature.  There speaks again the sceptic; but I shall never be so intoxicated as to lose my capacity of observation.  If this divinity were kind, she would be kind to everybody.  Thus, for instance, the way she treats her husband is enough to destroy any illusion as to her heart.  The unfortunate Davis is such a bloodless creature that he feels chilly in the hottest sunshine, and oh! so chilly at her side.  I never noticed in her the slightest sign of compassion for his misery.  He simply does not exist, for her.  This millionnaire, in the midst of all his wealth, is so poor that it would rouse any one’s pity.  He is apparently indifferent to everything; and yet the human being, with ever so little consciousness, feels kindness.  The best proof of it is that Davis feels grateful to me because I speak to him now and then about his health.

Perhaps it is the instinctive attraction of the weaker towards the stronger organism.  When I look at that face as white as chalk, no bigger than my fist, those feet like walking-sticks, and that shrunken figure, wrapped up in a plaid during the hottest of weathers, I am truly sorry for him.  But I will not make myself out better than I am.  I may pity the man; but compassion will not stand in my way.  It has often struck me that, when woman is in question, man becomes pitiless; it is still a remnant of the animal instinct that fights to the uttermost for the female.  In such a fight between human beings, whatever shape it takes, the weaker goes to the wall.  Even honor is no curb; it is only religion that condemns it absolutely.

12 April.

I have not written for nearly ten days.  The veil was rent a week ago.  I always suspected the sea would help us to an understanding.  Women like Laura never forget the fitting background.  If they do charitable deeds because it enhances their beauty, the more they want beauty when they fall.  Joined to this is their passion for anything out of the common, which does not spring from the poetical faculties of their mind, but from a desire to adorn themselves.  I have not so lost my head as not to be able to judge Laura, though really I do not know whether she has not the right to be what she is, and to think the sun and stars are made on purpose for her adornment.  Absolute beauty, in the nature of things, must be essentially egotistic, and subject everything to its rule.  Laura is the very incarnation of beauty, and nobody has the right to ask anything else from her than to be always and everywhere beautiful; at least, I do not ask for more.