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.

Thanks to my skill in seamanship, we can be alone on our excursions.
A week ago, on a sultry day, Laura expressed a wish to go out in the
boat. Like a Hecate, she exults in heat. A gentle breeze drove us a
long distance from the shore, and then the wind fell. The lateen sail
hung motionless from the mast. The rays of the sun, reflected from the
glassy surface of the water, increased the heat, although it was late
in the afternoon. Laura threw herself on the Indian matting, and
resting her head against the cushions, remained motionless, all in
a red glow, from the sun filtering through the awning. A strange
laziness had taken possession of me, and at the same time the sight