beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a
mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La
Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of
life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations,
trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his
servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like
all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of
his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the
joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden
age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we
are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with
Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the
spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous.
In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in
molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella,
notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of
ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an
early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for
himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as
lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually
with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him;
then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to
contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of
concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His
passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the
unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was
with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of
happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense
and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with
which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to