of course, share the bed of the captain any more, and she could not have
slept with me as long as he was with us, without being guilty of great
immodesty. We should all three have laughed at that compulsory reserve
which we would have felt to be ridiculous, but we should, for all that,
have submitted to it. Love is the little impudent god, the enemy of
bashfulness, although he may very often enjoy darkness and mystery, but
if he gives way to it he feels disgraced; he loses three-fourths of his
dignity and the greatest portion of his charms.

Evidently there could be no happiness for Henriette or for me unless we
parted with the person and even with the remembrance of the excellent
captain.

We supped alone. I was intoxicated with a felicity which seemed too
immense, and yet I felt melancholy, but Henriette, who looked sad
likewise, had no reproach to address to me. Our sadness was in reality
nothing but shyness; we loved each other, but we had had no time to
become acquainted. We exchanged only a few words, there was nothing
witty, nothing interesting in our conversation, which struck us both as
insipid, and we found more pleasure in the thoughts which filled our
minds. We knew that we were going to pass the night together, but we
could not have spoken of it openly. What a night! what a delightful
creature was that Henriette whom I have loved so deeply, who has made me
so supremely happy!

It was only three or four days later that I ventured on asking her what
she would have done, without a groat in her possession, having not one
acquaintance in Parma, if I had been afraid to declare my love, and if I
had gone to Naples. She answered that she would doubtless have found
herself in very great difficulties, but that she had all along felt