she might inspire a passing fancy she could not arouse a durable
affection. She might minister to a man's pleasures, she could not make
him happy. I arrived at the isle resolved to trouble myself about her no
more; she might, I thought, be mad, or in despair at finding herself in
the power of a man whom she could not possibly love. I could not help
pitying her, and yet I could not forgive her for consenting to be of a
party which she knew she must spoil by her morose behaviour.

As for the self-styled Chevalier Stuard, I did not trouble my head
whether he were her husband or her lover. He was young,
commonplace-looking, he spoke affectedly; his manners were not good, and
his conversation betrayed both ignorance and stupidity. He was a beggar,
devoid of money and wits, and I could not make out why he took with him a
beauty who, unless she were over-kind, could add nothing to his means of
living. Perhaps he expected to live at the expense of simpletons, and had
come to the conclusion, in spite of his ignorance, that the world is full
of such; however, experience must have taught him that this plan cannot
be relied on.

When we got to Vaucluse I let Dolci lead; he had been there a hundred
times, and his merit was enhanced in my eyes by the fact that he was a
lover of the lover of Laura. We left the carriage at Apt, and wended our
way to the fountain which was honoured that day with a numerous throng of
pilgrims. The stream pours forth from a vast cavern, the handiwork of
nature, inimitable by man. It is situated at the foot of a rock with a
sheer descent of more than a hundred feet. The cavern is hardly half as
high, and the water pours forth from it in such abundance that it
deserves the name of river at its source. It is the Sorgue which falls
into the Rhone near Avignon. There is no other stream as pure and clear,
for the rocks over which it flows harbour no deposits of any kind. Those