yourself or only a girl who resembled you a little. Because I loved
you desperately."

She took my hand and sighed, and in a tone of sadness I continued to
say:

"Yes, I did love you, Catherine, and I could still love you except
for that disgusting monk."

She cried out:

"What a suspicion! You offend me. It is a folly."

"Then you do not love the Capuchin?"

"Fie!"

As I did not consider it to be any use to press the subject further,
I took her round the waist, we embraced, our lips met and all my
being seemed to melt in voluptuousness.

After a short moment of luxurious confusion, she disentangled
herself, her cheeks rosy, her eyes moistened, her lips half
separated. It is from that day that I knew how much a woman is
embellished and adorned by a kiss lovingly pressed on her mouth.
Mine had made roses of the sweetest hue bloom on Catherine's cheeks
and strewn into the flowery blue of her eyes drops of diamantine
dew.

"You are a baby," she said, readjusting her hood. "Go! you cannot