adore, whom I fear and flee.

With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and
reflect.

What am I really, a little dilettante or a great big donkey?

A sultry morning, the atmosphere is dead, heavily laden with odors,
yet stimulating. Again I am sitting in my honey-suckle arbor, reading
in the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers
into beasts. A wonderful picture of antique love.

There is a soft rustling in the twigs and blades and the pages of my
book rustle and on the terrace likewise there is a rustling.

A woman's dress--

She is there--Venus--but without furs--No, this time it is merely
the widow--and yet--Venus-oh, what a woman!

As she stands there in her light white morning gown, looking at me,
her slight figure seems full of poetry and grace. She is neither
large, nor small; her head is alluring, piquant--in the sense of the
period of the French marquises--rather than formally beautiful. What
enchantment and softness, what roguish charm play about her none too
small mouth! Her skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins
show through everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms
and bosom. How abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-
yellow--how diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck!
Now her eyes meet mine like green lightnings--they are green, these