"And my faithfulness to you was without equal!"

"Well, as far as faithfulness goes--"

"Ungrateful!"

"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but
nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love."

"What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied eagerly, "is
simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's
nature and makes her give herself where she loves, and makes her love
everything, that pleases her."

"Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the
unfaithfulness of the woman he loves?"

"Indeed!" she replied. "We are faithful as long as we love, but you
demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of
herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel there--woman or man? You of
the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk
of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure."

"That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our
relations permanent."

"And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of
paganism," she interrupted, "but that love, which is the highest joy,
which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you
children of reflection. It works only evil in you. _As soon as you