Do you remember the first
time we met?"
"How could I forget it," I said. "You wore your abundant hair in
brown curls, and you had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized
you immediately by the outline of your face and its marble-like
pallor--you always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with
squirrel-skin."
"You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile."
"You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me
forget two thousand years."
"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.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25