Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 7.djvu/30

xiv PROSPER MERIMEE haps unconsciously, in the most trifling matters. Is it not, for instance, your pride which is satisfied when I kiss your hand ? This, you have said to me, makes you happy, and to this sensation you abandon yourself, because a demon- stration of humihty is gratifying to your pride."

Four months later, while he is absent from Paris, after a more serious misunderstanding: "You are one of those chilly women of the North, who are governed only by the mind. . . . Farewell, since we can be friends only at a distance. When we have grown old, perhaps we shall meet again with pleasure." Then, with a word of affec- tion, he recovers his serenity. But the antagonism of their temperaments is bound to reappear. "Seldom do I reproach you, except for that lack of frankness, which keeps me constantly in a rage with you, compelled as I am always to search for your meaning under a disguise. . . . Why is it, when we have become all we are to each other, that you must reflect for several days before replying frankly to the simplest question of mine ? . . . Be- tween your reason and your heart, I never feel sure which will win; you do not know yourself, but you give the pref- erence always to your reason. ... If you have com- mitted any wrong, it is assuredly that preference which you give to your pride over all the tenderness of your nature. The first sentiment is to the second as a colossus to a pygmy. And that pride of yours is at bottom nothing but a kind of selfishness."

All this ended in a warm and lasting friendship. But do you not consider admirable his delightful manner of love-making? They met in the Louvre, at Versailles,