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      TO NINON

      Table of Contents

      Here they are then, my friend, these unfettered narratives of our young days, which I related to you out in the country in my dear Provence, and to which you listened with an attentive ear, whilst vaguely following with your eyes the great blue lines of the distant hills.

      On May evenings, at the moment when heaven and earth glide slowly into supreme peace, I left the city and reached the fields; the barren slopes, covered with brambles and juniper bushes; or else the banks of the little river, that December torrent, so unobtrusive in fine weather; or again an out-of-the-way corner of the plain, warm with the embrace of the south, a broad stretch of red and yellow land, planted with almond trees with slender branches, old olives turning grey, and vines with their entangled offshoots trailing along the ground.

      Poor parched earth, it stands out glaring, grey, and naked in the sun, between the fertile meadows of the Durance and the orange groves on the seashore. I love it for its harsh beauty, its doleful-looking rocks, its thyme and lavender. There is, I know not what burning air of desolation about this sterile valley; a strange whirlwind of passion seems to have passed over the country; then, great oppression followed, and the fields, which were still full of generous warmth, fell asleep, so to say, in a final desire. At present, amidst my forests of the north, when I recall to mind that stone and dust, I feel most profound love for that rugged country which is not mine. Doubtless the merry child and the sad old rocks formerly felt tender affection for each other; and now the child, who has become a man, disdains damp fields and submerged verdure; he is in love with the broad white roads and calcinated mountains, where his mind, in all the freshness of its fifteen summers, dreamed its first dreams.

      I reached the fields. There, when I had half laid me down on the cultivated land, or on the slabs on the hillside, lost in that peacefulness which came from the profound depths of heaven, I found you, on turning my head, extended comfortably on my right, thoughtful, your chin resting in your hand, gazing at me with your great eyes. You were the angel of my solitude, my good guardian angel whom I perceived near me wherever I might be; you read my secret wishes in my heart, you sat down beside me everywhere, unable to be where I was not. At present, this explains to me your presence every night. In days gone by, without ever seeing you approach, I experienced no astonishment in constantly meeting your bright look; I knew you were faithful, always within me.

      My dear soul, you brought sweetness to the sadness of my melancholy evenings. You possessed the forlorn beauty of those knolls, their marble pallidness blushing at the last kisses of the sun. I know not what perpetual thought elevated your forehead and enlarged your eyes. Then, when a smile played upon your idle lips, one would have said in presence of the youthfulness and sudden brightness of your face, that it was that ray of May which causes all the flowers and verdure of this palpitating earth to grow, flowers and verdure of a day that are scorched by the June sun. Between you and the horizon was secret harmony that made me love the stones on the footpaths. The little river had your voice; the stars, when they rose, your look; everything around me smiled with your smile. And you, lending your gracefulness to this nature, assumed its impressive severity. I confounded you one with the other. When I saw you, I was conscious of nature’s free sky, and when my eyes searched the valley, I recognised your lithe, bold lines in the undulations of the ground. It was by comparing you thus that I took to madly loving you both, not knowing which I adored the most, my dear Provence or my dear Ninon.

      Each morn, my friend, I feel a new necessity to thank you for bygone days. It was charitable and tender of you to love me a little and live within me; at that age when the heart suffers at being alone, you brought me yours to spare all pain to mine. Ah! if you only knew how many poor souls at present die of solitude. Times are hard for those who are made of love. I have not known that misery. You showed me at all times the face of an adorable woman, you peopled my desert, mingling your blood with mine, living in my thought. And I, lost in this profound love, I forgot, feeling you in my being. The supreme joy of our hymen caused me to pass in peace through that rugged land of sixteen years, where so many of my companions have left shreds of their hearts.

      Strange creature, now that you are far away, and I can see clearly within me, I experience keen pleasure in examining our love-making piece by piece. You were a beautiful and ardent woman, and I loved you as a husband. Then, I know not how, at times you became a sister, without ceasing to be a sweetheart; then I loved you both as a brother and a sweetheart, with all the chastity of affection, all the passion of desire. At other moments I found a companion in you, the healthy intelligence of man, and always, also, an enchantress, a well-beloved, whose face I smothered with kisses, whilst pressing her hand like an old comrade. In the folly of my tenderness, I gave your beautiful frame, which I so much adored, to each of my affections. Divine dream, which caused me to worship in you each creature, body and soul, with all my strength, apart from sex and blood. You satisfied at the same time the warmth of my imagination and the requirements of my intellect. You thus realised the dream of ancient Greece, the mistress made man, gifted with exquisite elegance of shape coupled with a masculine mind, worthy of knowledge and wisdom. I adored you in all the different forms of love, you, who sufficed for my being, you, whose exquisite beauty filled me with my dream. When I felt your supple frame within me, your sweet childlike face, your thoughts made of my thoughts, I tasted in its entirety, that unheard-of voluptuousness, sought for in vain in antiquity, of possessing a creature with all the sinews of my flesh, all the affection of my heart, all the power of my intelligence.

      I reached the fields. Lying on the ground, your head resting on my bosom, I talked to you for long hours,