He said to himself, while strolling in the great lonely park: "How
beautiful she would be in an intricate, gorgeous court costume,
descending, through the air of a beauteous evening, the marble stairs
of a palace, opposite shallow pools and great greenswards. For she has
naturally the air of a princess."
Passing along a street somewhat later, he stopped before a print-shop,
and finding in a portfolio an engraving of a tropical scene, he said:
"No, it is not in a palace that I should like to be master of her
beloved life. We would not feel at home. Besides, walls riddled with
gold would afford no niche to hold her likeness; in those solemn
galleries there is no intimate corner. Decidedly it is _there_ I must
live to develop the dream of my life."
And, analyzing the details of the engraving, he continued mentally: "At
the edge of the sea, a little log cabin, surrounded by those shiny,
bizarre trees, the names of which I have forgotten ... in the air, an
indefinable, intoxicating perfume ... in the cabin, a potent fragrance
of rose and of musk ... farther off, behind our little domain,
mast-tops swaying with the swell ... around us, beyond the room lighted
by a roseate glow sifted through the blinds, adorned with fresh matting
and intoxicating flowers, with rare benches of Portuguese rococo, of
a heavy and shadowy wood (where she will rest, so calm, so gently
fanned, smoking tobacco tinged with opium), beyond the timbers of the
ships, the racket of the birds drunk with the light, and the chattering
of little negresses ... and, at night, to serve as accompaniment
to my musings,' the plaintive song of musical trees, of melancholy
beef-woods! Yes, in truth, there indeed is the setting that I seek.
What have I to do with palaces?"
And still farther, as he followed a great avenue, he noticed a
well-kept tavern, from a window of which, enlivened by curtains of
checkered prints, two laughing heads leaned forth. And at once: "My
fancy," he said, "must be a great vagabond to seek so far what is so
near to me. Pleasure and good fortune are in the nearest tavern, in the
chance tavern, so rich in happiness. A great fire, gaudy earthenware,
a tolerable meal, rough wine, and an enormous bed with cloths somewhat
coarse, but fresh; what more could be desired?"
And returning home, alone, at the hour when the counsels of Wisdom are
not drowned by the hum of external life, he said: "I have had to-day,
in my revery, three dwellings in which I have found equal pleasure. Why
constrain my body to move about, when my soul voyages so freely? And
to what end carry out projects, when the project itself is a sufficing
joy?"