She is quite ill-favored. None the less she is delightful! Time and
Love have scarred her with their claws, and have cruelly taught her
that every moment and every kiss bears away youth and freshness.
She is indeed ugly; she is an ant, a spider, if you insist, a very
carcass; but she is, as well, a potion, a magistral, an enchantment! in
short, she is exquisite!
Time could not break the sparkling harmony of her walk, nor the
indestructible elegance of her stays. Love has not changed the
sweetness of her childlike breath; Time has plucked nothing of her
abundant mane, from which is breathed in tawny perfumes all the
devilish vitality of Southern France: Nîmes, Aix, Arles, Avignon,
Narbonne, Toulouse, towns blessed by the sun, amorous and charming!
Time and Love have vainly nibbled with sharp teeth; they have in no way
lessened the vague but eternal charm of her hoyden breast.
Worn perhaps, but not wearied, and always heroic, she brings thoughts
of those full-blooded horses which the eye of the true amateur will
recognize, even hitched to a hackney or to a heavy truck.
And then she is so sweet and so fervent! She loves as one loves in the
autumn; you would say that the approach of winter lights a new fire in
her heart, and the servility of her tenderness is never wearying.