Madame, you ask me whether I am laughing at you? You cannot believe that
a man has never been in love. Well, then, no, no, I have never loved,
never!
Why is this? I really cannot tell. I have never experienced that
intoxication of the heart which we call love! Never have I lived in that
dream, in that exaltation, in that state of madness into which the image
of a woman casts us. I have never been pursued, haunted, roused to
fever heat, lifted up to Paradise by the thought of meeting, or by the
possession of, a being who had suddenly become for me more desirable
than any good fortune, more beautiful than any other creature, of
more consequence than the whole world! I have never wept, I have
never suffered on account of any of you. I have not passed my nights
sleepless, while thinking of her. I have no experience of waking
thoughts bright with thought and memories of her. I have never known the
wild rapture of hope before her arrival, or the divine sadness of regret
when she went from me, leaving behind her a delicate odor of violet
powder.