Chapter 11 - Page 2

and that Seraphine has adopted the
geranium. Never is this lugubrious handkerchief thrown
into the seraglio without being picked up.

Thenceforward the three bandits have three servants
whose names are Palmyre, Fanny, and Seraphine.
Administrative detentions are relatively of short duration.
These women are released from prison before the men.
And what do they do? They support them. In elegant
phraseology they are providences; in plain language they
are milch-cows.

Pity has been transformed into love. The heart of woman
is susceptible of such sombre graftings. These women say:

"I am married." They are married indeed. By whom?
By the flower. With whom? With the abyss. They are
fiancées of the unknown. Enraptured and enthusiastic
fiancées. Pale Sulamites of fancy and fog. When the
known is so odious, how can they help loving the unknown?

In these nocturnal regions and with the winds of
dispersion that blow, meetings are almost impossible. The
lovers see each other in dreams. In all probability the
woman will never set eyes on the man. Is he young? Is
he old? Is he handsome? Is he ugly? She does not
know; she knows nothing about him. She adores him.
And it is because she does not know him that she loves
him. Idolatry is born of mystery.

This woman, drifting aimlessly on life's tide, yearns for
something to cling to, a tie to bind her, a duty to perform.
The pit from amid its scum throws it to her; she accepts
it and devotes herself to it. This mysterious bandit,
transformed into heliotrope or iris, becomes a religion to her.
She espouses him in the presence of night. She has a
thousand little wifely attentions for him; poor for herself,
she is rich for him; she whelms this manure with her delicate
solicitude. She is faithful to him with all the fidelity
of which she is still capable; the incorruptible emanates
from the corruptible. Never does this woman betray her
love. It is an immaterial, pure, ethereal love, subtile as the
breath of spring, solid as brass.

A flower has done all this. What a well is the human
heart, and how giddy it makes one to peer into it! Lo!
the cloaca. Of what is it thinking? Of perfume. A
prostitute loves a thief through a lily. What plunger into
human thought could reach the bottom of this? Who shall
fathom this immense yearning for flowers that springs from
mud? In the secret self of these hapless women is a
strange equilibrium that consoles and reassures them. A
rose counterbalances an act of shame.

Hence these amours based on and sustained by illusion.
This thief is idolized by this girl. She has not seen his face,
she does not know his name; she sees him in visions induced