Mademoiselle de Maupin, Volume 1 (of 2)

I have for a valet a sort of rustic boor, loutish and stupid enough, who has travelled as much as the north wind, who has been to the devil, to every conceivable place, who has...

I have very often imagined the place she lives in, the dress she wears, the color of her eyes and her hair.--I can hear her voice; I should know her step among a thousand others...

I talked all the evening with them, especially with the last, and I took pains to cast my ideas in the most respectful mould;--although she hardly looked at me, I fancied someti...

I have waited in vain for such a moment and have tried unsuccessfully to lead up to a repetition of it. We have often ridden together through the avenue of elms at sunset on lov...

She is literally murdering me with love; she puts me to the question and every day she draws closer the planks between which I am caught. She probably wants to drive me to tell...

If I were a painter--and I have always regretted that I am not--I should people my canvases with none but goddesses, madonnas, nymphs, cherubim, and loves. To devote one's brush...

At this point, my dear friend, I think it would not be amiss to place a line of asterisks, for the rest of the dialogue could hardly be translated except by onomatopœia.

That was the most burlesque evening of my whole life. Can you imagine the appearance I must have presented with my hat and feather under my paw, rings on every claw, a little si...

They rode on for some distance and reached the crossroads where the huntsmen and the pack were to meet them. Six arched paths, cut through the dense forest, met at a little ston...

The husband is old, ugly, and peevish; he wears his wig awry; his coat is out of fashion; he has a bill-headed cane, a nose smeared with snuff, short legs, and a paunch as fat a...

Ah! if I were a poet, I would consecrate my verses to those whose existence is a failure, whose arrows have not reached the target, who have died with the word they had to say s...

Once, this whim of erecting a magnificent, pretentious monument took possession of us. In the first place we were obliged to borrow the plan from the old Romans; and even before...

We can hardly imagine the tendency of all this wailing, or what good purpose all this indignation and snarling can serve--or who impels these Messieurs Geoffroy on a small scale...

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN Front. THE IMAGINARY MISTRESS FIRST MEETING WITH ROSETTE EPISODE OF THE "TOILETTE DE BAL" D'ALBERT AND ROSETTE THE ARRIVAL OF THÉODORE THÉODORE AND THE PA...

The young gentleman was pale, but his was a golden pallor, full of strength and vitality; his eyes swam in a crystalline blue fluid; his straight, thin nose imparted a wonderful...

Do not say that, Rosette, do not think it.--What architect would build a stairway that led nowhere? Why imagine that the placid Architect of the world was stupider and less far-...

I longed to love.--I went about like a madman, calling and invoking love;--I writhed in frenzy because of my feeling of helplessness; I set my blood on fire, I dragged my body a...