AN EXPERIMENT IN LOVE

Many poets think that nature is incomplete without women, and hence,
doubtless, come all the flowery comparisons which, in their songs, make
our natural companion in turn a rose, a violet, a tulip, or something of
that order. The need of tenderness which seizes us at dusk, when the
evening mist begins to roll in from the hills, and when all the perfumes
of the earth intoxicate us, is but imperfectly satisfied by lyric
invocations. Monsieur Patissot, like all others, was seized with a wild
desire for tenderness, for sweet kisses exchanged along a path where
sunshine steals in at times, for the pressure of a pair of small hands,
for a supple waist bending under his embrace.

He began to look at love as an unbounded pleasure, and, in his hours of
reverie, he thanked the Great Unknown for having put so much charm into
the caresses of human beings. But he needed a companion, and he did not
know where to find one. On the advice of a friend, he went to the
Folies-Bergere. There he saw a complete assortment. He was greatly
perplexed to choose between them, for the desires of his heart were
chiefly composed of poetic impulses, and poetry did not seem to be the
strong point of these young ladies with penciled eyebrows who smiled at
him in such a disturbing manner, showing the enamel of their false teeth.
At last his choice fell on a young beginner who seemed poor and timid and
whose sad look seemed to announce a nature easily influenced-by poetry.

He made an appointment with her for the following day at nine o'clock at
the Saint-Lazare station. She did not come, but she was kind enough to
send a friend in her stead.

She was a tall, red-haired girl, patriotically dressed in three colors,