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"And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that passionate caress. "'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak. "'Suppose I were not a woman? queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice. "'A merry jest! cried Sarrasine. 'Think you that you can deceive an artist's eye?
The sculptor's companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits. "'Are you ill? Sarrasine asked her. 'Would you prefer to go home? "'I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation, she replied. 'I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.
Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume, he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart.
He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter.
The ambassador's palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment. "'It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and abbes who are here, said Sarrasine, 'that she is dressed as a man, that she has curly hair which she wears in a bag, and that she has a sword at her side?
He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious.
The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure.
This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield! "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns.
Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent.
Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758.
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