The Bacchantes. Leon Daudet

in the mind, according to Bénalep, there are a thousand shades of emotion in the heart, and in the mental frisson that results therefrom.

      My lover, my master,

      The sum of the days that I spent in your home, after the horrible accident that made me a widow and your mistress, extends before me like a bed of scented flowers. I only live to breathe its perfume. I would like to live alone here with these recent, immense memories—alone and waiting for you.

      Whether it will be possible for me to go back to work, to continue the deceased or his shade, in the measure of my strength, I don’t know. At least I’m close to you, and from my window, overlooking the fields, I can see the bell-tower and the nearest house of Avenillon. Everything important to me is there.

      Jean stayed here in the end. He hasn’t said anything to me. He’s extremely useful to me. He issues orders like a true leader—but his gaze is still worrying. Bah! I’m not scared any more, when I think of you, my conqueror and the conqueror of nature, who can recall the deeds of the dead at your whim!

      I’m press myself against you, my Romain. I’m counting the minutes before I see you again—but that’s not enough to have you, and in order for you to have your

      Tullie

      The scientist read and reread the letter. With that woman, he felt strongly that a new element had entered into his life, amplifying the force of conception but also creating disturbances, as if charged with latent drama. The carnal exchange had been so magnificent that absence and separation were also fecund, but accompanied by a suffering whose extent he could not measure.

      Tullie had taken him into an enchanted realm, the unknown aspects of which he was considering with astonishment.

3. Approximately, “Mr. Well-Intentioned.”

4. The battle of Châteaudun in October 1870 was an unfortunate episode in the Franco-Prussian War. After taking the town without any significant resistance the Prussians left it under the guard of a small contingent of troops. A colonel of Franc-Tireurs [riflemen], Emanuel de Lipowski, backed up by National Guardsmen, took it back, apparently for no better reason than that he could (it had no strategic significance). When the irritated Germans came back, Lipowski refused to leave, and the subsequent bombardment, followed by a massacre, virtually obliterated the town and decimated its population. French military history records it as a typical instance of German atrocity rather than a not-altogether-atypical instance of lunatic French bravado.

5. A Burial at Ornans, 1849-50.

6. The Curé d’Ars—a small village near Lyon—was Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (1786-1859), a famous ascetic who was canonized in 1925.

7. The Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) was best-known for his religious paintings, including numerous saints and martyrs.

8. The quotation is from Le Roman de Lamartine (1909) by Léon Séché.

9. The thirteenth-century philosopher Ramon Lull (or Llull) set out a supposedly logical theory of philosophical and religious philosophy in his Ars generalis ultima (1305; also known as Ars magna) based on the rational organization of ideas stemming from a limited number of axioms. His method influenced Gottfried Leibniz and is sometimes claimed as the ultimate origin of information science.