e Rue Guerin-Boisseau, he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which displayed her legs.
This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in love.
The one he loved was Favourite.
O Favourite, thou hast Ionian lips.
There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the painter of the lips.
That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint thy mouth.
Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the name.
Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve; beauty begins with thee.I have just referred to Eve; it is thou who hast created her.Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful woman.
O Favourite, I cease to address you as `thou,'' because I pass from poetry to prose.You were speaking of my name a little while ago.
That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names.
They may delude us.I am called Felix, and I am not happy.
Words are liars.
Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us.
It would be a mistake to write to Liege[2] for corks, and to Pau for gloves.Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa.A flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit.
I say nothing of Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence.