CHAPTER XXVII 392 talk : I don ' t very well know why ."
" I mean , -- What next ? How did you proceed ? What came of such an event ?"
" Precisely ! and what do you wish to know now ?"
" Whether you found any one you liked : whether you asked her to marry you ; and what she said ."
" I can tell you whether I found any one I liked , and whether I asked her to marry me : but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate . For ten long years I roved about , living first in one capital , then another : sometimes in St . Petersburg ; oftener in Paris ; occasionally in Rome , Naples , and Florence . Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name , I could choose my own society : no circles were closed against me . I sought my ideal of a woman amongst English ladies , French countesses , Italian signoras , and German grafinnen . I could not find her . Sometimes , for a fleeting moment , I thought I caught a glance , heard a tone , beheld a form , which announced the realisation of my dream : but I was presently undeserved . You are not to suppose that I desired perfection , either of mind or person . I longed only for what suited me -- for the antipodes of the Creole : and I longed vainly . Amongst them all I found not one whom , had I been ever so free , I -- warned as I was of the risks , the horrors , the loathings of incongruous unions -- would have asked to marry me . Disappointment made me reckless . I tried dissipation -- never debauchery : that I hated , and hate . That was my Indian Messalina ' s attribute : rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much , even in pleasure . Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices , and I eschewed it .
" Yet I could not live alone ; so I tried the companionship of mistresses . The first I chose was Celine Varens -- another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them . You already know what she was , and how my liaison with her terminated . She had two successors : an Italian , Giacinta , and a German , Clara ; both considered singularly handsome . What