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