' Nevertheless, they despise in their souls the
plump, soft Adelaida.
Dear Adelaida, she is irreproachable. In every age, in every clime, she
is dear, at any rate to the masculine soul, this soft, tear-blenched,
blonde, ill-used thing. She must be ill-used and unfortunate. Dear
Gretchen, dear Desdemona, dear Iphigenia, dear Dame aux Camelias, dear
Lucy of Lammermoor, dear Mary Magdalene, dear, pathetic, unfortunate
soul, in all ages and lands, how we love you. In the theatre she
blossoms forth, she is the lily of the stage. Young and inexperienced as
I am, I have broken my heart over her several times. I could write a
sonnet-sequence to her, yes, the fair, pale, tear-stained thing,
white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred
names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly,
Phedre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint
clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest
her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the
plangent rain.
The last time I saw her was here, on the Garda, at Salo.
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