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47 xxiv Planning To himself he said, wandering alone in a large park: “How beautiful she would be, wearing an elaborate and elegant court dress, in the fine feel of evening, coming down the marble steps of a palace to broad lawns and ornamental lakes. Since she has by nature the air of a princess.” Later, along his way, he dropped into a shop of engravings and, coming across the print of a tropical scape, he said to himself: “But no, it’s not in a palace I should make her mine. Such a place would not be ours. Besides, those gold-ridden walls have no place to fasten her image, the solemn galleries no corner left for intimacy. It’s definitely there we must live, to cultivate my life’s dream.” And with an analytical eye on details in the print, his thought continued : “On the seashore, a fine wooden hut surrounded by all these bizarre glossy trees whose names I’ve forgotten . . . in the air an indefinable , intoxicating odor . . . inside the hut a heavy scent of rose and musk . . . seen behind our little domain, the tops of masts riding the sea surge . . . all around, beyond the bedroom, its rosy light filtering through blinds, strewn with new mats and heady flowers, with rare Portuguese Rococo couches of a dense dark wood (where she would lie so calm, refreshed, smoking tobacco with a trace of opium), from beyond the flooring a racket from birds drunk with light along with chatter from little black girls . . . and, for accompaniment to my dreams: night, the plaintive song of musical trees, melancholy filaos. Yes, truly there the setting I look for. What have I to do with palaces?” And farther on, going down a wide avenue, he noticed a nice little inn where from a window sporting gaudy Indian curtains two heads leaned out, laughing. And suddenly, “My brain must be vagabonding ,” he said to himself, “to search so far afield for what is so close. 48 Pleasure, happiness, they’re in whatever inn, the next inn chanced upon, voluptuous. A roaring fire, loud table service, passable supper, rough wine, a very wide bed with sheets a bit worn but clean. What could be better?” And once home, at an hour when Wisdom’s counsels are no longer drowned in the buzz of outside life, he said to himself: “I had today, in dream, three dwellings I found equally pleasant. Why force my body to change places, since my soul travels so lightly? And what good would it do to execute such plans, since planning is in itself sufficient enjoyment?” ...

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