When we are older, more skilled in the cultivation of our pleasures, we are sometimes content with the enjoyment of thinking about a woman as I thought about Gilberte, without worrying about whether that image corresponds to the reality, and also with the pleasure of loving her without needing to be certain that she loves us; or we forgo the pleasure of confessing our warm feelings for her, in order to encourage the hardiness of hers for us, imitating those Japanese gardeners who, to obtain one lovelier flower, sacrifice several others. But during the period when I loved Gilberte, I still
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