As life goes on, we acquire such adroitness in the cultivation of our pleasures, that we content ourselves with the pleasure we derive from thinking of a woman, as I thought of Gilberte, without troubling ourselves to ascertain whether the image corresponds to the reality, and also with the pleasure of loving her without needing to be sure that she loves us too; or again that we renounce the pleasure of confessing our inclination for her, so as to preserve and enhance her inclination for us, like those Japanese gardeners who, to obtain one perfect blossom, will sacrifice several others.
