Forgive my sensuousness, dear reader; remember it was the first time I
breathed the soft Southern air, the first time I saw orange trees;
remember I am a poet, a modern Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is
this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed
more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted
among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see
when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew,
nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the
golden fruit growing amid the green leaves was the fruit I used to
pick from the barrows when I was a boy; the fruit of which I ate so
much in boyhood that I cannot eat it any longer; the fruit whose smell
we associate with the pit of a theatre; the fruit that women never
grow weary of, high and low. It seemed to me a wonderful thing that at
last I should see oranges growing on trees; I so happy, so singularly
happy, that I am nearly sure that happiness is, after all, no more
than a faculty for being surprised. Since I was a boy I never felt so
surprised as I did that morning. The _valet de chambre_ brought
in my bath, and while I bathed and dressed I reflected on the luck of
him who in middle age can be astonished by a blue sky, and still find
the sunlight a bewitchment.
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