XI 
  
THE WILD WOMAN AND THE SPOILT 
DARLING 
  
  
“REALLY, my dear, you tire me without 
measure or pity! One would say, to hear you 
sigh, that you suffered more than sixty-year-
old gleaners, or the old beggar women who 
pick up broken crusts at the doors of dirty 
inns. 
“If at least your sighs expressed remorse, 
they would do you some honour; but they only 
interpret your satiety of well-being, and that 
you are overwhelmed with rest; and then, you 
go on for ever spreading yourself in vain 
words: “Love me well; I have so much need of 
it; console me here, caress me there.” Come, I 
will try to cure you; we shall perhaps find the 
means for a brace of half-pence in the middle 
of a festival. 
“Let us consider carefully, I beg you, this 
solid cage of iron. Within it, howling like a lost 
soul, shaking the bars like an orang-outang 
made furious by captivity, imitating—and how 
perfectly!—now the tiger’s circular leaps, now