But you know I hadn't.

The only woman I had anything to do with was myself, and they say that one can't know oneself.

It never entered my head to be on my guard against his warmth and his terrible obviousness.

You and he were the only two, infinitely different, people, who didn't approach me as if I had been a precious object in a collection, an ivory carving or a piece of Chinese porcelain.

That's why I have kept you in my memory so well.
Oh! you were not obvious! As to him--I soon learned to regret I was not some object, some beautiful, carved object of bone or bronze; a rare piece of porcelain, _pate dure_, not _pate tendre_.