It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to him to have grown singularly short.
From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way towards a nymph of the vicinity.
"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the park keeper does not surprise them." Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the flowery thickets of sentiment.

But at this sweet moment of his dream Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped him on the shoulder.
"It is closing time, sir," said he.
"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe.

"If I had stayed here another five minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances." And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was for him the _Marseillaise_ of love.
Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front.

It was a nose that was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend.
"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in love." "Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad toothache in the heart." "Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander.
"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing but lovers, men and women in couples.

I had the notion of going into the Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that stirred my heart extraordinarily.