The Window by Guy De Maupassant

I made the acquaintance of Mme. de Jadelle at Paris this winter. She pleased me exceedingly at once. But you know her as well as I. no. pardon. almost as well as I. You know her to be at once whimsical and romantic. Frank in manner and emotionally impressionable, wilful, unconventional, fearless, adventurous, audacious, contemptuous of all prejudice, and, in spite of that, sentimental, fastidious, easily offended, sensitive and modest.

She was a widow. I adore widows, because I am indolent. I was thinking of marrying her, and I paid court to her. The better I knew her, the better she pleased me; and I decided that the moment had come to venture my request. I was in love with her, and I was on the verge of being too much in love. When a man marries, he ought not to be too much in love with his wife, because that makes a blundering fool of him: he loses his self-possession, and becomes both stupid and crude. He must hold on to his self-control. If he loses his head the first night, he runs a great risk of having it antlered a year later.