The Lover's Hair

James Jacques Tissot, Mme & M.Mauperin en Égypte

"She came to live only through him and for him, by his presence, by the thought of him, by his future, his portrait, which she carried when she last met him. When she parted from him, she ran her hands through his hair several times and then put on her gloves quickly. All the following day she breathed, sitting next to her husband, next to her daughter, in her house, the smell of her beloved and of his hair, which emanated from her hands, which she had not washed."

Edmond & Jules de Goncourt, Renée Mauperin (1864).