The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay ornaments, and its

calm light, seemed made for the intimacies of passion. The curtain-rods,

ending in arrows, their brass pegs, and the great balls of the fire-dogs

shone suddenly when the sun came in. On the chimney between the

candelabra there were two of those pink shells in which one hears the

murmur of the sea if one holds them to the ear.

How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite its rather

faded splendour! They always found the furniture in the same place, and

sometimes hairpins, that she had forgotten the Thursday before, under

the pedestal of the clock. They lunched by the fireside on a little

round table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma carved, put bits on his plate

with all sorts of coquettish ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and

libertine laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from the

glass to the rings on her fingers. They were so completely lost in

the possession of each other that they thought themselves in their

own house, and that they would live there till death, like two spouses

eternally young. They said "our room," "our carpet," she even said "my

slippers," a gift of Leon's, a whim she had had. They were pink satin,

bordered with swansdown. When she sat on his knees, her leg, then too

short, hung in the air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was

held only by the toes to her bare foot.

He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of feminine

refinements. He had never met this grace of language, this reserve of

clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He admired the exaltation of

her soul and the lace on her petticoat. Besides, was she not "a lady"

and a married woman--a real mistress, in fine?

By the diversity of her humour, in turn mystical or mirthful, talkative,

taciturn, passionate, careless, she awakened in him a thousand desires,

called up instincts or memories. She was the mistress of all the novels,

the heroine of all the dramas, the vague "she" of all the volumes

of verse. He found again on her shoulder the amber colouring of the

"Odalisque Bathing"; she had the long waist of feudal chatelaines, and

she resembled the "Pale Woman of Barcelona." But above all she was the

Angel!

Often looking at her, it seemed to him that his soul, escaping towards

her, spread like a wave about the outline of her head, and descended

drawn down into the whiteness of her breast. He knelt on the ground

before her, and with both elbows on her knees looked at her with a

smile, his face upturned.




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