Is it Venus,
or the widow?
This time it happens to be the widow, for Madame Tartakovska makes
a courtesy, and asks me in her name for something to read. I run to
my room, and gather together a couple of volumes.
Later I remember that my picture of Venus is in one of them, and now
it and my effusions are in the hands of the white woman up there
together. What will she say?
I hear her laugh.
Is she laughing at me?
It is full moon. It is already peering over the tops of the low
hemlocks that fringe the park. A silvery exhalation fills the
terrace, the groups of trees, all the landscape, as far as the eye
can reach; in the distance it gradually fades away, like trembling
waters.
I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me. I put on
my clothes again and go out into the garden.
Some power draws me toward the meadow, toward her, who is my
divinity and my beloved.
The night is cool. I feel a slight chill. The atmosphere is heavy
with the odor of flowers and of the forest. It intoxicates.
What solemnity! What music round about! A nightingale sobs. The
stars quiver very faintly in the pale-blue glamour. The meadow seems
smooth, like a mirror, like a covering of ice on a pond.
The statue of Venus stands out august and luminous.
But--what has happened? From the marble shoulders of the goddess a
large dark fur flows down to her heels.
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