Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far, than if cruelly I
enjoy the tortures, which my beauty excites, and virtuously reject
the poor fellow who is pining away for me. I am young, rich, and
beautiful, and I live serenely for the sake of pleasure and
enjoyment."
While she was speaking her eyes sparkled roguishly, and I had taken
hold of her hands without exactly knowing what to do with them, but
being a genuine dilettante I hastily let go of them again.
"Your frankness," I said, "delights me, and not it alone--"
My confounded dilettantism again throttled me as though there were
a rope around my neck.
"You were about to say--"
"I was about to say--I was--I am sorry--I interrupted you."
"How, so?"
A long pause. She is doubtless engaging in a monologue, which
translated into my language would be comprised in the single word,
"donkey."
"If I may ask," I finally began, "how did you arrive at these--these
conclusions?"
"Quite simply, my father was an intelligent man. From my cradle onward
I was surrounded by replicas of ancient art; at ten years of age I
read _Gil Blas_, at twelve _La Pucelle_. Where others had
Hop-o'-my-thumb, Bluebeard, Cinderella, as childhood friends, mine
were Venus and Apollo, Hercules and Lackoon. My husband's personality
was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness
which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42