Later
I climb the four flights upstairs to my room. My small trunk is
already there, and a miserable little oil-lamp is burning. It is a
narrow room without fire-place, without a window, but with a small
air-hole. If it weren't so beastly cold, it would remind me of one
of the Venetian _piombi_. [Footnote: These were notorious prisons
under the leaden roof of the Palace of the Doges.] Involuntarily I
have to laugh out aloud, so that it re-echoes, and I am startled by
my own laughter.
Suddenly the door is pulled open and the waiter with a theatrical
Italian gesture calls "You are to come down to madame, at once." I
pick up my cap, stumble down the first few steps, but finally arrive
in front of her door on the first floor and knock.
"Come in!"
I enter, shut the door, and stand attention.
Wanda has made herself comfortable. She is sitting in a neglige of
white muslin and laces on a small red divan with her feet on a
footstool that matches. She has thrown her fur-cloak about her. It
is the identical cloak in which she appeared to me for the first time,
as goddess of love.
The yellow lights of the candelabra which stand on projections,
their reflections in the large mirrors, and the red flames from the
open fireplace play beautifully on the green velvet, the dark-brown
sable of the cloak, the smooth white skin, and the red, flaming hair
of the beautiful woman.
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