"Look at me," she said, "with your deep,
fanatical look, that's it."
The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his
beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb.
"Well, how do you like the picture?"
"Yes, that is how I want to paint you," said the German, but it was
really not a spoken language; it was the eloquent moaning, the
weeping of a sick soul, a soul sick unto death.
* * * * *
The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and flesh
parts are painted in. Her diabolical face is already becoming visible
under a few bold strokes, life flashes in her green eyes.
Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her
breast.
"This picture, like many of those of the Venetian school, is
simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a story,"
explained the painter, who again had become pale as death.
"And what will you call it?" she asked, "but what is the matter with
you, are you ill?"
"I am afraid--" he answered with a consuming look fixed on the
beautiful woman in furs, "but let us talk of the picture."
"Yes, let us talk about the picture."
"I imagine the goddess of love as having descended from Mount Olympus
for the sake of some mortal man. And always cold in this modern world
of ours, she seeks to keep her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur
and her feet in the lap of her lover.
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