She looked
better, perhaps from having just washed her face. She drew a stool
to the corner of the fire opposite him. But as she sat down, to his
bewilderment, and even horror, the student spied a single drop of
blood on her white skin within her torn dress. The woman brought
out a jar of whisky, put a rusty old kettle on the fire, and took
her place in front of it. As soon as the water boiled, she
proceeded to make some toddy in a wooden bowl.
'Meantime the youth could not take his eyes off the young woman, so
that at length he found himself fascinated, or rather bewitched.
She kept her eyes for the most part veiled with the loveliest
eyelids fringed with darkest lashes, and he gazed entranced; for the
red glow of the little oil-lamp covered all the strangeness of her
complexion. But as soon as he met a stolen glance out of those eyes
unveiled, his soul shuddered within him. Lovely face and craving
eyes alternated fascination and repulsion.
'The mother placed the bowl in his hands. He drank sparingly, and
passed it to the girl. She lifted it to her lips, and as she
tasted--only tasted it--looked at him. He thought the drink must
have been drugged and have affected his brain. Her hair smoothed
itself back, and drew her forehead backwards with it; while the
lower part of her face projected towards the bowl, revealing, ere
she sipped, her dazzling teeth in strange prominence. But the same
moment the vision vanished; she returned the vessel to her mother,
and rising, hurried out of the cottage.
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