cupied the same box. She used to send him
letters by the boxopener, letters which smelt like bunches of violets,
and always smiled at him when he came into the ring to bow to the
public, amidst the applause and recalls, and it was that smile, those
red, half-open lips, which seemed to promise so many caresses and
delicious words, that had attracted him like some strange, fragrant
fruit. Sometimes she came with gentlemen in evening dress, and with
gardenias in their button-holes, who seemed to bore her terribly, if not
to disgust her. And he was happy, although he had never yet spoken to
her, that she had not that smile for them which she had for him, and
that she appeared dull and sad, like somebody who is homesick, or who
has got a great longing for something.

"On other evenings, she used to be quite alone, with black pearls in the
lobes of her small ears, that were like pink shells, and got up and left
her box as soon as he had finished his performance on the trapeze ...
while the evening before she carried him off almost forcibly in her
carriage, without even giving him time to get rid of his tights, and the
india-rubber armlets that he wore on his wrists. Oh! that return to the
cold, in the semi-obscurity, through which the trembling light of the
street lamps shone, that warm, exciting clasp of her arms round him,
which imprisoned him, and by degrees drew him close to that warm body,
whose slightest throb and shiver he felt, as if she had been clothed in
impalpable gauze, and whose odor mounted to his head like fumes of
whisky, an odor in which there was something of everything, of the
animal, of the woman, of spices, of flowers, and something that he did
not yet know.

"And they were despotic, imperious, divine kisses, when she put her lips
to his and kept them there, as if to make him dream of an eternity of
bliss, sucking in his breath, hurting his lips, intoxicating,
overwhelming him with delight, exhausting him, while she held his head
in both her hands, as if in a vice. And the carriage rolled on at a
quick trot, through the silence of the snow, and they did not even hear
the noise of the wheels, which buried themselves in that white carpet,
as if it had been cotton-wool. Suddenly, however, tired and exhausted
she leant against him with closed eyes and moist lips, and then they
talked at random, like people who are not quite themselves, and who have
uncorked too many bottles of champagne on a benefit night.