BOTTLE

When midnight strikes, when the embers die away into ashes, when the
lamp burns more feebly and your eyes close in spite of yourself, the
best thing to do, dear Madame, is to go to bed.

Get up from your armchair, take off your bracelets, light your
rosecolored taper, and proceed slowly, to the soft accompaniment of your
trailing skirt, rustling across the carpet, to your dressing-room, that
perfumed sanctuary in which your beauty, knowing itself to be alone,
raises its veils, indulges in self-examination, revels in itself and
reckons up its treasures as a miser does his wealth.

Before the muslin-framed mirror, which reveals all that it sees so well,
you pause carelessly and with a smile give one long satisfied look, then
with two fingers you withdraw the pin that kept up your hair, and
its long, fair tresses unroll and fall in waves, veiling your bare
shoulders. With a coquettish hand, the little finger of which is turned
up, you caress, as you gather them together, the golden flood of
your abundant locks, while with the other you pass through them the
tortoiseshell comb that buries itself in the depths of this fair forest
and bends with the effort.

Your tresses are so abundant that your little hand can scarcely grasp
them. They are so long that your outstretched arm scarcely reaches their
extremity. Hence it is not without difficulty that you manage to twist
them up and imprison them in your embroidered night-cap.

This first duty accomplished, you turn the silver tap, and the pure and
limpid water pours into a large bowl of enamelled porcelain. You throw
in a few drops of that fluid which perfumes and softens the skin, and
like a nymph in the depths of a quiet wood preparing for the toilet, you
remove the drapery that might encumber you.

But what, Madame, you frown? Have I said too much or not enough? Is
it not well known that you love cold water; and do you think it is not
guessed that at the contact of the dripping sponge you quiver from head
to foot?

But what matters it, your toilette for the night is completed, you are
fresh, restored, and white as a nun in your embroidered dressing-gown,
you dart your bare feet into satin slippers and reenter your bedroom,
shivering slightly. To see you walking thus with hurried steps, wrapped
tightly in your dressing-gown, and with your pretty head hidden in its
nightcap, you might be taken for a little girl leaving the confessional
after confessing some ter