he "t's" were
an echo of her heart's despotism. She thus extended, without herself
knowing that she did so, the meaning of her words, leading the soul of
the listener into regions above this earth. Many a time I have continued
a discussion I could easily have ended, many a time I have allowed
myself to be unjustly scolded that I might listen to those harmonies of
the human voice, that I might breathe the air of her soul as it left
her lips, and strain to my soul that spoken light as I would fain have
strained the speaker to my breast. A swallow's song of joy it was when
she was gay!--but when she spoke of her griefs, a swan's voice calling
to its mates!

Madame de Mortsauf's inattention to my presence enabled me to examine
her. My eyes rejoiced as they glided over the sweet speaker; they kissed
her feet, they clasped her waist, they played with the ringlets of her
hair. And yet I was a prey to terror, as all who, once in their lives,
have experienced the illimitable joys of a true passion will understand.
I feared she would detect me if I let my eyes rest upon the shoulder I
had kissed, and the fear sharpened the temptation. I yielded, I looked,
my eyes tore away the covering; I saw the mole which lay where the
pretty line between the shoulders started, and which, ever since the
ball, had sparkled in that twilight which seems the region of the sleep
of youths whose imagination is ardent and whose life is chaste.

I can sketch for you the leading features which all eyes saw in Madame
de Mortsauf; but no drawing, however correct, no color, however warm,
can represent her to you. Her face was of those that require the
unattainable artist, whose hand can paint the reflection of inward
fires and render that luminous vapor which defies science and is not
revealable by language--but which a lover sees. Her soft, fair hair
often caused her much suffering, no doubt through sudden rushes of blood
to the head. Her brow, round and prominent like that of Joconda, teemed
with unuttered thoughts, restrained feelings--flowers drowning in bitter
waters. The eyes, of a green tinge flecked with brown, were always wan;
but if her children were in question, or if some keen condition of joy
or suffering (rare in the lives of all resigned women) seized her, those
eyes sent forth a subtile gleam as if from fires that were consuming
her,--the gleam that wrung the tears from mine when she covered me with
her contempt, and which sufficed to lowe