--A
commission! a commission! Ugh!--On my word, you would break the wings of
faith! Little one, have you any of that double zero Kummel left, that
you had the other day?"

Marianne sought to spare Sulpice the importunities of her uncle. She
wished to keep the minister's entire influence for herself.

She had nothing to fear, moreover. Sulpice was hers as fully as she
believed. Like so many others who have lived without living, Sulpice
did not know _woman_, and Marianne was ten times a woman, woman-child,
woman-lover, woman-courtesan, woman-girl, and every day and every night
she appeared to her lover renewed and surprising, freshly created for
passion and pleasure. Everything about her, even the frame that
surrounded her beauty, the dwelling, perfumed with passionate love,
distractedly captivated Sulpice. Behind the dense curtains in the
dressing-room upholstered like a boudoir, with its carpet intended only
for naked feet, as the reclining chair with its extra covering of
Oriental silk was adapted to moments of languishing repose, Sulpice saw
and contemplated the vast wardrobe with its three mirrors reflecting the
huge marble washstand with its silver spigots, its silver bowl, wherein
the scented water gleamed opal-like with its perfumes, the gas
illuminating the brushes decorated with monograms, standing out against
the white marble, the manicure sets of fine steel, the dark-veined
tortoise-shell combs, the coquettish superfluity of scissors and files
scattered about amongst knickknacks, inlaid enamels, and Japanese ivory
ornaments, and there, stretched out and watching Marianne, who came and
went before him with a smile on her face, her hair unfastened, sometimes
with bare shoulders, Sulpice saw, through a half-open door in the middle
of a bathroom floored with blue Delft tiles, the bath that steamed with
a perfumed vapor, odorous of thyme, and the water which was about to
envelop in its warm embrace that rosy form that displayed beneath the
lights and under the full blaze of the gas, the nudity of her flesh
beneath a transparent Surah chemise, silky upon the living silk.

Milk-white reflections seemed to play on her shoulders and Sulpice never
forgot those ardent visions that followed him, clung to him, thrust
themselves before his gaze and into his recollections, never leaving
him, either at the Chamber, the Council Board or even when he was with
Adrienne.--The young woman, seeing his absorption, hesitated to dis