ones between green shrubs. It all smelt of
absinthe, cigars, and oysters.

She turned down a street; she recognised him by his curling hair that
escaped from beneath his hat.

Leon walked along the pavement. She followed him to the hotel. He went
up, opened the door, entered--What an embrace!

Then, after the kisses, the words gushed forth. They told each other the
sorrows of the week, the presentiments, the anxiety for the letters; but
now everything was forgotten; they gazed into each other's faces with
voluptuous laughs, and tender names.

The bed was large, of mahogany, in the shape of a boat. The curtains
were in red levantine, that hung from the ceiling and bulged out too
much towards the bell-shaped bedside; and nothing in the world was so
lovely as her brown head and white skin standing out against this purple
colour, when, with a movement of shame, she crossed her bare arms,
hiding her face in her hands.

The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay ornaments, and its
calm light, seemed made for the intimacies of passion. The curtain-rods,
ending in arrows, their brass pegs, and the great balls of the fire-dogs
shone suddenly when the sun came in. On the chimney between the
candelabra there were two of those pink shells in which one hears the
murmur of the sea if one holds them to the ear.

How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite its rather
faded splendour! They always found the furniture in the same place, and
sometimes hairpins, that she had forgotten the Thursday before, under
the pedestal of the clock. They lunched by the fireside on a little
round table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma carved, put bits on his plate
with all sorts of coquettish ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and
libertine laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from the
glass to the rings on her fingers. They were so completely lost in
the possession of each other that they thought themselves in their
own house, and that they would live there till death, like two spouses
eternally young. They said "our room," "our carpet," she even said "my
slippers," a gift of Leon's, a whim she had had. They were pink satin,
bordered with swansdown. When she sat on his knees, her leg, then too
short, hung in the air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was
held only by the toes to her bare foot.

He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of feminine
refinements. He had never met this grace of