At last the mulatto opened the door of a _salon_. The condition of the
old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by
one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have
invented and which would have a mighty success in China, where the
artist's ideal is the monstrous.
The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love
to death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose
voluptuous wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free
to show her arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first
interview was what every _rendezvous_ must be between persons of
passionate disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly,
who desire each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know
each other. It is impossible that at first there should not occur
certain discordant notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until
the moment when two souls find themselves in unison.
If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint
aside, the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great
may be her love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and
face to face with the necessity of giving herself, which to many women
is equivalent to a fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they
know not what they shall find.
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