The soul has I know not what attraction
towards white, love delights in red, and the passions are flattered by
gold, which has the power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that
man possesses within him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable
affinities, were caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was
in this perfect harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded
with vague and voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in
her black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as
the god of this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De
Marsay was accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury,
he was surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which
Venus rose out of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between
the darkness from which he issued and the light which bathed his soul,
whether from a comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and
that of their first interview, he experienced one of those delicate
sensations which true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this
retreat, which had been opened to him as by a fairy's magic wand, the
masterpiece of creation, this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose
soft skin--soft, but slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not
what vaporous effusion of love--gleamed as though it reflected the
rays of color and light, his anger, his desire for vengeance, his
wounded vanity, all were lost.
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