There were also--the property, no doubt, of Valerie--a low easy-chair
and a man's smoking-chair, and a pretty toilet chest of drawers in
rosewood, the mirror handsomely framed _a la_ Pompadour. A lamp
hanging from the ceiling gave a subdued light, increased by wax
candles on the table and on the chimney-shelf.
This sketch will suffice to give an idea, _urbi et orbi_, of
clandestine passion in the squalid style stamped on it in Paris in
1840. How far, alas! from the adulterous love, symbolized by Vulcan's
nets, three thousand years ago.
When Montes and Cydalise came upstairs, Valerie, standing before the
fire, where a log was blazing, was allowing Wenceslas to lace her
stays.
This is a moment when a woman who is neither too fat nor too thin, but
like Valerie, elegant and slender, displays divine beauty. The rosy
skin, mostly soft, invites the sleepiest eye. The lines of her figure,
so little hidden, are so charmingly outlined by the white pleats of
the shift and the support of the stays, that she is irresistible--like
everything that must be parted from.
With a happy face smiling at the glass, a foot impatiently marking
time, a hand put up to restore order among the tumbled curls, and eyes
expressive of gratitude; with the glow of satisfaction which, like a
sunset, warms the least details of the countenance--everything makes
such a moment a mine of memories.
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