Over that cup of chocolate
we talked for an hour, and then I had to bid her good-night. The moon
looked down the street coldly; I crossed from shadow to light, feeling
very weary in all my body, and there was a little melancholy in my
heart, for after all I might not win Doris. There was sleep, however,
and sleep is at times a good thing, and that night it must have come
quickly, so great was the refreshment I experienced in the morning
when my eyes opened and, looking through mosquito curtains (themselves
symbols of the South), were delighted by the play of the sunlight
flickering along the flower-papered wall. The impulse in me was to
jump out of bed at once and to throw open _les croisees_. And
what did I see? Tall palm trees in the garden, and above them a dim,
alluring sky, and beyond them a blue sea in almost the same tone as
the sky. And what did I feel? Soft perfumed airs moving everywhere.
And what was the image that rose up in my mind? The sensuous
gratification of a vision of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer
wood, the intoxication of the odour of her breasts.... Why should I
think of a woman bathing at the edge of a summer wood? Because the
morning seemed the very one that Venus should choose to rise from the
sea.
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