.. it was made in Marseilles a hundred years ago.
"A beautiful room in its proportions and in its colour," I said, and
seeing another door ajar I went through it and discovered a bedroom
likewise in red with two beds facing each other. The beds were high,
it is true, and a phrase from a letter I had written to Doris,
"aggressively virtuous," rose up in my mind as I looked upon them. But
the curtains hung well from _les ciels de lit_ (one cannot say
_cieux de lit_, I suppose)--the English word is, I think,
"tester." "This room is far from the bedroom of my dreams," I
muttered, "but _a la rigueur ca peut marcher_." But pursuing my
quest a little farther, I came upon a spacious bedroom with two
windows looking out on the courtyard--a room which would have
satisfied the most imaginative lover, a room worthy of the adorable
Doris, and I can say this as I look back fondly on her many various
perfections. A great bed wide and low, "like a battlefield as our bed
should be," I said, for the lines of the old poet were running in my
head:
"Madame, shall we undress you for the fight?
The wars are naked that you make to-night."
And, looking upon it, I stood there like one transfigured, filled with
a great joy; for the curtains hanging from a graceful tester like a
crown would have satisfied the painter Boucher.
Pages:
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274