Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/162

150 reed-like: so you see, Janka, on close inquiry she is found not to be really thin."

As she spoke, she turned upon her pillow, tearing at its satin covering with her nails, and striving to swallow down her tears of rage.

I could not contain myself.

"Why on earth does he tell you about such things? He must be a monster."

"There are a great many things that he never can understand—what I told you seems but the merest trifle to him."

She took a spoonful of bromide, and continued:

"You must know that he tells me she has large oval-shaped eyes, with extremely long lashes—eyes of an unfathomable black, in very striking contrast with her voluptuous mouth; always sorrowful, dreamy, and with a far-away look, like the beggar-maid loved by King Cophetua. She has also much originality, something like an odalisque, and uniting the primitiveness of a mountain goat with all the cultured grace of a maid of honour at a royal court."

This, after the elimination of certain exaggerated points, was easily recognizable as the description of that fair French-woman