Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/264

252 of many things, far more pained than amused.

Stephen continued: "A girl with such splendidly expressionless eyes of a bright azure, like a piece of water! No shadow of any yearning for the Beyond, no shadow of anything like intellect or brightness of thought! &hellip; By day they reflected the sun, her lamp in the evening, and my own eyes at night. They had the beautiful dead gleam of pearls. She might have been less pretty: with such eyes, she was pretty enough for me. And then, that slow, sleepy, brainless voluptuousness in her glance! And her white flashing teeth, too! I tell you, there is not a single spot or flaw in any one of them; her molars are like the molars of a ruminant, large and flat. She did, it is true, write me letters without necessity; but, through my influence and under my direction, she had come even to forget her alphabet. She truly gave me the impression (false as I know now) that she never thought at all.

"And that girl 'recognizes free love'! Such a surprise may well make one throw all the beliefs of one's life on the dustheap!"

All this talk of his seemed to me decidedly shallow and foolish. Why on earth was he