The flower, like
something evil generated by a malignant spell, rose quivering on its
slender stalk out of the fragile tube which might have been blown by
some skilful artificer from a liquid gem.
'Well, I prefer roses,' observed Elena, replacing the orchid with a
gesture of repulsion, very different from her former one of curiosity.
She then joined in the general conversation.
Donna Francesca was speaking of the last reception at the Austrian
Embassy.
'Did you see Madame de Cahen?' asked Elena. 'She had on a dress of
yellow tulle covered with humming birds with ruby eyes--a gorgeous
dancing bird-cage. And Lady Ouless--did you notice her?--in a white
gauze skirt draped with sea-weed and little red fishes, and under the
sea-weed and fish another skirt of sea-green gauze--Did you see it?--a
most effective aquarium!' and she laughed merrily.
Andrea was at a loss to understand this sudden volubility These
frivolous and malicious things were uttered by the same voice which, but
a few moments, ago had stirred his soul to its very depths; they came
from the same lips which, in silence, had seemed to him like the mouth
of the Medusa of Leonardo, that human flower of the soul rendered divine
by the fire of passion and the anguish of death. What then was the true
essence of this creature? Had she perception and consciousness of her
manifold changes, or was she impenetrable to herself and shut from her
own mystery? In her expression, her manifestation of herself, how much
was artificial and how much spontaneous? The desire to fathom this
secret pierced him even through the delight experienced by the proximity
of the woman whom he was beginning to love.
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