Two or three times he
looked at the vase; at last, rising from his chair, he said--"Excuse
me"--and lifting the vase, he carried it away and placed it on another
table. I do not know why.
'After that, he resumed his drawing with much greater freedom, as if
relieved of an annoyance.
'I cannot describe the sensation produced in me by his eyes. I felt as
if not my hand, but a part of my soul were laid bare to his scrutinising
gaze, that his eyes pierced to its very depths, exploring its most
secret recesses. Never had my hand felt so alive, so expressive, so
responsive to my heart, revealing so much that I would fain have kept
secret. Under his gaze I felt it quiver imperceptibly but continuously,
and the tremor spread to my innermost veins. When his gaze grew too
intense, I was seized with an instinctive desire to withdraw my hand
altogether, arising from a sense of shame.
'Now and then, he would stop drawing and sit for quite an appreciable
time with his eyes fixed, and then I had the impression that he was
absorbing something of me through his pupils, or that he was caressing
me with a touch that was softer than the velvet beneath my hand. At
other times, while he bent over the drawing, transferring maybe into the
lines what he had taken from me, a faint smile played round his mouth,
so faint that I only just caught it.
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