away to the ear as it quickened the pulsation of the blood.  Her way of uttering the terminations in “i” was like a bird’s song; the “ch” as she said it was a kiss, but the “t’s” were an echo of her heart’s despotism.  She thus extended, without herself knowing that she did so, the meaning of her words, leading the soul of the listener into regions above this earth.  Many a time I have continued a discussion I could easily have ended, many a time I have allowed myself to be unjustly scolded that I might listen to those harmonies of the human voice, that I might breathe the air of her soul as it left her lips, and strain to my soul that spoken light as I would fain have strained the speaker to my breast.  A swallow’s song of joy it was when she was gay!—­but when she spoke of her griefs, a swan’s voice calling to its mates!

Madame de Mortsauf’s inattention to my presence enabled me to examine her.  My eyes rejoiced as they glided over the sweet speaker; they kissed her feet, they clasped her waist, they played with the ringlets of her hair.  And yet I was a prey to terror, as all who, once in their lives, have experienced the illimitable joys of a true passion will understand.  I feared she would detect me if I let my eyes rest upon the shoulder I had kissed, and the fear sharpened the temptation.  I yielded, I looked, my eyes tore away the covering; I saw the mole which lay where the pretty line between the shoulders started, and which, ever since the ball, had sparkled in that twilight which seems the region of the sleep of youths whose imagination is ardent and whose life is chaste.

I can sketch for you the leading features which all eyes saw in Madame de Mortsauf; but no drawing, however correct, no color, however warm, can represent her to you.  Her face was of those that require the unattainable artist, whose hand can paint the reflection of inward fires and render that luminous vapor which defies science and is not revealable by language—­but which a lover sees.  Her soft, fair hair often caused her much suffering, no doubt through sudden rushes of blood to the head.  Her brow, round and prominent like that of Joconda, teemed with unuttered thoughts, restrained feelings—­flowers drowning in bitter waters.  The eyes, of a green tinge flecked with brown, were always wan; but if her children were in question, or if some keen condition of joy or suffering (rare in the lives of all resigned women) seized her, those eyes sent forth a subtile gleam as if from fires that were consuming her,—­the gleam that wrung the tears from mine when she covered me with her contempt, and which sufficed to lower the boldest eyelid.  A Grecian nose, designed it might be by Phidias, and united by its double arch to lips that were gracefully curved, spiritualized the face, which was oval with a skin of the texture of a white camellia colored with soft rose-tints upon the cheeks.  Her plumpness did not detract from the grace of her figure nor from the rounded outlines which made her