regions of eternal light and love. The sound of my footsteps on the dry
leaves made her look up. Her large half-closed eyes were of that
peculiar tint resembling the color of lapis lazuli, streaked with
brown, and the drooping lid had that natural fringe of long dark
lashes, which Eastern women strive by art to imitate, in order to
impart a voluptuous wildness to their look and energy even to their
languor. The light of those eyes seemed to come from a distance which I
have never measured in any other mortal eye. It was as the rays of the
stars, which seem to seek us out, and to approach us as we gaze, and
yet have travelled millions of miles through the heavens. The high and
narrow forehead seemed as if compressed by intense thought, and joined
the nose by an almost straight and Grecian line. The lips were thin and
slightly depressed at the corners with an habitual expression of
sadness; the teeth of pearl, rather than of ivory, as is the case with
the daughters of the sea or islands. The face was oval, slightly
emaciated in the lower part and at the temples, and, on the whole she
seemed rather an embodying of thought than a human being. Besides this
general expression of revery there was a languid look of suffering and
passion, which made it impossible to gaze once on that face without
bearing its ineffaceable image stamped forever in the memory. In a
word, hers was a contagious sickness of the soul, veiled in a shape of
beauty the most majestic and attractive that the dreams of mortal man
ever embodied.

I passed rapidly before her, bowing respectfully, and my deferential
air and downcast eyes seemed to ask forgiveness for having disturbed
her. A slight blush tinged her pale cheeks at my approach. I returned
to my room trembling and wondering that the evening air should thus
have chilled me. A few minutes later I saw her re-enter the house, and
cast one indifferent look at my window. I saw her again on the