STRONG AS DEATH

By Guy De Maupassant





STRONG AS DEATH




PART I



CHAPTER I

A DUEL OF HEARTS

Broad daylight streamed down into the vast studio through a skylight
in the ceiling, which showed a large square of dazzling blue, a bright
vista of limitless heights of azure, across which passed flocks of birds
in rapid flight. But the glad light of heaven hardly entered this severe
room, with high ceilings and draped walls, before it began to grow soft
and dim, to slumber among the hangings and die in the portieres, hardly
penetrating to the dark corners where the gilded frames of portraits
gleamed like flame. Peace and sleep seemed imprisoned there, the peace
characteristic of an artist's dwelling, where the human soul has