Then I lighted a cigar, stretched out on the divan, and, sad and
depressed, while the voices of the women rose shrilly and the glasses
were being drained, I said to myself:
Where is she? Where can she be? Is she dead to the world, and will men
never see her again?
She was beautiful, in olden times, when she walked up the steps leading
to the temple, when on her shell-like feet fell the golden fringe of her
tunic, or when she lounged among Persian cushions, twirling her collar
of cameos and chatting with the wise men and the philosophers.
She was beautiful when she stood naked on the threshold of her _cella_
in the street of Suburra, under the rosin torchlight that blazed in the
night, slowly chanting her Campanian lay, while from the Tiber came the
refrains of the orgies.
She was beautiful, too, in her old house of the _Cite_ behind the Gothic
windows, among the noisy students and dissipated monks, when, without
fear of the sergeants, they struck the oaken tables with their pewter
mugs, and the worm-eaten beds creaked beneath the weight of their
bodies.
She was beautiful when she leaned over the green cloth and coveted the
gold of the provincials; then she wore high heels and had a small waist
and a large wig which shed its perfumed powder on her shoulders, a rose
over her ear and a patch on her cheek.
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