Читать книгу The Sahara - Pierre Loti - Страница 21

Table of Contents

It was true that she was in love with him in her mulatto way, and one day she summoned him to her house to tell him so.

For poor Jean the two months that followed fled past in the midst of enchanting dreams. This unwonted luxury, this dainty, perfumed woman, all these things worked terrible confusion in his hot head and chaste body. Love, of which hitherto only a cynical travesty had been revealed to him, now intoxicated him.

And all this had been bestowed upon him precipitately, without reservation, like a splendid fortune in a fairy tale. Yet one reflection troubled him. This woman’s avowal, this want of modesty, disgusted him a little when he thought about it.

But he seldom pondered, and when he was at her side he was intoxicated with love.

He, too, began to experiment with refinements of the toilet. He used scent, and tended his moustache and his brown hair. It seemed to him, as to all young lovers, that life had begun for him on the day when he first met his mistress, and that all his past existence counted for nothing.