eiderdown coverlet, like a real person. Every night I
put him to bed. And his little head looks so funny
on it, all black. Aren't you very funny, Monsieur Spy?"
Spy chose a comfortable place on Juliette's dress, and, after turning several times, rolled himself into a black lump, almost entirely lost in the cloth's silken folds.
"That's it! By-by, Spy, my little baby!"
During this long conversation with Spy, I had a chance to observe Juliette at leisure. She was indeed very beautiful, even more beautiful than I had dreamed she was under her veil. Her face was truly radiant. It had such freshness, such an aurora-like clearness, that the very air about her seemed illumined. Whenever she turned or bent forward I saw her thick hair, very dark, descending along her dress in an enormous tress, which added something peculiarly virginal and youthful to her appearance. I thought I saw a perpendicular, wilful wrinkle furrowed in the middle of her forehead, at the root of her hair, but it was visible only in certain instances of light reflection, and the luminous sweetness of her eyes, the extremely graceful curve of her mouth tempered its rigid aspect. One felt that under her ample garments quivered a supple, nervous body of passionate pliancy; what delighted me most were her hands, delicate, deft and of surprising agility, whose every movement, even of indifference or anger, was a caress.
It was hard for me to form a definite opinion of her. There was in this woman a mixture of innocence and voluptuousness, of shrewdness and stupidity, of kindness and malevolence, which was disconcerting. And a curious thing! At one moment I saw the horrible image of the singer at the Bouffes taking shape near her. And this image formed Juliette's shadow, so to
