Yet, as I have already explained, I intoxicated myself with these moments as if they were never to reoccur, so inimitable did they seem. My room, where I waited for Concha's evening visits, had pale carpeting that set off the handsome mahogany Empire furniture with its brass dragons, strange crowned heads, flying muses holding lyres, creatures out of some fairytale. The room's colours were red and green - red for the hangings, the two little chairs at the foot of the bed, the lampshades, and the sofa. Green for the bedspreads and the armchairs. The bookcase added a note of variety, filled with yellows, whites, ochres, browns. There was only two paintings, which I had chosen for their insignificance. But the better of the two, out of which Concha, suddenly and soundlessly appearing, seemed to step into the room (and I was pleased her character harmonised so well with her surroundings; it permitted me to love her twice as much), showed a rather stocky woman whose dark hair, sparkling eyes, and pale skin always surprised me. And I like Concha to wear those rather extravagant tortoiseshell combs that set a cool gleam at the nape of her neck. She herself - "que tal?" - seemed to glide across the floor without a sound (she often startled me) and as I watched her advance toward me from the other end of the room with the freedom, the ease of manner that was the first thing you noticed about her, I remembered Baudelaire's lines:
Tes nobles jambes sous les volants qu'elles chassent
Tourmentent les desirs obscurs et les agacent
Comme deux sorcières qui font
Tourner un philtre noir dans un vase profond
[A Strange Solitude, Sollers, P.]
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