d reads intoxicatingly and without discrimination. But, contrary to
expectation, the forced reading of novels of adventure has not at all
made her sentimental and has not vitiated her imagination. Above all,
she likes in novels a long intrigue, cunningly thought out and deftly
disentangled; magnificent duels, before which the viscount unties the
laces of his shoes to signify that he does not intend to retreat even a
step from his position,[3] and after which the marquis, having spitted
the count through, apologizes for having made an opening in his
splendid new waistcoat; purses, filled to the full with gold,
carelessly strewn to the left and right by the chief heroes; the love
adventures and witticisms of Henry IV--in a word, all this spiced
heroism, in gold and lace, of the past centuries of French history. In
everyday life, on the contrary, she is sober of mind, jeering,
practical and cynically malicious. In her relation to the other girls
of the establishment she occupies the same place that in private
educational institutions is accorded to the first strong man, the man
spending a second year in the same grade, the first beauty in the
class--tyrannizing and adored. She is a tall, thin brunette, with
beautiful hazel eyes, a small proud mouth, a little moustache on the
upper lip and with a swarthy, unhealthy pink on her cheeks.

[3] Probably a sly dig at Gautier's Captain Fracasse.--Trans.

Without letting the cigarette out of her mouth and screwing up her eyes
from the smoke, all she does is to turn the pages constantly with a
moistened finger. Her legs are bare to the knees; the enormous balls of
the feet are of the most vulgar form; below the big toes stand out
pointed, ugly, irregular tumours.

Here also, with her legs crossed, slightly bent, with some sewing, sits
Tamara--a quiet, easy-going, pretty girl, slightly reddish, with that
dark and shining tint of hair which is to be found on the back of a fox
in winter. Her real name is Glycera, or Lukeria, as the common folk say
it. But it is already an ancient usage of the houses of ill-fame to
replace the uncouth names of the Matrenas, Agathas, Cyclitinias with
sonorous, preferably exotic names. Tamara had at one time been a nun,
or, perhaps, merely a novice in a convent, and to this day there have
been preserved on her face timidity and a pale puffiness--a modest and
sly expression, which is peculiar to young nuns. She holds herself
aloof in the house, does