. Here is still a passage, very
important as a piece of lascivious painting:

"How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite of its rather
faded splendour! They always found the furniture in the same place, and
sometimes hairpins that she had forgotten the Thursday before under the
pedestal of the clock. They lunched by the fireside on a little round
table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma carved, put bits on his plate with
all sorts of coquettish ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and
libertine laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from the glass
to the rings on her fingers. They were so completely lost in the
possession of each other that they thought themselves in their own
house, and that they would live there till death, like two spouses
eternally young. They said 'our room,' 'our carpet,' she even said 'my
slippers,' a gift of Leon's, a whim she had had. They were pink satin,
bordered with swansdown. When she sat on his knees, her leg, then too
short, hung in the air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was
held on only by the toes to her bare foot.

"He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of feminine
refinements. He had never met this grace of language, this reserve of
clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He admired the exaltation of
her soul and the lace on her petticoat. Besides, was she not 'a lady'
and a married woman--a real mistress, in fine?"

This, gentlemen, is a description which leaves nothing to be desired, I
hope, from the point of view of conviction. Here is another, or rather
here is the continuation of the same scene:

"She used some words which inflamed him, with some kisses which drew
forth his soul. Where had she learned these caresses almost immaterial,
so profound and evasive were they?"

Oh! I well understand, gentlemen, the disgust inspired in her by that
husband who wished to embrace her upon her return; I comprehend
admirably that after a rendezvous of this kind, she felt with horror at
night, "that man against her flesh stretched out asleep."

That is not all, for according to the last tableau that I cannot omit,
she came to be weary of her voluptuousness.

"She was constantly promising herself a profound felicity on her next
journey. Then she confessed to herself that she felt nothing
extraordinary. This disappointment quickly gave way to a new hope, and
Emma returned to him more inflamed, more eager than ever. She undressed
hasti