ins. The
languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices
plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless,
not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured
out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with
every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the
appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the
footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The
brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the
stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the
time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with
pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose
perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from
one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely
leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white
shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this
woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find
beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of
ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely
alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the
female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a
sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate
judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of
dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled
a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses
worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not
tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached
to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves
described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the
face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick,
drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was
more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation
there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated
to satisfy the most exacting critic.

"Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue
descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside
himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fi