As she stands there in her light white morning gown, looking at me, her slight figure seems full of poetry and grace. She is neither large, nor small; her head is alluring, piquant—in the sense of the period of the French marquises—rather than formally beautiful. What enchantment and softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small mouth! Her skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins show through everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms and bosom. How abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-yellow—how diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck! Now her eyes meet mine like green lightnings—they are green, these eyes of hers, whose power is so indescribable—green, but as are precious stones, or deep unfathomable mountain lakes. She observes my confusion, which has even made me discourteous, for I have remained seated and still have my cap on my head. She smiles roguishly. Finally I rise and bow to her. She comes closer, and bursts out into a loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer, as only a little dilettante or great big donkey can do on such an occasion. Thus our acquaintance began. The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own. Her name is Wanda von Dunajew. And she is actually my Venus. “But madame, what put the idea into your head?” “The little picture in one of your books—” “I had forgotten about it.” “The curious notes on its back—” “Why curious?” She looked at me. “I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time—for the sake of the change—and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe.” “Dear lady—in fact—” Again I fell victim to an odious, asinine stammering, and in addition blushed in a way that might have been appropriate for a youngster of sixteen, but not for me, who was almost a full ten years older— “You were afraid of me last night.” “Really—of course—but won’t you sit down?” She sat down, and enjoyed my embarrassment—for actually I was even more afraid of her now in the full light of day. A delightful expression of contempt hovered about her upper lip. “You look at love, and especially woman,” she began, “as something hostile, something against which you put up a defense, even if unsuccessfully. You feel that their power over you gives you a sensation of pleasurable torture, of pungent cruelty. This is a genuinely modern point of view.” “You don’t share it?” “I do not share it,” she said quickly and decisively, shaking her head, so that her curls flew up like red flames. “The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene sensuousness of the Greeks—pleasure without pain. I do not believe in the kind of love which is preached by Christianity, by the moderns, by the knights of the spirit. Yes, look at me, I am worse than a heretic, I am a pagan. ‘Doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel When in Ida’s grove she was pleased with the hero Anchises?’