As for me, I really believe that I shall die either of the joy of my love or of the sorrow of my friend. The hour has come. Adieu!'
He rose, like an archangel. At that moment the drapery moved, opening and closing again on an illuminating apparition.
It was Botticellina, draped in a flowing robe, of the color of the moonlight.
Her floating hair shone around her like artificial fire.
In her hand she held a golden key.
An ecstasy was on her lips, and the night-sky in her eyes.
John-Giotto rushed forward, and disappeared behind the drapery.
Then Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton lay down again on the triple row of cushions, of the color of sea-weed.
And, while he buried his nails in his flesh, and while the blood streamed from him as from a fountain, the golden alg?, now scarcely visible, gently quivered upon the wall, which was gradually taking on a coating of darkness.
And the heart-shaped palette and the lyre-shaped easel resounded long and long, in nuptial songs."
For some moments Kimberly was silent; then, while the emotion that prevailed around the table was choking throats and compressing hearts, he concluded:
"And this is why I have dipped the point of my golden knife in the preserves prepared by kanaka virgins in honor of a betrothal more magnificent than any that our century, in its ignorance of beauty, has ever known."
The dinner was over.
They rose from the table in religious silence, but thrilled through and through.
In the salon Kimberly was closely surrounded and warmly congratulated.
The looks of all the women converged radiantly upon his painted face, surrounding it with a halo of ecstasies.
"Ah! I should so like to have my portrait painted by Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton," cried Mme. de Rambure;
"I would give anything to enjoy such happiness."
"Alas! Madame," answered Kimberly, "since the sorrowful and sublime event which I have related, Frederic-Ossian Pinggleton has been unwilling to paint human faces, however charming they may be; he paints only souls."
"And he is right!
I should so like to be painted as a soul!"
"Of what sex?" asked Maurice Fernancourt, in a slightly sarcastic tone, visibly jealous of Kimberly's success.
The latter said, simply:
"Souls have no sex, my dear Maurice. They have...."
"Hair on their paws," said Victor Charrigaud, in a very low voice, so as to be heard only by the psychological novelist, to whom he was just then offering a cigar.
And, dragging him into the smoking-room, he whispered: "Ah! old man!
I wish I could shout the most filthy things, at the top of my voice, in the faces of all these people.
I have enough of their souls, of their green and perverse loves, of their magic preserves.
Yes, yes, to say the coarsest things, to besmear one's self with good black fetid mud for a quarter of an hour,—oh! how exquisite that would be, and how restful!
And how it would relieve me of all these nauseating lilies that they have put into my heart!
And you?"
But the shock had been too great, and the impression of Kimberly's recital remained.
They could no longer interest themselves in the vulgar things of earth,—in topics of society, art, and passion.
The Viscount Lahyrais himself, clubman, sportsman, gambler, and trickster, felt wings sprouting all over him.
Each one felt the need of collecting his thoughts, of being alone, of prolonging the dream, of realizing it.
In spite of the efforts of Kimberly, who went from one to another, asking:
"Did you ever drink sable's milk?
Ah! then, drink sable's milk; it is ravishing!" the conversation could not be resumed; so that, one after another, the guests excused themselves, and slipped away.
At eleven o'clock all had gone.
When they found themselves face to face, alone, Monsieur and Madame looked at each other for a long time, steadily and with hostility, before exchanging their impressions.
"For a pretty fizzle, you know, it is a pretty fizzle," declared Monsieur.
"It is your fault," said Madame, in a tone of bitter reproach.
"Well, that's a good one!"
"Yes, your fault. You paid no attention to anything; you did nothing but roll dirty pellets of bread in your fat fingers.
Nobody could get a word out of you.
How ridiculous you were! It is shameful."
"Well, you needn't talk," rejoined Monsieur.
"And your green gown, and your smiles, and your blunders.
It was I perhaps, it was I undoubtedly, who told of Pinggleton's sorrow, who ate kanaka preserves, who painted souls,—I doubtless am the lily-worshipper."
"You are not even capable of being," cried Madame, at the height of her exasperation.