“But, Countess, my dear aunt, I mean, I—I am dazzled by this July sun, the brightest of all the year, you know. You are adorable, adorable—and your hair!”
“Is it not well arranged? Silvani did it; he has not his equal, that man. The diamonds in the hair go splendidly, and then this lofty style of head-dressing gives a majestic turn to the neck. I do not know whether you are aware that I have always been a coquette as regards my neck; it is my only bit of vanity. Have you brought your little color-pots?”
“Yes, aunt, I have the whole apparatus, and if you will sit down—”
“I am frightfully pale-just a little, Ernest; you know what I told you,” and she turned her head, presenting her right eye to me. I can still see that eye.
I do not know what strange perfume, foreign to aunts in general, rose from her garments.
“You understand, my dear boy, that it is only an occasion like the present, and the necessities of a historical costume, that make me consent to paint like this.”
“My dear little aunt, if you move, my hand will shake.” And, indeed, in touching her long lashes, my hand trembled.
“Ah! yes, in the corner, a little—you are right, it gives a softness, a vagueness, a—it is very funny, that little pot of blue. How ugly it must be! How things lead on one to another! Once one’s hair is powdered, one must have a little pearl powder on one’s face in order not to look as yellow as an orange; and one’s cheeks once whitened, one can’t—you are tickling me with your brush—one can’t remain like a miller, so a touch of rouge is inevitable. And then—see how wicked it is—if, after all that, one does not enlarge the eyes a bit, they look as if they had been bored with a gimlet, don’t they? It is like this that one goes on little by little, till one comes to the gallows.”
My aunt began to laugh freely, as she studied her face.
“Ah! that is very effective what you have just done—well under the eye, that’s it. What animation it gives to the look! How clever those creatures are, how well they know everything that becomes one! It is shameful, for with them it is a trick, nothing more. Oh! you may put on a little more of that blue of yours, I see what it does now. It has a very good effect. How you are arching the eyebrows. Don’t you think it is a little too black? You know I should not like to look as if—you are right, though. Where did you learn all that? You might earn a deal of money, do you know, if you set up a practice.”