[CHAPTER XV]
Lot had ordered a bedroom in the Hôtel de Luxembourg and had written to his sister Ottilie. On arriving, they found a basket of red roses awaiting them in their room. It was October; the windows were open; and the sea shone with a dark metallic gleam in a violent flood of sunlight and rippled under the insolent forward thrusts of a gathering mistral.
They had a bath, lunched in their bedroom, feeling a little tired after the journey; and the scent of the roses, the brightness of the sun, the deepening turquoise of the sky and the more and more foam-flecked steel of the sea intoxicated both of them. The salad of tomatoes and capsicums made a red-and-orange patch around the chicken on the table; and long pearls seemed to melt in their glasses of champagne. The wind rose in mighty gusts and with its arrogant, brutal, male caresses swept away any haze that still hung around. The glowing sun poured forth its flood as from a golden spout in the turquoise sky.
They sat side by side, intoxicated with it all, and ate and drank but did not speak. A sense of peace permeated them, accompanied by a certain slackness, as though in surrender to the forces of life, which were so turbulent and so violent and so radiantly gold and insolently red.
There was a knock; and a woman's head, crowned with a large black hat, appeared through the open door:
"May I come in?"
"Ottilie!" cried Lot, springing up. "Come in, come in!"
She entered:
"Welcome! Welcome to Nice! I haven't seen you for ages, Lot! Elly, my sister, welcome!... Yes, I sent the roses. I'm glad you wrote to me ... and that you are willing to see me and that your wife is too...."