It was a painfully uncomfortable hour.
Truyn looked from the photographs to the glass fly-traps beneath which innumerable flies were lying on their backs, convulsively twitching out their lives, and his glance finally rested upon his hostess. She was strongly perfumed with musk, and was painted around the eyes. Her stout arms were squeezed into sleeves far too tight, and her bust almost met her chin. After this keen scrutiny, however, Truyn discovered that she was certainly handsome, that her face although disfigured by too full lips, was strikingly like that of the capitoline Venus.
The intrusive humility of her manner, seasoned as it was with vulgar raillery, was insufferable.
"For this woman!" he repeated to himself again and again. "For this woman!" His eye fell upon a photograph portraying the Countess as 'la belle Héléne,' in a costume that displayed her magnificent physique to great advantage, and he suddenly remembered that he had seen her in that rôle; that her acting was bad; but that she produced a dazzling impression on the stage.
"Did you recognize that picture, Herr Count?" she asked suddenly.
"Instantly," he assured her.
"Did you ever see me play?"
"I once had that pleasure."
"Ah!" A remarkable transformation was immediately manifest, her languid air grew animated, thirst for the triumphs of the past glittered in her eyes. She moved her chair a little closer to Truyn and coquettishly leaning her head upon her hand whispered, "Were you one of my adorers?"
Fritz frowned and glanced angrily towards her, twisting his napkin nervously.