“I am afraid,” said Baïla, resisting the impulse which the old slave wished to give her, and trembling all over, with her body bent, her eyes half closed, she appeared to drink in with delight the alarm she experienced; as the sick, saturated with tasteless and sugared beverages, rejoice in the bitter draughts of abscynthe. It was an emotion, and every emotion is precious to a recluse of the harem.
She entered finally the saloon in which the unknown awaited her, but not without casting another glance on the abandon of her toilet. By the feeble light of two candles placed in a bracket, she saw the stranger standing in a meditative posture.
At the rustling of her robe, at the light sound of her step, he raised his head, crossed his hands with a kind of ecstatic transport, and his eyes, raised to the gilded ceiling, sparkled so brightly, that it appeared to the Mingrelian as if the light about her was doubled.
When Mariam had disappeared, the better to watch over them, when Baïla found herself alone with her unknown, with the lover of her day dreams, casting her veil suddenly aside, she revealed herself to him in all the glory of her Georgian beauty.
She enjoyed his pleasure, his surprise, for a moment, then seating herself on a corner of the sofa, motioned him to a seat by her side. But the stranger remained immovable; his only motion was to cover his eyes as if the light had suddenly blinded him. After having sweetly gratified her pride by the stupefying effect produced by her resplendent beauty, she repeated her gesture.
The Frank, still embarrassed and hesitating, went now toward the sofa, and bending with downcast eyes almost to the earth before her, took hold of the end of her long veil and re-covered her entirely, turning away his head. This movement surprised Baïla strangely; but she said to herself, “perhaps it is one of the preliminaries of love among the Franks.”
“Listen to me,” said the young man, then, with a voice full of emotion, and seating himself beside her; “listen to me with attention; the present moment may become for you as well as for myself the commencement of a new era of glory and safety.”
She did not understand him, she drew nearer to him.
“You are born a Christian,” he continued, “Mingrelia is your country.”
Baïla thought for an instant that he had himself come from the ancient Colchis; that he had seen her family; and in the rapid flight of her fancy she saw the love of this young man remount not only to a recent period, but also to that time in which she was still the property of her father. The recollections of her natal country beaming pleasanter to her by uniting themselves with the idea of a love from childhood, she came yet nearer to him and looked at him carefully, hoping to find in his face features impressed of old upon her memory.