At that moment Lubimoff's spirit was like her own. This simple kiss seemed to him the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Life opened up enchantments of which he had never dreamed. It seemed to him that he was gazing on the most beautiful landscape in the world. How interesting were the old fortifications! What a great man Albert of Monaco was to build that lonely asphalt path, so that he might walk along it with his lips pressing the lips of a woman.
They walked along as though they were intoxicated, in a continual zigzag between the parapet and the wall of the cliff, their lips pressing, their eyes almost touching, as though nothing existed beyond them, and they actually imagined that they were walking in a straight line. From a distance one would have thought they were two adversaries struggling, staggering, as they jostled each other in the fight.
Suddenly mastered by desire, he stopped and refused to go on.
"No, no!"
Her will still shaken by her recent emotion, Alicia protested at this danger, but she forced herself to reiterate her refusal.
His lips had separated from hers. There was an aggressive gleam in his half-shut eyes. His hands fell upon her hips, and clinched like claws.
"I won't: I told you I won't! Come!"
She struggled in his arms with the agility of a gymnast, and in breaking free from his grasp there was a sound of tearing clothes.
"Look, you villain! Look what you've done!"
She was standing motionless, a few steps away, with her fur boa falling from one of her shoulders, while at the other she was looking for the tear that her dress had just suffered.