"Shew yourself to me in this wonderful mysterious half-light, nothing can be more beautiful."
I sat down on the foot of the bed watching her, my heart beating, every pulse within me throbbing with delight.
Viola did not answer. She did not light the candles, but with the rustle of falling silk and lace began her undressing.
That night I could not sleep. The window stood open, and the room was filled with the soft mysterious twilight of the summer night with its thousand wandering perfumes, its tiny sounds of bats and whirring wings.
The cherry bloom thrust its long, white, scented arms into the room. I lay looking towards the white square of the window wide-eyed and thinking.
A strange elation possessed my brain. I felt happy with a clear consciousness of feeling happy. One can be happy unconsciously or consciously.
The first state is like the sensation one has when lying in hot water: one is warm, but one hardly knows it, so accustomed to the embrace of the water has the body become.
The other state of conscious happiness is like that of first entering the bath, when the skin is violently keenly alive to the heat of the water.
Viola lay beside me motionless, wrapped in a soundless sleep like the sleep of exhaustion. Not the faintest sound of breathing came from her closed lips.
The room was so light I could distinctly see the pale circle of her face and all the undulating lines of her fair hair beside me on the pillow.