THE VIOLINIST
THE room was cloudy with a poisonous incense: saffron,
opoponax, galbanum, musk, and myrrh, the purity of the last
ingredient a curse of blasphemy, the final sneer; as a degenerate
might insult a Raphael by putting it in a room devoted to
debauchery.
The girl was tall and finely built, huntress-lithe. Her
dress, close-fitted, was of a gold-brown silk that matched, but
could not rival, the coils that bound her brow—glittering and
hissing like snakes.
Her face was Greek in delicacy; but what meant such a
mouth in it? The mouth of a satyr or a devil. It was full
and strong, curved twice, the edges upwards, an angry purple,
the lips flat. Her smile was like the snarl of a wild beast.
She stood, violin in hand, before the wall. Against it was
a large tablet of mosaic; many squares and many colours. On
the squares were letters in an unknown tongue.
She began to play, her gray eyes fixed upon one square on
whose centre stood this character, N. It was in black on
white; and the four sides of the square were blue, yellow, red,
and black.
She began to play. The air was low, sweet, soft, and slow.
It seemed that she was listening, not to her own playing, but
for some other sound. Her bow quickened; the air grew
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