The Kill - Emile Zola [141]
“I nearly burst out laughing,” said the marquise, “when I saw M. Toutin-Laroche with his big nose out there gawking at me.”
“I think I’ve got a stiff neck,” drawled blonde Suzanne. “No, really, if it had lasted a minute longer, I would have shifted my head back to a more natural position, my neck was hurting so much.”
From the recess to which he had taken Mignon and Charrier, M. Hupel de la Noue cast worried glances at the group that had formed around the two young women. He was afraid they might be making fun of him. The other nymphs made their way down one by one. All had changed back into their costumes representing precious stones. Countess Wanska, dressed as Coral, was rated a stunning success when the guests were able to get a close look at the ingenious details of her gown. Then Maxime came in, impeccably attired in a dark frock coat and wearing a smile on his face. A torrent of women engulfed him, formed a circle around him, and teased him about his role as a flower and his passion for mirrors. And he, without a flicker of embarrassment, as if charmed by his character, continued to smile, responded to all the teasing comments, and admitted that he adored himself and had gotten over his weakness for women sufficiently that he now preferred himself to them. The laughter grew louder, and the group grew larger until it occupied the whole center of the drawing room, while the young man, lost amid this sea of shoulders, this chaos of dazzling costumes, retained a perfume of depraved love, the sweetness of a poisonous blossom.
When Renée finally came down, however, a partial hush fell over the room. She had put on a new costume of such novel grace and boldness that even though these ladies and gentlemen were accustomed to the young woman’s eccentricities, their first reaction was one of surprise. She was dressed as a Tahitian beauty. Tahitian attire is apparently quite primitive: skin-colored tights stretched from her feet to her breasts, leaving her arms and shoulders bare, and over the tights she wore a short, simple muslin blouse with two flounces that barely covered her hips. In her hair she wore a wreath of wildflowers, and gold ringlets around her ankles and wrists. And nothing else. She was naked. The tights had the suppleness of flesh beneath the translucent muslin. The pure outline of her nakedness, from her knees to her armpits, was only partially concealed by the flounces; with the slightest movement it once again became visible through the mesh of the lace. She made a lovely savage, a barbarous and voluptuous bawd barely hidden by a white haze, a wisp of ocean fog through which her entire body could be divined.
A rosy-cheeked Renée advanced at a rapid pace. Céleste had split the first pair of tights. Fortunately, the young woman had foreseen this eventuality and taken precautions. The torn tights had delayed her entrance. She seemed not to attach any importance to her triumph. Her hands were burning, and her eyes had a feverish gleam about them. She smiled, though, and responded briefly to the men who stopped her and complimented her on the purity of her poses in the tableaux vivants. In her wake she left a trail of dark frock coats stunned and charmed by the transparency of her muslin blouse. When she reached the group of women around Maxime, she provoked a series of sharp exclamations, and the marquise studied her from head to toe with a tender eye, whispering, “She has a lovely figure.”
Mme Michelin, whose belly dancer’s costume seemed terribly ponderous alongside this simple veil, pursed her lips, while Mme Sidonie, shriveled up inside her black magician’s robes, whispered in her ear, “If that isn’t the height of indecency, don’t you agree, my beauty?”
“I should say so!” the pretty brunette came out with at last. “M. Michelin would have a fit if I stripped down like that!”
“And he would be right,” the businesswoman concluded.
The serious men did not share this view, however. They were ecstatic despite their distance