GUY DE MAUPASSANT
43
neighing laughter and excited male voices came from the dining room.
In
rich houses without tradition dinners are always noisy.
It
was a
Jewish noise, rolling and tripping and ending up on a melodious,
singsong note. Raissa came out to me in evening dress, her back
bare. Her feet stepped awkwardly in wobbling, patent leather slippers.
"I'm drunk, darling," she said, and held out her hands, loaded
with chains of platinum and emerald stars.
Her body swayed like a snake's dancing to music. She tossed
about her marcelled hair, and suddenly, with a tinkle of rings, slumped
into a chair with ancient Russian carvings. Scars glowed on her
powdered back.
Women's laughter again came from the dining room. Raissa's
sisters, with delicate moustaches and as full-bosomed and round–
bodied as Raissa herself, entered the room. Their busts jutted forward
and rose to a point and their black hair shimmered in the air. Both
of them had their own Benderskis for husbands. The room was filled
with disjointed, chaotic feminine merriment, the merriment of ripe
women. The husbands wrapped the sisters into their sealskin furs .and
Orenburg shawls, and shod them in black boots. From the snowy
peaks of their shawls only painted, glowing cheeks, marble noses and
eyes with their Jewish glitter could be seen. After having made some
more happy noise, they left for the theater, where "Judith" was being
sung by Chaliapin.
"I want to work," Raissa lisped, stretching her bare arms to me,
"we've skipped a whole week."
She brought a bottle and two glasses from the dining room. Her
breasts swung free beneath the sack-like gown; the nipples rose under
the clinging silk.
"It's very valuable," said Raissa, pouring out the wine, "Mus–
catel '83. My husband will kill me when he finds out."
I had never drunk Muscatel of 1883 and tossed off three glasses
one after the other without thinking. They carried me swiftly away
into alleys where an orange flame danced and sounds of music could
be heard.
"I'm drunk, darling.... What do we do today?"
"Today it's 'L'aveu.' ... The sun is the hero of this story,
Ie
soleil de France.
Molten drops of it pattering on the red-haired
Celeste changed into freckles. The sun's direct rays and wine and
