What is the use, when one is young? That is the sort of precaution to take – or stop taking – at the extreme of old age, when one has made one’s will and is on one’s death bed.

The second embrace, more sharply savored, was like the rereading of a favorite book.

Only after several could Ellen discern some pleasure deep in the cold, glittering eyes of the “Indian”. . . she seemed to understand that he was happy because she was happy to the point of suffering.

“Sadist!” she said.

Marcueil broke into candid laughter. He was not the sort to beat women. Something in him was already too cruel for them, without his needing to add to it.

They continued, and each embrace was a port of call in a different land where they always discovered something, and always something better.

Ellen seemed decided to be happy a little oftener than her lover, and to reach the goal indicated by Theophrastus before him.

The “Indian” deepened in her the sources of anguished pleasure that no lover had ever even lightly touched.

At TEN, she sprang lightly out of the bed and returned bearing a dainty tortoise-shell box which she had taken from the top of the dresser.

“At TEN, you said, dear Master, one must dress the wounds with certain balms. . .This is an excellent balm distilled in Palestine. . .”

“Yes, the shadow was creaking . . . murmured Marcueil. He corrected her gently: “At ELEVEN. Later.”

“Right away,” said Ellen.

The limits of human capacity were passed in the same way as the familiar landscape of a suburb is seen to disappear from a train window.

Ellen revealed herself an expert courtesan, but it was so natural! The “Indian” felt to her so like some idol carved from unknown and pure materials that whatever part of him she caressed seemed the purest.

For the rest of the night and the whole of the morning, the lovers had no hour of rest or refreshment; they dozed or kept awake, they couldn’t have told which; they nibbled at cakes and cold dishes; and they drank from the same goblet – which was but another of the thousand variations of their embrace.

At noon – the Indian had nearly reached, and Ellen had long since gone beyond, the figure set by Theophrastus – Ellen began to complain a little.

“I’m so hot!” she said, walking around the room, her hands on her distended breasts. “I’m not naked enough. Couldn’t I take this thing off my face?”

The doctor’s eyes were spying from behind his windowpane.

“When shall we take it off?” repeated Ellen.

“When the rings around your eyes extend beyond the mask,” said Marcueil.

“Let that be soon,” moaned Ellen.