The Bronze Statue, or, The Virgin's Kiss — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE BBONZE STATUE. 65 he utter fer nearly a minute: not asyllable|leaving bare the fower part of the arm 80 expressive of courtesy or joy could he in-jround, and p'ump, and polished, with dia- duce his lips to frame. His senses appear- | mond bracelets upon the wrist-, and rings ed suddenly wrapt in an elysian bliss, the | set with kindred stones upon the taper fin- full delight of which could only be appre- | gers, ciated in the midst of profound silence: an | Her hair—that glos-y hair of raven dark- ineff: ble tenderness steeped his very soul inj ness and silken richness—fe'l in heavy the soft and melting wansports of a pro- | tresses upon her shoulders and in undula- longed ecstacy. His heart was bathed 1 | ting masses down her back ; and it glisten- a fount of ambosial sweets: he was intuxi-/ed with gems as of a shower of frozer. cated as if with that nectar of the gods | tears had fallen upon the head of this su- which produced the effect of generous wine | perb creature’ yet left the memory unimpaired and the/; And her countenance !—Oh! lovely as Imagination free, she had seemed when De Colmar first be- And no wonder that he should thus have | held her reclining upon the green sward in experienced a bliss which rendered his bo- | front of Zitzka’s pavilion—levely as he soin too full for the lipsto give utterance in| thought her when in the wood, on the fol- the language of earth to feelings which ap- | lowing morning, she had made the appoint- eared the emotions of heaven. ment that was kept so faithfully now —ten For if Satannis had seemed lovely to his | thousand times more lovely did she appear eyes when he beheld her at the Taborite|to him then! For what language can encampment. she now burst upon him in the | supply words to depict the beauty of those dark splendor of a beauty incredible even | features which would have seemed so soft- to think of. Throwing off a large black | ly harmonious and tenderly meiting had not veil which had covered her head and ali the | the transcendent briiliancy of the eyes shed upper part of her person, she suddenly |upon them a halo of living lustre and 1m- stood before him like the genius of an ori-| parted to them an expression of grandeur ental tale—or like the embodiment of a|and magnificence. wild a d romantic allegory personifying the| The transparent purity, the fine clearness, moonlight and the shades of evening, sin- | and the healthy animation of ber dark olive gulurly blended! skin gave an air of impassioned fervor to No longer attired in the strange garb|her character, which the hue of the lips, which she wore at the encampment, the | more lively in their scarlet than moistened houri was clad in garmests more fully be- | coral, enhanced into the intensity of desire: eoming her sex, and which set off to a new | but these effects were subdued and all advantage jer tall, symmetrical, and well- | grossness of feeling was mitigated by the developed figure. For her dress was of| finely intellectual cast of the whole counte- purple velvet, the plaits and folds of which | nance and by the genius which sat enthron- produced effects where the richest gloss al-| ed so grandly on the noble brow. ternated with the deepest, darkest shades;} Such was the creature of wondrous bea- and thus the skirt of the queenly robe had | tv in whose presence De Colmar again found an air of massive splendor as it flowed up-|himself. Forgotten was the lady whom he on the ground —completely concealing the | had met in the morning—the divine Gloria limbs which the former~attire of Satanais | whose loveliness had seemed to ravish his had exposed in all their robust but exqui- | heart ina moment: yet—forgotten was she site proportions. ‘as completely as if there were not such a The outlines of the stomacher were | being in existence—Satanais alone filled marked with pear!s; peails also displayed | his memory, his mind, his thoughts—and the upper edge of the’ boddice; and as it | he had eyes, and ears,a cd sensations only took its shape from the luxurious bust which | for this darkly splendid being whose charms it orly half imprisoned, these rows of pearls. | were calculated to steal away insidiously, thrown out with d-zz ing effect by the dark | though not the less surely, the heart which velvet, traced the inflections and deseribed | the other overwhelmed so abruptly with a the undulations of the rounded contours. | blaze of glory. Thus all the fine traits of that striking ana And thus was it, then, amidst the silence brilliant fizure—all the sculptural richness | and softness, and freshness of the moon-lit of the grandly risiog bosom and splendidly | scene, that Sir Ernest de Colmar encoun- modelled shoulders—and ali the harmony |tered the Daughter of Satan! of the proportions, with their voluptuous ‘Your Excellency wished to see me swell or their soft relief, were set off and | again,’ said the lady, at length breaking the delineated to the utmost advantage. epell of silence; ‘and | am here—true to Tne sleeves of the purple velvet dress} the promise which I made you,’ were loose and hanging, and frnoged with} ‘You are here—and I thank you~’ ex- silver: they descended to the elbow, thus| claimed De Colmar, starting from his bliss- | comicbooks.com