"De Balzac, Honore - Modeste Mignon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Balzac Honore De)

whiteness, recalled those vanishing lines that Leonardo loved. A few
little blemishes here and there, like the patches of the eighteenth
century, proved that Modeste was indeed a child of earth, and not a
creation dreamed of in Italy by the angelic school. Her lips, delicate
yet full, were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous; the waist,
which was supple and yet not fragile, had no terrors for maternity,
like those of girls who seek beauty by the fatal pressure of a corset.
Steel and dimity and lacings defined but did not create the serpentine
lines of the elegant figure, graceful as that of a young poplar
swaying in the wind.

A pearl-gray dress with crimson trimmings, made with a long waist,
modestly outlined the bust and covered the shoulders, still rather
thin, with a chemisette which left nothing to view but the first
curves of the throat where it joined the shoulders. From the aspect of
the young girl's face, at once ethereal and intelligent, where the
delicacy of a Greek nose with its rosy nostrils and firm modelling
marked something positive and defined; where the poetry enthroned upon
an almost mystic brow seemed belied at times by the pleasure-loving
expression of the mouth; where candor claimed the depths profound and
varied of the eye, and disputed them with a spirit of irony that was
trained and educated,--from all these signs an observer would have
felt that this young girl, with the keen, alert ear that waked at
every sound, with a nostril open to catch the fragrance of the
celestial flower of the Ideal, was destined to be the battle-ground of
a struggle between the poesies of the dawn and the labors of the day;
between fancy and reality, the spirit and the life. Modeste was a pure
young girl, inquisitive after knowledge, understanding her destiny,
and filled with chastity,--the Virgin of Spain rather than the Madonna
of Raphael.

She raised her head when she heard Dumay say to Exupere, "Come here,
young man." Seeing them together in the corner of the salon she
supposed they were talking of some commission in Paris. Then she
looked at the friends who surrounded her, as if surprised by their
silence, and exclaimed in her natural manner, "Why are you not
playing?"--with a glance at the green table which the imposing Madame
Latournelle called the "altar."

"Yes, let us play," said Dumay, having sent off Exupere.

"Sit there, Butscha," said Madame Latournelle, separating the head-
clerk from the group around Madame Mignon and her daughter by the
whole width of the table.

"And you, come over here," said Dumay to his wife, making her sit
close by him.

Madame Dumay, a little American about thirty-six years of age, wiped
her eyes furtively; she adored Modeste, and feared a catastrophe.