Читать книгу Modern Swedish Masterpieces: Short Stories онлайн

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The doctors had forbidden Fant to smoke strong cigars, because he had a bad heart. But he had just lighted the third since dinner.

In the mirror on the middle of the opposite wall he saw the revolving of the dancers and the flood of light from the hall. He had often wondered how it was that they seemed to dance as though on felt or soft greensward, soundlessly. He understood now that it came from his seeing them in the mirror. Because the picture struck him from another quarter than the clatter and the music, he did not connect them, and over the flooring reflected in the mirror the dance appeared to go without noise. Look at the girls’ white dresses! behold their panting bosoms!——

He recollected that he had once seen her who was now his wife float past, as they did, in a girl’s plain white ball-dress. She was differently clad now.

See! there she was, sure enough, with him, her cousin. She remained standing a moment in the doorway, erect, slender, and delicate as always. She seemed as if quite naked under the stiff, variegated silk in which she had wrapped her body, and which was only held together by clasps at the shoulders and waist. They bent their heads together and whispered.