Читать книгу A Furnace of Earth онлайн

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The open windows let in a heavy, drenched rose-odor, tinged with a distant salt smell of sea. The air was weighted with it—it was the same mingled odor that had filled her nostrils when she stood with Daunt on the shore, with the wet wind in their faces and fluttering petals of the crushed roses she had worn staining the dun sand and crisp, strown seaweed like great drops of blood. It overpowered her senses. She breathed it deeply, feeling a delicious intoxication, and its suggested memory ran through her veins like an ethereal ichor, tingling to her finger ends.

Her eyes, heavy and swimming, were full of the iridescent colors of the stained-glass window opposite, with the dull yellow aureole about the head of the central figure. The hues wove and blended in a background of subdued harmony, lending life and seeming movement to the features.

“A man somewhat tall and comely, his hair the color of a ripe chestnut, curling and waving.” The description recurred to her, not as though written to the Roman Senate by Lentulus, Governor of Judea, but as if printed in bossed letters about the rim of the picture. “In the middle of his head a seam parteth it, after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead is plain and very delicate, his face without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a lovely red; his nose and mouth of charming symmetry. His look is very innocent and mature; his eyes gray, clear and quick. His body is straight and well proportioned, his hands and arms most delectable to behold.”