The Lady with the Camelias Transl Author:Alexandre Dumas Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{Section 4crowd which generally judges grand spectacular melodramas. There were more blouses than coats present, more round caps than plumed bonnets, and ... more »more threadbare paletots than fresh costumes; the conversation turned upon everything—on the dramatic art and fried potatoes; on the pieces of the Gymnase and on the cake of the Gymnase ; but when this young woman appeared on the strange threshold, it seemed as if she illuminated all these burlesque or savage objects with a glance of her fine eye. She touched the muddy floor with her foot, as if she were traversing the Boulevards on a rainy day; she raised her gown instinctively, in order not to sweep the dried- up mire, and wi! uout thinking of showing us—for what would have been the good ?—her well-shod foot, which was attached to a well-rounded leg, covered by a silk stocking -with small pattern open-work. The whole of her toilet was in keeping with her young and supple form, and her face, of a beautiful oval shape, corresponded with the grace she diffused around her, like an indescribable perfume. She entered the saloon, then; she traversed, with head erect, the astonished and motley crowd. Liszt and myself were very much surprised when she came and sat down familiarly on the bench where we were, for neither he nor I had ever spoken to her. She was a person of wit, taste, and good sense, and she immediately addressed the great artist. She informed him that she had once heard him, and that he had set her dreaming. Like those sonorous instruments which reply to the first breath of the breeze in May, he, on his side, listened with uninterrupted attention to her beautiful language, which was full of ideas—which was, at the same time, eloquent and pensive. With that marvellous instinct inherent to him, and his great expe...« less