beyond doubt as the rapture of any academic bigwig over Tristan, or the ecstasy of a conductor over the Ninth Symphony? And didn’t this agree remarkably well with the views of Herr Pablo and prove him right?
Maria too appeared to love the beautiful Pablo extremely.
“He certainly is a beauty,” said I. “I like him very much too. But tell me, Maria, how can you have a fondness for me as well, a tiresome old fellow with no looks, who even has grey hairs and doesn’t play a saxophone and doesn’t sing any English love-songs?”
“Don’t talk so horribly,” she scolded. “It is quite natural. I like you too. You, too, have something nice about you that endears you and marks you out. I wouldn’t have you different. One oughtn’t to talk of these things and want them accounted for. Listen, when you kiss my neck or my ear, I feel that I please you, that you like me. You have a way of kissing as though you were shy, and that tells me: ‘You please him. He is grateful to you for being pretty.’ That gives me great, great pleasure. And then again with another man it’s just the opposite that pleases me, that he kisses me as though he thought little of me and conferred a favour.”