nine

My flat seemed cool and at peace as I entered it later that same night. I lay down on the sofa and took out my opium pipe. It was of ivory, ornately carved with woodland animals. Deer and squirrels leapt and clambered over its stem. The pipe had been bought purely for aesthetic reasons, for its intricate decoration, and I had only begun to use it for its original purpose after I had started to handle it and realized that its patterns demanded to be read. The pleasure of using the pipe became entwined with the pleasure of the drug until the two became indistinguishable: just as the figures of the leaping deer were inseparable from the actual structure of the pipe.

The sweet taste of the opium was pleasantly nauseous and my gaze fell inevitably on to the portrait of Justine. To my shock a change had come over her expression: the consolatory quality of her beauty had disappeared. Her face had grown malevolent, her eyes had narrowed, and the book that she had been writing had fallen to the floor as if she were no longer interested in the mere construction of words. I had the strong impression that she was angry that she was still trapped inside the room and that her painted background had not been transformed into the garden where she preferred to sit. I shut my eyes to block out her anger that seemed directly aimed at me. When I opened them she had returned to her normal posture serene and self-contained, her eyes looking off to one side. However, after this incident I perceived a distinctly erotic edge to her beauty which had not been there before.