He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen's figure had the
lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either
for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon.
Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he
was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on
sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so full and
soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dress
shortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been married thirteen
years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he still thought that
the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. And even when
she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, he still
laughed--after the smart was over--because he liked spirit. He would
never have a horse that had not some blood, and he had never driven a
sluggard in his life more than once. But wife and child and world, and
all that therein was, existed largely because they were necessary to Jean
Jacques.
That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had been
rolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, when he
saw his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter.
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