Read "Jettatura" by Theophile Gautier online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE next day, Alicia, who had had a bad night, scarcely touched the drink brought her by Vice, as was her daily habit, and she placed it languidly upon the table at her bedhead. She did not suffer from any pain in particular; it was rather that she felt worn out, that she found it difficult to live; and she would have experienced some difficulty in stating the symptoms of her trouble to a physician.
She ordered Vice to bring her a mirror, for girls are more concerned with the change in their looks due to suffering than with suffering itself. She was extremely pale; two little spots only, like two rose leaves fallen upon a cup of milk, showed on her pallid cheeks. Her eyes shone with unaccustomed brilliancy, filled with the last flashes of fever, but her cherry lips had paled and, in order to restore their brightness, she bit them with her pearly teeth.