But, being where he was, he felt unable to
decide between the possible and the impossible, between what he might
reasonably expect and what lay beyond the bounds of reason itself.
The air he breathed was so loaded with rich exotic perfumes, the woman
before him was so little like other women, her strangely mismatched eyes
had for his own such a disquieting attraction, all that he saw and felt
and heard was so far removed from the commonplaces of daily life as to
make him feel that he himself was becoming a part of some other person's
existence, that he was being gradually drawn away from his identity, and
was losing the power of thinking his own thoughts. He reasoned as
the shadows reason in dreamland, the boundaries of common probability
receded to an immeasurable distance, and he almost ceased to know where
reality ended and where imagination took up the sequence of events.
Who was this woman, who called herself Unorna? He tried to consider the
question, and to bring his intelligence to bear upon it. Was she a great
lady of Prague, rich, capricious, creating a mysterious existence for
herself, merely for her own good pleasure? Her language, her voice,
her evident refinement gave colour to the idea, which was in itself
attractive to a man who had long ceased to expect novelty in this
working-day world. He glanced at her face, musing and wondering,
inhaling the sweet, intoxicating odours of the flowers and listening to
the tinkling of the hidden fountain.
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