As she recognized me, she compressed her lips and frowned.
I started to leave the room.

I looked at her bare neck, lithe and perfumed, on which rested her knotted hair confined by a jewelled comb; that neck, the seat of vital force, was blacker than hell; two shining tresses had fallen there and some light silvern hairs balanced above it.
Her shoulders and neck, whiter than milk, displayed a heavy growth of down.

There was in that knotted mass of hair something maddeningly lovely, which seemed to mock me when I thought of the sorrowful abandon in which I had seen her a moment before.

I suddenly stepped up to her and struck that neck with the back of my hand.

My mistress gave vent to a cry of terror, and fell on her hands, while I hastened from the room.
When I reached my room I was again attacked by fever and was obliged to take to my bed.