The Melancholy Countess (Short Story) - Plot & Excerpts
She had hardly touched her starter course. Indeed, she seemed to be more interested in rearranging the contents of her soup bowl than eating. Occasionally, however, she would raise a small dumpling or a morsel of sausage to her mouth. Then she would chew slowly, her jaw moving from side to side like a cow. The light from the gas lamp gave her complexion a sickly, yellowish pallor, and the unfortunate proximity of such a strong source of illumination exposed every flaw, crack, and crevice—particularly the row of vertical creases that occupied the space between her thin upper lip and nose. Her back was slightly hunched, and her head bowed forward, as though the weight of her ornate ruby necklace and matching pendant earrings were proving too burdensome for her withered neck to support. Although still plush with the trappings of grandeur—Venetian mirrors, gilt flourishes, and marble statues on Doric plinths—the dining room of the Corvinus Hotel was well past its prime. These pompous effects and gestures did not mitigate a pervasive atmosphere of irreversible decline.
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