The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life by Talbot Michael

Author:Talbot, Michael [Talbot, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction.Dark Fantasy/Supernatural, Fiction.Horror, Fiction.Historical
ISBN: 9780380779826
Google: 372hpwAACAAJ
Amazon: 038077982X
Barnesnoble: 038077982X
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1982-03-01T10:50:07+00:00

XVIII

With this des Esseintes suddenly jumped up from his pillows and announced, “Let’s go look at the orchids!” Lady Dunaway and I looked at each other.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” I gasped.

“Aren’t you going to tell us more?” Lady Dunaway exclaimed.

“Perhaps, Hespeth—mon petit chou. But right now my state of mind demands more resplendent surroundings.” Once again, “Hespeth—my little dear” and I looked at each other. It was difficult to imagine more resplendent surroundings than the turquoise-and-gilt sitting room. Des Esseintes looked at my empty glass and filled it. I looked at this, my fourth goblet of Crème de Cassis, and felt a momentary horror. I was very drunk. The horror passed quickly, for I was once again drawn to the codeine luminescence of the room. Everything now seemed to glow with a subdued and yet powerful light, like the drone of a distant turbine—the black-lacquered dados, the satin outline of the pillows. Amid this, the thin gentleman seemed even more charged, eyes glazed as a dervish, and yet imperturbably placid. He moved gracefully across the room, and once again I became acutely aware of how completely alien his movement and gestures were. There was a striking absence of any human gesticulation. No stroking of the brow. No nervous play of hands. As it was, he held his long hands limply, but in a manner unlike any gentleman or dandy I had ever seen. He was not unlike a praying mantis. I flushed at experiencing such a bizarre perception. I looked again at the deep purple liquid, wondering if I had been drugged.

“No, you weren’t,” des Esseintes anticipated, apparently “sensing the quiver.”

He hit a secret button, and one of the painted panels hissed out of sight revealing two narrow, mist-covered glass doors. He flung them wide and we were enveloped in a gush of humid air. It was warm and ponderously fragrant, and at last I realized the source of the strange scents that had bombarded me when I had first entered the house of des Esseintes. Inside was a greenhouse, a large and lush greenhouse, overflowing with orchids. They covered trellises and cedar arbors, and climbed to the very top of the enclosure. Everywhere one looked one was confronted with the living, fleshy wall. Orchids of every possible shape and color. Some were heavy and full; others, unimaginably fragile. They were illuminated by a series of torches situated around the perimeter of the transparent enclosure. Through the glass towered the walls of the bleak and mammoth house, and beyond, the obsidian night. Against this infinite blackness and imbued with the light of the fires, the orchids were overwhelmingly beautiful. Impossibly, it was even more resplendent than the peacock sitting room.

Des Esseintes crackled, raised to a euphoria by the environment, the muggy, sweet-scented air, the almost suffocating beauty.

As I took in the details of the greenhouse I grew even more astonished by the variety of the flowers. At first they hit one’s senses in a single mass explosion, like a field of tulips, or a rolling meadow of white crosses on the graves of anonymous soldiers.

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