NEW ORLEANS. A courtesan, not old and yet no longer young, who shuns the sunlight that the illusion of her
former glory be preserved. The mirrors in her house are dim and the frames are tarnished; all her house is dim
and beautiful with age. She reclines gracefully upon a dull brocaded chaise-longue, there is the scent of
incense about her, and her draperies are arranged in formal folds. She lives in an atmosphere of a bygone and
more gracious age.
And those whom she receives are few in number, and they come to her through an eternal twilight. She does not
talk much herself, yet she seems to dominate the conversation, versation, which is low-toned but never dull,
artificial but not brilliant. And those who are not of the elect must stand forever without her portals. New
Orleans . . . a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature, to whose charm the young must respond. And all who leave her, seeking the virgin's un-brown, brown, ungold hair and her blanched and icy breast where
no lover has died, return to her when she smiles across her languid fan.... New Orleans.
William Faulkner. "New Orleans," New Orleans Sketches
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