Literary interlude

"I open this again to tell you of a strange girl I met at the Frankaus' last night -- an extraordinary looking young Jewess, about 20, with a long lithe body like a snake, a great red dangerous mouth, and enormous dark amber eyes that half shut and then expand like great poisonous flowers. 'Nuffing amuses me,' she said, with her curious childish lisp, 'everyfing bores me. Nuffing ever did amuse me. I have nuffing to amuse me, nobody to be amused with. I don't care for men, women's talk always bore me. What am I to do? I don't know what to do with myself. All I care for is to sleep. Tell me what is there that will give me a new sensation?' And she lay back, and gazed at me through her half-shut lids. I bent down and whispered 'Opium.' Her eyes opened with almost a flash of joy. 'Yes, there is opium. Where can I get it? Am I too old to begin?'
I wonder when I shall meet her again."

--Arthur Symons in a letter to Edwin Rhys dated March 4, 1892

Saint Jerome is looking over my shoulder while I type this. He says to me, "and now you're going to put up the von Stuck painting with the snake, right?" And I exclaim, "HOW DID YOU KNOW?!!!" Saint Jerome says, "because I know you." So here it is. Franz von Stuck's Sin:

Stuck first painted this in 1893. He did quite a few near-identical versions. This version of the painting is one we saw at the Frye Art Gallery in Seattle, WA and is circa 1900. http://www.fryeart.org/