LE OPERE: The Siren

" I had jiust awoken and got straight into the boat; a few strokes of the oars had borne me far from the pebbles on the beach, and I had stopped under a large rock whose shadow would protect me from the sun, already climbing in swollen ferment and turning to gold and blue the candour of the dawn sea. I was declaiming away when I suddenly felt the edge of the boat lower, to the right, behind me, as if someone had seized it to climb on board. I turned and saw her: a smooth sixteen-year-old face emerging from the sea, two small hands gripping the gunwale.The girl smiled, a slight fold drawing aside her pale lips and showing a glimpse of sharp little white teeth like a dog's. But it was not in the least like one of those smiles you people give, which are always debased by an accessory expression, of benevolence or irony, pity, cruelty or the like; this expressed nothing but itself, that is an almost animal joy, an almost divine delight in existence."