"The woman smiled with a royal calmness, her instincts of conquest, of ferocity, the entire heredity of the species, the will of seduction and ensnaring, the charm of the deceiver, the kindness which conceals a cruel purpose, all that appeared and disappeared alternately behind the laughing veil and melted into the poem of her smile . . . Good and evil, cruelty and compassion, graceful and cat-like, she laughed . . ." - A.Conti