And after Desiree had ordered her hair she loosened her belt and laid it on the couch. In a few seconds her robe had dropped to the sand and she rose from the floods of dark purple, from the foam of fine rustling silk, smiling quietly, and totally naked. Then she picked many of the yucca blossoms, pressed them with both hands between her breasts and waded through the narrow stream to the statue of Pan, laying the light green chalices upon the high pedestal. She stood for a moment, the rosy splendor of her limbs displayed against the marble pallor of the stone.

Sebastian had never seen anything like it, neither in life nor in his most secret dreams: it was also the first time that she had ever danced in front of him. It could, in fact, hardly be called a dance, for her whole body seemed to dissolve into movement as the colors flowed one into the other. The gleam of her eyes, the wave of her hair, an expression on her lips – these were the only human entities. But even these had to surrender their corporeal essence to the mysterious bond which, separate and independent, pulsed between dancer and spectator and whose name was: burning soul.

— Arthur Holitscher