Read it through once

When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page of the book. It was Gautier’s “Émaux et Camées”, Charpentier’s Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand “_du supplice encore mal lavée_,” with its downy red hairs and its “_doigts de faune_.” He glanced at his own white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice: