Her trembling mouth, bluish with emotion, a round and protruding mouth like an absorbing duct, was seeking the sailor's mouth, taking possession of it and devouring it with her lips.
It was the kiss of a cupping-glass, long, dominating, painful.

Ulysses realized that he had never before been kissed in this way.

The water from that mouth surging across her row of teeth, discharged itself in his like swift poison.

A shudder unfamiliar until then ran the entire length of his back, making him close his eyes.
He felt as if all his interior had turned to liquid.

He had a presentiment that his life was going to date from this kiss, that with it was going to begin a new existence, that he never would be able to free himself from these deadly and caressing lips with their faint savor of cinnamon, of incense, of Asiatic forests haunted with sensuousness and intrigue.
And he let himself be dragged down by the caress of this wild beast, with thought lost and body inert and resigned, like a castaway who descends and descends the infinite strata of the abyss without ever reaching bottom..