For her every meal was a species of torment, and the procession of bocks in the smoking room a tantalizing agony.
The slenderness achieved and maintained by will power only made more prominent the size of her frame, the powerful skeleton with heavy jaws and large teeth, strong and dazzling, which perhaps suggested Desnoyers' disrespectful comparison.

"She is thin, but enormous, nevertheless!" was always his conclusion.
But then, he considered her, notwithstanding, the most distinguished woman on board--distinguished for the sea--elegant in the style of Munich, with clothes of indescribable colors that suggested Persian art and the vignettes of mediaeval manuscripts.

The husband admired Bertha's elegance, lamenting her childlessness in secret, almost as though it were a crime of high treason.

Germany was magnificent because of the fertility of its women.

The Kaiser, with his artistic hyperbole, had proclaimed that the true German beauty should have a waist measure of at least a yard and a half.
When Desnoyers entered into the smoking room in order to take the seat which Bertha had reserved for him, her husband and his wealthy hangers-on had their pack of cards lying idle upon the green felt.