La mujer fría (1922) provides an interesting example of a transitional point between two major movements in the modern representation of female sensuality: the finde-siècle or decadent, and the avant-garde. On the one hand, the text's protagonist reveals the persistence of a number of motifs of Romantic origin as re-elaborated by turn-of-the-century sensibility (motifs such as the 'femme fatale', the 'fallen woman', vampirism and necrophilia). On the other hand, there appear traits of the de-humanized, independent, sophisticated and elusive kind of woman who would reign supreme in fictional works written in subsequent years. The text offers a semiotics of the body in one representational tradition; at the same time, there is a sensual use of language that underscores the physical and constructed (i.e. artificial) nature of language.