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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of His Excellency the Minister, by Jules Claretie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: His Excellency the Minister
+
+Author: Jules Claretie
+
+Translator: Henri Roberts
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15934]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Jonathan Niehof and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THIS EDITION
+DEDICATED TO THE HONOR OF THE
+ACADEMIE FRANCAISE
+IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED
+SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS
+
+NUMBER 358
+
+
+THE ROMANCISTS
+JULES CLARETIE
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER
+
+
+BIBLIOTHEQUE
+DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
+DU ROMAN
+CONTEMPORAIN
+
+_HIS EXCELLENCY
+THE MINISTER_
+
+JULES CLARETIE
+
+OF THE ACADEMIE FRANCAISE
+
+
+PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY
+
+GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA
+COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY G.B. & SON
+
+THIS EDITION OF
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER
+HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
+BY
+HENRI ROBERTS
+
+THE ETCHINGS ARE BY
+EUGENE WALLET
+AND DRAWINGS BY
+ADRIEN MARIE
+
+
+
+
+TO ALPHONSE DAUDET
+
+
+My dear friend,
+
+Ideas sometimes float about in the air like the pollen of flowers. For
+years past I have been at work collecting notes for this book which I
+have decided to dedicate to you.
+
+In one of your charming prefaces, you told us lately that you only
+painted from nature. We are both of us, I imagine, in our day and
+generation, quite captivated and carried away by that modern society
+from which in your exquisite creations you have so well understood how
+to extract the essence.
+
+What is it that I have desired to do this time? That which we have both
+been trying to do at one and the same time: to seize, in passing, these
+stirring times of ours, these modern manners, that society which
+perpetuates the antediluvian uproar, that feverish, bustling world
+always posing before the footlights, that market for the sale of
+appetites, that kirmess of pleasure that saddens us a little and amuses
+us a great deal, and allows us romance-writers, simple seekers after
+truth, to smile in our sleeves at the constant seekers after portfolios.
+
+This book is true, I have seen the events narrated in it pass before my
+own eyes, and I can say, as a spectator greatly interested in what I
+see, that I am delighted, my old fellow-traveller, to write your great
+and honored name on the first page of my book as a witness to the
+sincere affection and true comradeship of
+
+Your devoted,
+
+JULES CLARETIE.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+_There was once a Minister of State who presented to his native land the
+astonishing spectacle of a Cabinet Minister dying whilst in office. This
+action was so astounding to the nation at large that a statue has since
+been erected to his memory._
+
+_I saw his funeral procession defile past me, I think I even made one of
+the Committee sent by the Society of Men of Letters to march in the
+funeral convoy. It was superb. This lawyer from the Provinces, good
+honest man, eloquent orator, honest politician that he was, who came to
+Paris but to die there, was buried with the greatest magnificence._
+
+_De Musset had eight persons to follow him to the grave; his Excellency
+had one hundred thousand._
+
+_I returned home from this gorgeous funeral in a thoughtful mood,
+thinking how much emptiness there is in glory, and particularly in
+political glory. This man had been "His Excellency the Minister" and not
+only his own province, but the whole country had placed its hopes on
+him. But what had he done? He had left his home to cast himself into the
+great whirlpool of the metropolis. It was the romance of a great
+provincial plunged in Paris into the reality of contemporary history,
+and become as ordinary as the commonplace items of the Journals. "What a
+subject for a study at once profoundly modern and perfectly lifelike!"
+The funeral convoy had hardly left the church of the Madeleine when my
+plot of this romance was thought out, and appeared clearly before me in
+this title, very brief and simple: _His Excellency the Minister_._
+
+_I have not drawn any one in particular, I have thought of no individual
+person, I even forgot all about this departed Minister, whose face I
+hardly caught even a glimpse of, and of whose life I was completely
+ignorant; I had only in my mind's eye a hero or rather a heroine:
+Politics with all its discouragements, its vexations, its treacheries,
+its deceptions, its visions as fair as the blue sky of summer, suddenly
+bursting like soap bubbles; and to the woes of Politics, I naturally
+endeavored to add those of the pangs of love._
+
+_And this is how my book came to see the light. I have been frequently
+asked from what living person I borrowed the character of Vaudrey, with
+its sufferings, its disappointments, its falterings. From whom? An
+American translator, better informed, it appears, than myself, has, I
+believe, brought out in New York a _key_ to the characters presented in
+my book. I should have publicly protested against this _Key_ which
+unlocks nothing, however, had it been published in France. Reader, do
+not expect any masks to be raised here--there are no masks; it is only a
+picture of living people, of passions of our time. No portraits,
+however, only types. That, at least, is what I have tried to do. And if
+I expected to find indulgent critics, I have certainly succeeded, and
+the two special characters which I sought to portray in my romance--in
+Parisian and political life--have been fortunate enough to win the
+approval of two critics whose testimony to the truth of my portraitures
+I have set down here._
+
+_An author of rare merit and an authority on Statecraft, Monsieur J.-J.
+Weiss, was kind enough one day to analyze and praise, apropos of the
+comedy founded upon my book, the romance which I am to-day republishing.
+It has been extremely pleasant for me to put myself under the
+sponsorship of a man of letters willing to vouch for the truth of my
+portrayals. I must beg pardon for repeating his commendations of my
+work, so grateful are they to me, coming from the pen of a critic so
+renowned, and which I take some pride in reading again._
+
+_"I had already twice read _Monsieur le Ministre_," wrote Monsieur J.-J.
+Weiss in the _Journal des Debats_ the day following the production at
+the Gymnase, "before having seen the drama founded on the book, and I do
+not regret having been obliged to read it for the third time. The
+romance is both well conceived and admirably executed. To have written
+it, a union of character and talent was necessary. A Republican tried
+and proved, permitting his ideal to be tarnished and sullied; a patriot
+wronged by the vices of the times in which he lived; an honest,
+clean-handed man; the representative of a family of rigid morality; the
+strict impartiality of the artist who cares for nothing but his ideas of
+art, and who protects those ideas from being injured or influenced by
+the pretensions of any group or coterie; a close and long
+acquaintanceship with the ins and outs of Parisian life; an eye at once
+inquiring, calm and critical, a courageous indifference, hatred for the
+mighty ones of the hour, and a loftiness of soul which refuses to yield
+to the unjust demands of timid friendship: such are the qualities that
+make the value of this matchless book. Monsieur Claretie has been
+accused of having gathered together and exposed to the public gaze two
+or three more or less scandalous episodes of private life, and using
+them as the foundation of his romance. The fictitious name of Vaudrey
+has been held to cloak that of such and such a Minister of State. Those,
+however, who search for vulgar gossip in this book, or who look for
+private scandal are far astray. They are quite mistaken as regards the
+tendency and moral of Monsieur Claretie's book. The Vaudrey of the
+romance is no minister in particular, neither this statesman nor that.
+He is the Minister whom we have had before our eyes for the last quarter
+of a century. He is that one, at once potential and universal. In him
+are united and portrayed all the traits by which the species may be
+determined. He had been elected to office without knowing why, and to do
+him this justice, at least without any fault of his; he was deposed from
+power without knowing the reason, and we have no hesitation in saying,
+without his having done anything either good or bad to deserve his fall.
+There he is minister, however; Minister of the Interior, and who knows?
+in a fair way, perhaps, to be swept by some favorable wind to the post
+of President of the Council; while not so very long ago to have been
+made sub-prefect of the first class, would have surpassed the wildest
+visions of his youth. In Monsieur Claretie's romance it is the old
+Member of Parliament, Collard--of Nantes--converted late in life to
+Republicanism, who chose the provincial Vaudrey for his Minister of the
+Interior; this may, with equal probability be Marshal MacMahon._
+
+_"In Monsieur Claretie's romance, _Monsieur le Ministre_ is of the Left
+Centre or the so-called Moderate Party, he is therefore on the side of
+Law and Order. He enters into the Cabinet with the determination to
+reform every abuse, to recast everything; to seek for honest men, to
+make merit and not faction, the touchstone of advancement. In short, to
+apply in his political life the glorious principles which--and the noble
+maxims that--He is only, however, forty-eight hours in office when he
+becomes quite demoralized, paralyzed and stultified for the rest of his
+ministerial life. It is the phenomenon of crushing demoralization and of
+complete enervation of which the public, from the situation in which it
+is placed, sees only the results of which Monsieur Claretie, with a
+skilful hand describes for us the mechanism and the cause. This Minister
+of State, supposed to be omnipotent in office, has not even the power to
+choose an undersecretary of State for himself. The Minister who only the
+day before, from his seat upon one of the benches of the Opposition, sat
+with his head held aloft, his long body erect, with rigid dignity, as if
+made of triple brass, cannot now take the initiative in the appointment
+of a '_garde champetre_.' His undersecretaries of State, his _gardes
+champetres_, he himself, his whole environment, in fact, are only
+painted dummies and the meek puppets that a director of the staff, a
+chief of a division, or a chief of a bureau sets in motion, to the tune
+he grinds out of his hand-organ, or moves them about at his will like
+pawns upon a chess-board. The Minister will read with smiling confidence
+the reports by which his subordinates who are his masters, inform
+him--what no one until then had thought of--that he has been called by
+the voice of the nation to his high office, and that he can in future
+count upon the entire and complete confidence of the country. To please
+these obliging persons, the hangers-on of governments that he has passed
+a quarter of his life infighting against and whom he will call gravely,
+and upon certain occasions, very drolly, the hierarchy, he will betray
+without any scruples all those whose disinterested efforts and great
+sacrifices have brought about the triumph of the cause which he
+represents._
+
+_"Monsieur le Ministre is from the Provinces! You understand. Solemn and
+pedantic, if his youth has been passed upon the banks of the Isere, a
+puppy with his muzzle held aloft and giddy, if Garonne has nourished
+him, broad faced and vulgarly pedantic if his cradle has been rocked in
+upper Limousin. But whether he comes from Correze, from Garonne or
+Isere, it is always as a Provincial that he arrives in Paris, the air of
+which intoxicates him. He is in the same situation and carries with him
+the same sentiments as Monsieur Jourdain when invited to visit the
+Countess Dorimene. For the first adventuress who comes along, a born
+princess who has strayed into a house of ill fame, or one who frequents
+such a house, who masquerades as a princess in her coquettish house in
+Rue Bremontier, he will forsake father, mother, children, state
+documents, cabinet, councils, Chamber of Deputies, everything in fact.
+He will break away from his young wife who has grown up under his eyes
+in the same town with him, among all the sweet domestic graces, moulded
+amid all the fresh and sapid delicacies of the provinces, but pshaw! too
+provincial for a noble of his importance, and he will go in pursuit of
+some flower, no matter what, be it only redolent of Parisian patchouli.
+He will break the heart of the one, while for the other, he will bring
+before the councils of administration suspected schemes, blackmailings,
+concessions, treachery and ruin. Monsieur Claretie had shown us the
+Vaudrey of his romance involved in all these degradations, although he
+has checked him as to some, and in his novel, at least, with due
+submission to the exalted truth of art, he has not shrunk from punishing
+this false, great man and pretended tribune of the people, by the very
+vices he espoused._
+
+_"I do not stop to inquire if even in the story, Monsieur Claretie's
+'Marianne Kayser' is frequently self-contradictory, and if in some
+features I clearly recognize his Guy de Lissac; two characters that play
+an important part in the narrative! But after all, what does it matter?
+It suffices for me that his Excellency the Minister and all his
+Excellency's entourage are fully grasped and clearly described. Granet,
+the low _intriguer_ of the lobbies; Molina, the stock-company cut-throat
+and Bourse ruffian; Ramel, the melancholy and redoubtable publicist, who
+has made emperors without himself desiring to become one, who will die
+in the neighborhood of Montmartre and the Batignolles, forgotten but
+proud, poor, and unsullied by money, true to his ideals, among the
+ingrates enriched by his journal and who have reached the summit only by
+the influence of his authority with the public; Denis Garnier, the
+Parisian workman who has had an experience of the hulks as the result of
+imbibing too freely of sentimental prose and of lending too ready an ear
+to the golden speech of some tavern demagogue, who has now had enough of
+politics and who scarcely troubles to think what former retailer of
+treasonable language, what Gracchus of the sidewalk may be minister,
+Vaudrey or Pichereau, or even Granet: all these types are separately
+analyzed and vigorously generalized. Monsieur Claretie designated no one
+in particular but we elbow the characters in his book every day of our
+lives. He has, moreover, written a book of a robust and healthy novelty.
+The picture of the greenroom of the Ballet with which the tale opens and
+where we are introduced in the most natural way possible to nearly all
+the characters that play a part in the story of Vaudrey is masterly in
+execution and intention. It is Balzac, but Balzac toned down and more
+limpid."_
+
+_I will stop here at the greenroom of the Ballet commended by Monsieur
+J.-J. Weiss, to give a slight sketch, clever as a drawing by Saint' Aubin
+or a lithograph by Gavarni, which Monsieur Ludovic Halevy has
+contributed to a journal and in which he also praises the romance that
+the _feuilletoniste_ of the _Debats_ has criticized with an authority so
+discriminating and a benevolence so profound._
+
+_It was very agreeable for me to observe that such a thorough Parisian
+as the shrewd and witty author of _Les Petites Cardinal_ should find
+that the Opera--which certainly plays a role in our politics--had been
+sufficiently well portrayed by the author of _Monsieur le Ministre_. And
+upon this, the first chapter of my book, Monsieur Ludovic Halevy adds,
+moreover, some special and piquant details which are well worth
+quoting:_
+
+_"That which gave me very great pleasure in this tale of a man of
+politics is that politics really have little, very little place in the
+novel; it is love that dominates it and in the most despotic and
+pleasant way possible. This great man of Grenoble who arrives at Paris
+in order to reform everything, repair everything, elevate everything,
+falls at once under the sway of a most charming Parisian adventuress.
+See Sulpice Vaudrey the slave of Marianne. Marianne's gray eyes never
+leave him--But she in her turn meets her master--and Marianne's master
+is Adolphe Gochard, a horrid Parisian blackguard--who is so much her
+master that, after all, the real hero of the romance is Adolphe Gochard.
+Such is the secret philosophy of this brilliant and ingenious romance._
+
+_"I have, however, a little quarrel on my own account with Monsieur
+Jules Claretie. Nothing can be more brilliantly original than the
+introductory chapter of _Monsieur le Ministre_. Sulpice Vaudrey makes
+his first appearance behind the scenes of the Opera, and from the sides
+of the stage, in the stage boxes, opera-glasses are turned upon him, and
+he hears whispered:_
+
+_"'It is the new Minister of the Interior.'_
+
+_"'Nonsense! Monsieur Vaudrey?'_
+
+_"'Yes, Monsieur Vaudrey--'_
+
+_"In short, the appearance of his Excellency creates a sensation, and it
+is against this statement that I protest. I go frequently to the Opera,
+very frequently. During the last ten years I have seen defile before me
+in the wings, at least fifty Ministers of State, all just freshly ground
+out. Curiosity had brought them there and the desire to see the dancers
+at close quarters, and also the vague hope that by exhibiting themselves
+there in all their glory, they would create a sensation in this little
+world._
+
+_"Well, this hope of theirs was never realized. Nobody took the trouble
+to look at them. A minister nowadays is nobody of importance. Formerly
+to rise to such a position, to take in hand the reins of one of the
+great departments, it was necessary to have a certain exterior, a
+certain prominence, something of a past--to be a Monsieur Thiers,
+Monsieur Guizot, Monsieur Mole, Monsieur de Remusat, Monsieur Villemain,
+Monsieur Duchatel, Monsieur de Falloux or Monsieur de Broglie--that is
+to say, an orator, an author, a historian, somebody in fact. But
+nowadays, all that is necessary to be a minister is the votes of certain
+little combinations of groups and subsidiary groups, who all expect a
+share of the spoils. Therefore we are ruled by certain personages
+illustrious perhaps at Gap or at Montelimar but who are quite unknown in
+the genealogical records of the Boulevard Haussmann. Why should you
+imagine that public attention would be attracted by news like this:_
+
+_"'Look!--There is Monsieur X, or Monsieur Y, or Monsieur Z.'_
+
+_"One person only during these last years ever succeeded in attracting
+the attention of the songstresses and ballet-girls of the Opera. And
+that was Gambetta. Ah! when he came to claim Monsieur Vaucorbeil's
+hospitality, it was useless to crouch behind the cherry-colored silk
+curtains of the manager's box, many glances were directed toward him,
+and many prowling curiosities were awakened in the vicinity of the
+manager's box. Little lassies of ten or twelve came and seized your
+hand, saying:_
+
+_"'Please, monsieur, point out Monsieur Gambetta to me--he is here--I
+would so much like to see him.'_
+
+_"And then Gambetta was pointed out to them during the entr'acte--after
+which, delighted, they went off caracoling and pirouetting behind the
+scenes:_
+
+_"'You did not see Monsieur Gambetta, but I saw him!'_
+
+_"This was popularity--and it must be confessed that only one man in
+France to-day receives such marks of it. This man is Gambetta._
+
+_"Meanwhile Claretie's minister continues his walk through the corridors
+of the Opera house. He reaches the greenroom of the ballet at last and
+exclaims:_
+
+_"'And that is all!'_
+
+_"Alas, yes, your Excellency, that is all!--"_
+
+_And everything is only a _"that is all,"_ in this world. If one should
+set himself carefully to weigh power or fame,--power, that force of
+which Girardin said, however: "I would give fifty years of glory for one
+hour of power,"--even if one tilted the scale, one would not find the
+weight very considerable._
+
+_It would be necessary to have the resounding renown of a personality
+like that one who, if I am to believe Monsieur Halevy, alone enjoyed the
+privilege of revolutionizing the foyer of the ballet, in order to boast
+of having been someone, or of having accomplished something._
+
+_A rather witty skeptic once said to a friend of his who had just been
+appointed minister:_
+
+_"My dear fellow, permit me as a practical man to ask you not to engage
+in too many affairs. Events in this world are accomplished without much
+meddling. If you attempt to do something to-day, everyone will cry out:
+'What! he is going to demolish everything!' If you do nothing, they will
+cry: 'What! he does not budge! If I were minister, which God forbid, I
+would say nothing--and let others act--I would do nothing--and let
+others talk.'"_
+
+_Everybody, very fortunately--and all ministers do not reason like this
+jester. But the truth is that it is very difficult for an honest man in
+the midst of political entanglements as Vaudrey was, to realize his
+dream. When opportunities arise--those opportunities that march only at
+a snail's pace--one is not allowed to make use of them, they are
+snatched from one. They arrive, only to take wings again. And in those
+posts of daily combat, one has not only against one the enemies who
+attack one openly, which would be but a slight matter, a touch with a
+goad or a prick of the spur, at most--but one has to contend with
+friends who compromise, and servants who serve one badly._
+
+_Every man who occupies an office, whatever it may be, has for his
+adversaries those who covet it, those who regret it, those who have once
+filled it, and those who desire to fill it. What assaults too! Against a
+successful rival, there is no infamy too base, no mine too deep, no
+villainy too cruel, no lie too poisoned to be made use of--and the
+minister, his Excellency, is like a hostage to Power._
+
+_And yet one more point, it is not in his enemies or his calumniators
+that his danger lies. The real, absolute evil is in the system of
+routine and ill-will which attack the statesmen of probity. It will be
+seen from these pages that there is a warning bell destined, alas! to
+keep away from those in power the messengers who would bring them the
+truth from outside, the unwelcome and much dreaded truth._
+
+_The novel may sometimes be this stroke of the bell,--a stroke honest
+and useful,--a disinterested _warner,_ and I have striven to make
+_Monsieur le Ministre_ precisely that, in a small degree, for the
+political world. I have essayed to paint this hell paved with some of
+the good intentions. The success which greeted the appearance of this
+book, might justify me in believing that I have succeeded in my task. I
+trust that it will enjoy under its new form--so flattering to an author,
+that an editor-artist is pleased to give it,--the success achieved under
+its first form._
+
+__Monsieur le Ministre_ is connected with more than one recollection of my
+life. I was called upon one day to follow to his last resting-place--and
+it is on an occasion like this that one discovers more readily and
+perceives more clearly life's ironies--one of those men "who do nothing
+but create other men," a journalist. It was bitterly cold and we stood
+before the open grave, just in front of a railway embankment, in an out
+of the way cemetery of Saint-Ouen,--the cemetery called _Cayenne,_
+because the dead are "deported" thither. We were but four faithful
+ones. Yes, four, but amongst these four must be included a young man,
+bare-headed and wearing the uniform of an officer, who stood by the
+deceased man's son._
+
+_Whilst one of us bade the last farewell to the departed on the brink of
+the grave, the scream of the railway engine cut short his words, and
+seemed to hiss for the last time the fate of the vanquished man lying
+there. As we were quitting the cemetery, a worthy man, a song-writer,
+observed to me: "Well, if all those whom Leon Plee helped during his
+lifetime had remembered him when he was dead, this little _Campo Santo_
+of Saint-Ouen would not have been large enough to hold them all!"_
+
+_Doubtless. But they did not remember him._
+
+_And from the contrast between the shabby obsequies of the old
+journalist and the solemn pomp of that of the funeral service of the
+four days' minister came the idea of my book. It seemed to me that here
+was an appropriate idea and a useful reparation. Art has nothing to
+lose--rather the contrary, when it devotes itself to militant tasks._
+
+_Ah! I forgot--When one mentions to-day the name of this illustrious
+minister whose funeral convoy was in its day one of the great spectacles
+of Paris, and one of the great surprises to those who know how difficult
+it is for a minister to die in office--like the Spartan still grasping
+his shield--those best informed, shaking their heads solemnly will say:_
+
+_"Ricard?--Oh! he had great talent, Ricard--I saw lately a portrait of
+Paul de Musset by him--It is superb!"_
+
+_They confound him with the painter to whom no statue has been erected,
+but whose works remain._
+
+_Be, then, a Cabinet Minister!_
+
+_JULES CLARETIE._
+
+_Viroflay, September 1, 1886._
+
+
+
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER
+
+PART FIRST
+
+I
+
+
+The third act of L'Africaine had just come to a close.
+
+The minister, on leaving the manager's box, said smilingly, like a man
+glad to be rid of the cares of State: "Let us go to the greenroom,
+Granet, shall we?"
+
+"Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency proposes!"
+
+They were obliged to cross the immense stage where the stage carpenters
+were busy with the stage accessories as sailors with the equipment of a
+vessel; and men in evening dress, with white ties, looked natty without
+their greatcoats, and with opera hats on their heads were going to and
+fro, picking their way amongst the ropes and other impedimenta which
+littered the stage, on their way to the greenroom of the ballet.
+
+They had come here from all parts of the house, from the stalls and
+boxes; most of them humming as they went the air from Nelusko's ballad,
+walking lightly as habitues through the species of antechamber which
+separates the body of the house from the stage.
+
+A servant wearing a white cravat, was seated at a table writing down
+upon a sheet of paper the names of those who came in. One side of this
+sheet bore a headline reading: _Messieurs_, and the other _Medecin_, in
+two columns. From time to time this man would get up from his chair to
+bow respectfully to some official personage whom he recognized.
+
+"Have you seen Monsieur Vaudrey come in yet, Louis?" asked a still young
+man with a monocle in his eye, who seemed quite at home behind the
+scenes.
+
+"His Excellency is in the manager's box, monsieur!" answered the servant
+civilly.
+
+"Thank you, Louis!"
+
+And as the visitor turned to go up the narrow stairway leading to the
+greenroom, the servant wrote down in the running-hand of a clerk, upon
+the printed sheet: _Monsieur Guy de Lissac_.
+
+Upon the stage, Vaudrey, the Minister whom Lissac had been inquiring
+for, stood arm in arm with his companion Granet, looking in astonishment
+at the vast machinery of the opera, operated by this army of workmen,
+whom he did not know. He was quite astonished at the sight, as he had
+never beheld its like. His astonishment was so evident and artless that
+Granet, his friend and colleague in the Chamber of Deputies, could not
+help smiling at it from under his carefully waxed moustaches.
+
+"I consider all this much more wonderful than the opera itself,"
+observed his Excellency. The floor and wings were like great yellow
+spots, and the whole immense stage resembled a great, sandy desert.
+Vaudrey raised his head to gaze at the symmetrical arrangement of the
+chandeliers, as bright as rows of gas-jets, amongst the hangings of the
+friezes. A huge canvas at the back represented a sunlit Indian
+landscape, and in the enormous space between the lowered curtain and the
+scenery, some black spots seemed as if dancing, strange silhouettes of
+the visitors in their dress clothes, standing out clearly against the
+yellow background like the shadows of Chinese figures.
+
+"It is very amusing; but let us see the greenroom," said the minister.
+"You are familiar with the greenroom, Granet?"
+
+"I am a Parisian," returned the deputy, without too great an emphasis;
+but the ironical smile which accompanied his words made Vaudrey
+understand that his colleague looked upon his Excellency as fresh from
+the province and still smacking of its manners.
+
+Sulpice hesitatingly crossed the stage in the midst of a hubbub like
+that of a man-of-war getting ready for action, caused by the methodical
+destruction and removal of the scenery comprising the huge ship used in
+_L'Africaine_ by a swarm of workmen in blue vests, yelling and shoving
+quickly before them, or carrying away sections of masts and parts of
+ladders, hurrying out of sight by way of trap-doors and man-holes, this
+carcass of a work of art; this spectacle of a great swarm of human ants,
+running hither and thither, pulling and tugging at this immense piece of
+stage decoration, in the vast frame capable of holding at one and the
+same time, a cathedral and a factory, was rather awe-inspiring to the
+statesman, who stopped short to look at it, while the tails of his coat
+brushed against the fallen curtain.
+
+From both sides of the stage, from the stage-boxes, opera-glasses were
+turned upon him here and there and a murmur like a breeze came wafted
+towards him.
+
+"It is the new Minister of the Interior!"
+
+"Nonsense! Monsieur Vaudrey?"
+
+"Monsieur Vaudrey."
+
+Vaudrey proudly drew himself up under the battery of opera-glasses
+levelled at him, while Granet, smiling, said to the master of the chorus
+who, dressed in a black coat, stood near him:
+
+"It can be easily seen that this is his first visit here!"
+
+Oh! yes, truly, it was the first time that the new minister had set his
+foot in the wings of the Opera! He relished it with all the curiosity of
+a youth and the gusto of a collegian. How fortunate that he had not
+brought Madame Vaudrey, who was slightly indisposed. This rapid survey
+of a world unknown to him, had the flavor of an escapade. There was a
+little spice in this amusing adventure.
+
+Behind the canvas in the rear, some musicians, costumed as Brahmins,
+with spectacles on their noses, the better to decipher their score,
+fingered their brass instruments with a weary air, rocking them like
+infants in swaddling clothes. Actors in the garb of Indians, with
+painted cheeks, and legs encased in chocolate-colored bandages, were
+yawning, weary and flabby, and stretching themselves while awaiting the
+time for them to present themselves upon the stage. Others, dressed like
+soldiers, were sleeping on the wooden benches against the walls, their
+mouths open, their helmets drawn down over their noses like visors.
+Others, their pikes serving them for canes, had taken off their headgear
+and placed it at their feet, the better to rest their heads against the
+wall, where they leaned with their eyes shut.
+
+Little girls, all of them thin, and in short skirts, were already
+pirouetting, and humming airs. Older girls stood about with their legs
+crossed, or, half-stooping, displayed their bosoms while retying the
+laces of their pink shoes. Others, wearing a kind of Siamese headdress
+with ornaments of gold, were laughing and clashing together their little
+silver cymbals. Awkward fellows with false beards, dressed like high
+priests in robes of yellow, striped with red, elbowed past and jostled
+against the girls quite unceremoniously. An usher, dressed a la
+Francaise, and wearing a chain around his neck, paced, grave and
+melancholy, amongst these shameless young girls.
+
+The greenroom at the end of the stage was entered through a large
+vestibule hung with curtains of grayish velvet shot with violet, and at
+the top of the steps where some men in dress-clothes were talking to
+ballet-girls, Vaudrey could see in the great salon beyond, blazing with
+light, groups of half-nude women surrounded by men, resembling, in their
+black clothes, beetles crawling about roses, the whole company reflected
+in a flood of light, in an immense mirror that covered one end of the
+room. Little by little, Vaudrey could make out above the paintings
+representing ancient dances, and the portraits by Camargo or Noverre, a
+confusion of gaudy skirts, pink legs, white shoulders, with the
+ubiquitous black coats sprinkled about here and there amongst these
+bright colors like large blots of ink upon ball-dresses.
+
+Sulpice had often heard the greenroom of the ballet spoken about, and he
+was at once completely disillusioned. The glaring, brutal light
+ruthlessly exposed the worn and faded hangings; and the pretty girls in
+their full, short, gauzy petticoats, with their bare arms, smiling and
+twisting about, their satin-shod feet resting upon gray velvet
+footstools, seemed to him, as they occupied the slanting floor, to move
+in a cloud of dust, and to be robbed of all naturalness and freshness.
+
+"And is this all?" the minister exclaimed almost involuntarily.
+
+"What!" answered Granet, "you seem hard to please!"
+
+Amongst all these girls, there had been manifested an expression of
+mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on Vaudrey's appearance in their
+midst. His presence in the manager's box had been noticed and his coming
+to the greenroom expected. Every one had hurried thither. Sulpice was
+pointed out. He was the cynosure of all eyes. On the divans beneath the
+mirror, some young, well-dressed, bald men, surrounded--perhaps by
+chance--by laughing ballet-girls, now half-concealed themselves behind
+the voluminous skirts of the girls about them, and bent their heads,
+thus rendering their baldness more visible, just as a woman buries her
+nose in her bouquet to avoid recognizing an acquaintance.
+
+Vaudrey, observing this ruse, smiled a slight, sarcastic smile. He
+recognized behind the shielding petticoats, some of his prefects, those
+from the environs of Paris, come from Versailles and Chartres, or from
+some sub-prefectures, and gallantly administering the affairs of France
+from the heart of the greenroom. Amiable functionaries of the Ministry
+of Fine Arts also came here to study aestheticism between the acts.
+
+All members of the different regimes seemed to be fraternizing in
+ironical promiscuousness here, and Vaudrey in a whisper drew Granet's
+attention to this. Old beaux of the time of the Empire, with dyed and
+waxed moustaches, with dyed or grizzled hair flattened on their temples,
+their flabby cheeks cut across by stiff collars as jelly is cut by a
+knife, were hobnobbing, fat and lean, with young fops of the Republic,
+who with their sharp eyes, wide-open nostrils, their cheeks covered with
+brown or flaxen down, their hair carefully brushed, or already bald,
+seemed quite surprised to find themselves in such a place, and chattered
+and cackled among themselves like beardless conscripts, perverted and
+immoral but with some scruples still remaining and less cunning than
+these well-dressed old roues standing firmly at their posts like
+veterans.
+
+"The licentiates and the pensioners," whispered Vaudrey.
+
+"You have a quickness of sight quite Parisian, your Excellency,"
+returned Granet.
+
+"There are Parisians in the Provinces, my dear Granet," replied Sulpice
+with a heightened complexion, his blood flowing more rapidly than usual,
+due to emotions at once novel and gay.
+
+"Ah! your Excellency," exclaimed a fat, animated man with hair and
+whiskers of quite snowy whiteness, and smiling as he spoke, "what in the
+world brought you here?"
+
+He approached Vaudrey, bowing but not at all obsequiously, with the air
+of good humor due to a combination of wealth and embonpoint. Fat and
+rich, in perfect health, and carrying his sixty years with the
+lightness of forty, Molina--Molina the "Tumbler" as he was
+nicknamed--spent his afternoons on the Bourse and his evenings in the
+greenroom of the ballet.
+
+He had a small interest in the theatre, but a large one in the
+coryphees, in a paternal way, his white hair giving him the right to be
+respected and his crowns the right to respect nothing. Beginning life
+very low down, and now enjoying a lofty position, the fat Molina haunted
+the Bourse and the greenroom of the Opera. He glutted himself with all
+the earliest delicacies of the season, like a man who when young, has
+not always had enough to satisfy hunger.
+
+Pictures that were famous, women of fashion, statues of marble and fair
+flesh, he must have them all. He collected, without any taste whatever,
+costly paintings, rare objects; he bought without love, girls who were
+not wholly mercenary. At a pinch he found them, taking pleasure in
+parading in his coupe, around the lake or at the races, some recruit in
+vice, and in watching the crowd that at once eagerly surrounded her,
+simply because she had been the mistress of the fat Molina. He had in
+his youth at Marseilles, in the Jewish quarter of the town, sold old
+clothes to the Piedmontese and sailors in port. Now it was his delight
+to behold the Parisians of the Boulevard or the clubs buy as sentimental
+rags the cast-off garments of his passion.
+
+"You in the greenroom of the ballet, your Excellency?" continued the
+financier. "Ah! upon my word, I shall tell Madame Vaudrey."
+
+Sulpice smiled, the mere name of his wife sounded strange to his ears in
+a place like this. It seemed to him that in speaking of her, she was
+being dragged into a strange circle, and one which did not belong to
+her. He had felt the same only a few days before upon his entrance into
+the cabinet, on seeing a report of his marriage, his dwelling minutely
+described, and a pen portrait of that Adrienne, who was the passion of
+his life.
+
+"After all," continued Molina, "Madame Vaudrey must get used to it. The
+Opera! Why, it is a part of politics! The key of many a situation is to
+be found in the greenroom!"
+
+The financier laughed merrily, a laugh that had the ring of the
+Turcarets' jingling crowns.
+
+He went on to explain to his Excellency all the little mysteries of the
+greenroom, as a man quite at home in this little Parisian province, and
+lightly, by a word, a gesture even, he gave the minister a rapid
+biography of the young girls who were laughing, jesting, romping there
+before them; flitting hither and thither lightly across the boards,
+barely touching them with the tips of their pink satin-shod feet.
+
+Sulpice was surprised at everything he saw. He did not even take the
+pains to conceal his surprise. Evidently it was his first visit behind
+the scenes.
+
+"Ah! your Excellency," said Molina, delighted with his role of
+cicerone, "it is necessary to be at home here! You should come here
+often! Nothing in the world can be more amusing. Here behind the scenes
+is a world by itself. One can see pretty little lasses springing up like
+asparagus. One sees running hither and thither a tall, thin child who
+nods to you saucily and crunches nuts like a squirrel. One takes a three
+months' journey, and passes a season at Vichy or at Dieppe, and when one
+returns, presto! see the transformation. The butterfly has burst forth
+from its cocoon. No longer a little girl, but a woman. Those saucy eyes
+of old now look at you with an expression which disturbs your heart. One
+might have offered, six months before, two sous' worth of chestnuts to
+the child; now, however, nothing less than a coupe will satisfy the
+woman. It used to jump on your knee at that time, now every one is
+throwing his arms around its pretty neck. Thus from generation to
+generation, one assists at the mobilization of a whole army of recruits,
+who first try their weapons here, pass from here into the regiment of
+veterans, build themselves a hospital in cut-stone out of their savings,
+and some of them mount very high through the tips of their toes if they
+are not suddenly attacked by _the malady of the knee_."
+
+"Malady of the knee?" inquired Vaudrey.
+
+"A phrase not to be found in the _Dictionary of Political Economy_ by
+Maurice Block. It is a way of saying that ill-luck has overtaken one. A
+very interesting condition, this malady of the knee! It often not only
+shortens the leg but the career!"
+
+"Is this malady a frequent one at the Opera?"
+
+"Ah! your Excellency, how can it be helped? There are so many slips in
+this pirouetting business! It is as risky as politics!"
+
+Fat Molina shouted with laughter at this clumsy jest, and placing a
+binocle upon his huge nose, which was cleft down the middle like that of
+a hunting-hound, he exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the door as he
+spoke:
+
+"Eh! Marie Launay? What is she holding in her hand?"
+
+Light, nimble and graceful in her costume of a Hindoo dancing girl, a
+young girl of sixteen or seventeen summers, already betraying her
+womanhood in the ardent glances half-hidden in the depths of her large,
+deep-blue eyes, tripped into the greenroom, humming an air and holding
+in her hand a long sheet of paper.
+
+She shook, as if embarrassed by it, the broad necklace of large
+imitation pearls that danced on her fine neck and fell on her
+undeveloped bosom; and looking in search of some one among the crowd of
+girls, cried out from a distance to a plump little brunette who was
+talking and laughing within a circle of dress-coats at the other end of
+the room:
+
+"Eh! Anna, you have not subscribed yet!"
+
+The brunette, freeing herself unceremoniously enough from her living
+madrigals, came running lightly up to Marie Launay, who held out towards
+her an aluminum pencil-case and the sheet of paper.
+
+"What the devil is that?" asked Molina.
+
+"Let us go and see," said Granet.
+
+"Would it not be an indiscretion on our part?" asked Vaudrey, half
+seriously.
+
+The financier, however, was by this time at the side of the two pretty
+girls, and asked the blonde what the paper contained, the names on which
+her companion was spelling out.
+
+Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair hair curling
+low down upon her forehead, smiled like a pretty, innocent and still
+timid child, under the luring glances of the fat man, and glancing with
+an expression of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who were
+standing beside him, replied:
+
+"That--Oh! that is the subscription we are getting up for Mademoiselle
+Legrand."
+
+"Oh! that is so," said Molina. "You mean to make her a present of a
+statuette?"
+
+"On her taking her leave of us. Yes, every one has subscribed to
+it--even the boxholders. Do you see?"
+
+Marie Launay quickly snatched the paper from her friend; on it were
+several names, some written in ink, others in pencil, the whole
+presenting the peculiar appearance of schoolboys' pot-hooks or the
+graceful lines traced by crawling flies, while the fantastic spelling
+offered a strange medley. Molina burst out laughing, his ever-present
+laugh that sounded like the shaking of a money-bag,--when he ran his eye
+over the list and found accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and
+members of the chorus, the distinguished particles of some habitues.
+
+"Look! your Excellency--It is stupendous! Here: _Amelie Dunois_, 2
+francs. _Jeanne Garnot_, 5 francs. _Bel-Enfant_--_Charles_--, 1 fr., 50
+centimes. _Warnier I._, 2 francs. _Warnier II._, 2 francs. _Gigonnet_, 4
+francs. _Baron Humann_, 100 francs. _The baron_!--the former prefect!
+Humann writing his name down here with _Bel-Enfant_ and _Gigonnet_.
+Humann inscribing above his signature--_I vill supscribe von
+hundertfranc_! If one were to see it in a newspaper, one would not
+believe it! If only a reporter were here now! For a choice _Paris echo_
+what a rare one it would be!"
+
+Granet examined little Marie Launay with sly glances, toying with his
+black moustache the while, and the other young girl Anna, very much
+confused at the coarse laughter of Molina the "Tumbler," kept turning
+around in her slender fingers the aluminum pencil-case and looking at
+Marie as much as to say:
+
+"You know I can never muster up courage to write down my name before all
+these people!"
+
+"Lend me your pencil, my child," Molina said to her.
+
+She held it out towards him timidly.
+
+"Where the baron has led the way, Molina the Tumbler may certainly
+follow!" said the financier.
+
+He turned the screw of the pencil-case to extend the lead, and placing
+one of his huge feet upon a divan to steady himself, wrote rapidly with
+the paper on his knee, as a man used to scribbling notes at the Bourse:
+
+"Solomon Molina, 500 francs."
+
+"Ah! monsieur," exclaimed Marie Launay upon reading it, "that is
+handsome, that is! It is kind, very kind! If everybody were as generous
+as you, we could give a statue of Terpsichore in gold to Mademoiselle
+Legrand."
+
+"If you should ever want one of Carpeaux's groups for yourself, my
+child," said Molina, "you may go to the studio in a cab to look at it,
+and fetch it away with you in--your own coupe."
+
+The girl grew as red as a cherry under her powder, even her graceful,
+childish shoulders turned pink, enhancing her blonde and childlike
+beauty.
+
+Vaudrey was conscious of a strange and subtle charm in this intoxicating
+circle,--a charm full of temptations which made him secretly uneasy.
+There passed before his eyes visions of other days, he beheld the
+phantoms of gay dresses, the apparitions of spring landscapes, he felt
+the breezes of youth, laden with the scents of the upspringing grass,
+the lilacs at Meudon, the violets of Ville-d'Avray, the souvenirs of the
+escapades of his student days. Their short, full skirts reminded him of
+white frocks that whisked gayly around the hazel-trees long ago, those
+ballet-girls bore a striking resemblance to the pink and white grisettes
+that he had flirted with when he was twenty.
+
+He extended his hand in turn towards the sheet of paper to which Molina
+had just signed his name, saying to Marie Launay as he did so:
+
+"Let me have it, if you please, mademoiselle."
+
+Granet began to laugh.
+
+"Ah! ah!" he cried, "you are really going to write down under Monsieur
+Gigonnet's signature the name of the Minister of the Interior?"
+
+"Oh! bless me!" said Vaudrey, laughing, "that is true! You will believe
+it or not as you please, but I quite forgot that I was a minister."
+
+"It was the same with me when I was decorated," said Molina. "I would
+not receive my great-coat from box-openers because I saw the morsel of
+red ribbon hanging on it, and I was sure the garment was not mine. But
+one grows used to it after a while! Now," and his laugh with the
+hundred-sou piece ring grew louder than ever, "I am really quite
+surprised not to find the rosette of red ribbon sticking to my flannel
+waistcoats."
+
+Vaudrey left Marie Launay, greatly to her surprise, and listened to
+Molina's chronicles of the ballet.
+
+Ah! if his Excellency had but the time, he would have seen the funniest
+things. For instance, there was amongst the dancers a marble cutter, who
+during the day sold and cut his gravestones and came here at night to
+grin and caper in the ballet. He was on the scent of every funeral from
+the Opera; he would get orders for tombstones between two dances at the
+rehearsals. One day Molina had been present at one of these. It seems
+incredible, but there was a bank clerk in a gray coat, a three-cornered
+hat upon his head and a brass buckler on his arm, who sacrificed to
+Venus in the interval between his two occupations, dancing with the
+coryphees; a dancer by night and a receiver of money by day. A girl was
+rehearsing beside him, in black bands and skirt. Then Molina,
+astonished, inquired who she might be. He was told that it was a girl in
+mourning, whose mother had just died. The Opera is a fine stage upon
+which to behold the ironies and contrasts of life.
+
+The financier might have related to Sulpice Vaudrey a description of a
+journey to Timbuctoo and have found him less amused and less interested
+than now. It was a world new and strange to him, attractive, and as
+exciting as acid to this man, still young, whose success had been
+achieved by unstinted labors, and who knew Paris only by what he had
+learned of it years ago, when a law student: the pit of the Comedie
+Francaise, the Luxembourg galleries and those of the Louvre, the Public
+Libraries, the Hall of Archives, the balls in the Latin Quarter, the
+holidays and the foyer of the Opera once or twice on the occasion of a
+masked ball. And, besides that?--Nothing. That was all.
+
+The great man from Grenoble arrived in Paris with his appetite whetted
+for the life of the city, and now he was here, suddenly plunged into the
+greenroom of the ballet, and all eyes were turned towards him, almost
+frightened as he was, on catching a glimpse of his own image reflected
+in the huge mirror glittering under the numerous lights, in the heart of
+this strange salon and surrounded by half-clad dancing girls. Then, too,
+everybody was looking at him, quizzing him, shrinking from him through
+timidity or running after him through interest. The new Minister of
+State! The chief of all the personnel of prefects, under-prefects, and
+secretaries-general represented there, lolling on these velvet divans in
+this vulgar greenroom.
+
+All the glances, all the whisperings of the women, the frowns of his
+enemies, the cringing attitudes of dandified hangers-on, were making
+Vaudrey feel very uncomfortable, when to his great relief he suddenly
+observed coming towards him, peering hither and thither through his
+monocle, evidently in search of some one, Guy de Lissac, who immediately
+on catching sight of Vaudrey came towards him, greeting him with evident
+cordiality, tinged, however, with a proper reserve.
+
+Sulpice was not long in breaking through this reserve. He hurried up to
+Guy, and seizing him by the hand, cried gayly:
+
+"Do you know that I have been expecting this visit! You are the only
+one of my friends who has not yet congratulated me!"
+
+"You know, my dear Minister," returned Guy in the same tone, "that it is
+really not such a great piece of luck to be made Minister that every one
+of your friends should be expected to fall upon your neck, crying bravo!
+You have mounted up to the capitol, but after all, the capitol is not
+such a very cheerful place, that I should illuminate _a giorno_. I am
+happy, however, if you are. I congratulate you, if you wash your hands
+of it, and that is all."
+
+"You and my old friend Ramel," answered Sulpice, "are the two most
+original men that I know."
+
+"With this difference however, Ramel is a Puritan, an ancient, a man of
+marble, and I am a _boulevardier_ and a skeptic. He is a man of
+bronze--your Ramel! And your friend Lissac of _simili-bronze_! The proof
+of it is that I have been seeking you for half the evening to ask you to
+do me a favor."
+
+"What favor, my dear fellow?" cried Vaudrey, his face lighting up with
+joy. "Anything in the world to please you."
+
+"I was in Madame Marsy's box,--you do not know Madame Marsy? She is a
+great admirer of yours and makes a point to applaud you in the Chamber.
+She has prayed for your advent. She saw you in the manager's box a while
+ago, and she has asked me to present you to her, or rather, to present
+her to you, for I presume for your Excellency the ceremony is
+modified."
+
+"Madame Marsy!" said Vaudrey. "Is she not an artist's widow? Her salon
+is a political centre, is it not?"
+
+"Exactly. A recent salon opened in opposition to that of Madame Evan. An
+Athenian Republic! You do not object to that?"
+
+"On the contrary! A republic cannot be founded without the aid of
+women."
+
+"Ah!" cried Lissac, laughing. "Politics and honors have not changed you,
+I see."
+
+"Changed me? With the exception that I have twenty years over my head,
+and alas! not so much hair as I had then upon it, I am the same as I was
+in 1860."
+
+"_Hotel Racine! Rue Racine!_" said Lissac. "In those days, I dreamed of
+being Musset, I a gourmand, and what have I become? A spectator, a
+trifler, a Parisian, a rolling stone.--Nothing. And you who dreamed of
+being a second Barnave, Vergniaud or Barbaroux, your dream is realized."
+
+"Realized!" said Vaudrey.
+
+He made an effort to shake his head deprecatingly as if his vanity were
+not flattered by those honeyed words of his friend; but his glance
+displayed such sincere delight and so strong a desire to be effusive and
+in evidence, that he could not repress a smile upon hearing from the
+companion of his youth, such a confirmation of his triumph. They are
+our most severe critics, these friends of our youth, they who have
+listened to the stammering of our hopes and dreams of the future. And
+when at length we have conquered the future, these are often the very
+ones to rob us of it! Lissac, however, was not one of these envious
+ones.
+
+"Let us go to Madame Marsy's box, my dear Guy," said Sulpice. "The more
+so because if she at all resembles her portrait at the last Salon, she
+must be lovely indeed."
+
+He left the greenroom, leaning on the arm of Lissac, after throwing a
+glance backward, however, at the girls whirling about there, and where
+in the presence of their stiff, ancient superiors, the young
+sub-prefects still hid their faces behind their opera hats. Granet with
+Molina went to take leave of Vaudrey, leaving little Marie Launay
+smiling artlessly because the financier, the _Tumbler_, had said to her,
+in drawing down her eyelids with his coarse finger: "Will you close your
+periwinkles--you _kid_?"
+
+"Your Excellency," the banker had said, cajoling his Excellency with his
+meaning glance, "I am always at your orders you know."
+
+"To-morrow, at the Prisons' Commission, Monsieur le Ministre," said
+Granet. And amid salutations on every side Vaudrey withdrew, smiling and
+good-humored as usual.
+
+In order to reach the box, Vaudrey had to cross the stage. The new scene
+was set. Buddhist temples with their grotesque shapes and huge statues
+stood out against a background of vivid blue sky, and on the canvas
+beyond, great pink flowers glowed amid refreshing verdure. Over all fell
+a soft fairy-like light from an electric lamp, casting on the floor a
+fantastic gleam, soft and clear as the rays of the moon. Sulpice smiled
+as he passed beneath this flood of light and saw his shadow projected
+before him as upon the glassy waters of a lake. It seemed to him that
+this sudden illumination, a sort of fantastic apotheosis as it were, was
+like the fairy-like aureole that attended his progress.
+
+At the very moment of leaving the greenroom, Sulpice had jostled
+accidentally against a man of very grave aspect wearing a black coat
+closely buttoned. He was almost bald save for some long, thin, gray
+locks that hung about his huge ears, his cheeks had a hectic color and
+his skull was yellow. He entered this salon in a hesitating, inquisitive
+way, with wide-open eyes and a gourmand's movement of the nostrils, and
+gazed about the room, warm with lights and heavy with perfume.
+
+Sulpice glanced at him carelessly and recognized him as the man whom he
+himself had superseded on Place Beauvau--a Puritan, a Huguenot, a
+widower, the father of five or six daughters, and as solemn and proper
+in his ordinary demeanor as a Sunday-school tract. Sulpice could not
+refrain from crying out merrily: "Bless me! Monsieur Pichereau!"
+
+The other shook his butter-colored skull as if he had suddenly received
+a stinging blow on it with a switch, and his red face became
+crimson-hued at the sight of Sulpice, his successor in office, standing
+before him, politely holding out to him his two gloved hands.
+
+Guy de Lissac was no longer laughing.
+
+Their two Excellencies found themselves face to face at the foot of the
+greenroom staircase, in the midst of a crowd of brahmins, dancers,
+negresses, and female supernumeraries; two Excellencies meeting there;
+one smiling, the other grimacing beneath the glance of this curious,
+shrewd little world.
+
+"Ah! I have caught you, my dear colleague," cried Sulpice, very much
+amused at Pichereau's embarrassed air, his coat buttoned close like a
+Quaker's and his little eyes blinking behind his spectacles, and looking
+as sheepish as a sacristan caught napping.
+
+"Me?" stammered Pichereau. "Me? But my dear Minister, it's you--yes, you
+whom I came expressly to seek!"
+
+"Here?" said Vaudrey.
+
+"Yes, here!"
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I had something to say to you--I--yes, I wanted--"
+
+The unlucky Pichereau mechanically pulled and jerked at his waistcoat,
+then assuming a dignified, grave air, he whistled and hesitated, and
+finally stammered:
+
+"I wished to speak with you--yes--to consult with you upon a matter of
+grave importance--concerning Protestant communities."
+
+Sulpice could not restrain his laughter.
+
+Pichereau, with his look of a Calvinistic preacher, was throwing from
+behind his spectacles glowing looks in the direction where Marie Launay
+stood listening to and laughing at the badinage of Molina. Some
+newspaper reporters, scenting a handy paragraph, came sauntering up to
+overhear some fragment of the conversation between the minister of
+yesterday and him of to-day.
+
+Guy de Lissac stood carelessly by, secretly very much amused at
+Pichereau, who did not move, but rubbing his hands nervously together
+was trying to appear at ease, yet by his sour smile at his successor
+allowing it to be plainly seen how gladly he would have strangled
+Vaudrey.
+
+"My dear colleague," said Sulpice, gayly, "we will talk elsewhere about
+your communities. This is hardly the place. _Non est hic locus!_
+Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye, your Excellency," replied Pichereau with forced politeness.
+
+Vaudrey drew Lissac away, saying with a suppressed laugh:
+
+"Oh! oh! the Quaker! He has laid down his portfolio, but he has kept the
+key to the greenroom, it seems."
+
+"It would appear," replied Guy, "that the door leading into the
+greenroom may open to scenes of consolation for fallen greatness. The
+blue eyes of Marie Launay always serve as a sparadrap to a fallen
+minister!"
+
+"Was the fat Molina right? To lose the votes of the majority is perhaps
+the malady of the knee of ministers," said Vaudrey merrily.
+
+He laughed again, very much amused at the irritable, peevish yet
+cringing attitude of Pichereau, the Genevan doctrinaire, who sought
+consolation in the greenroom of the ballet, whilst his five or six
+daughters sat at home, probably reading some chaste English romance, or
+practising sacred music within the range of the green spectacles of
+their governess.
+
+"But!" said he gayly, "to fall from power is nothing, provided one falls
+into the arms of ballet-girls."
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Molina burst out laughing ... when he ran his eye over the list and
+found accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and members of the
+chorus, the distinguished particles of some habitues._
+
+[Illustration: IN THE GREENROOM OF THE OPERA]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Madame Marsy was awaiting Guy de Lissac's return from the greenroom.
+From the moment she caught sight of Vaudrey standing within the range of
+her opera-glasses, she was seized with the eager desire to make him an
+habitue of her salon, the new salon that had just been launched. Madame
+Marsy was bitten by that tarantula whose bite makes modern society move
+as if afflicted with Saint Vitus's dance. A widow, rich and still
+young, very much admired, she had set herself to play the role of a
+leader in society to pass away the time. She was one of those women
+forever passing before the reporters' note-book, as others pass in front
+of a photographic apparatus. Of her inner life, however, very little was
+known to the public. But the exact shade of her hair, the color of her
+eyes, the cut of her gowns, the address of her tradesmen, the _menu_ of
+her dinners, the programme of her concerts, the names of her guests, the
+visitors to her salon, the address of her mansion, were all familiar to
+every one, and Madame Marsy was daily reported by the chroniclers to the
+letter, painted, dressed and undressed.
+
+There was some romantic gossip whispered about her. It was said that she
+had formerly led Philippe Marsy, the artist, a _hard life_. This artist
+was the painter of _Charity_, the picture so much admired at the
+Luxembourg, where it hangs between a Nymph by Henner and a Portrait of a
+Lady by Carolus Duran. She was pretty, free, and sufficiently rich since
+the sale of the contents of Philippe Marsy's studio. His slightest
+sketches had fetched enormous sums under Monsieur Pillet's hammer at the
+Hotel Drouot, and Sabine after an appropriate interval of mourning,
+opened her salon.
+
+Solitary, though surrounded by friends, she created no jealousy among
+her admirers, whose homage she received with perfect equanimity, as if
+become weary and desirous of a court but not of a favorite. She had a
+son at college who was growing up; he, however, was rarely to be met
+with in his mother's little hotel in the Boulevard Malesherbes. This
+pale, slender youth in his student's uniform would sometimes steal
+furtively up the staircase to pay his mother a visit as a stranger might
+have done, never staying long, however, but hurrying off again to rejoin
+an old woman who waited at the corner of the street and who would take
+him by the arm and walk away with him--Madame Marsy, his grandmother.
+
+It was the grandmother who was bringing up the boy. She and a
+kind-hearted fellow, Francois Charriere, a sculptor, who as he said
+himself, was nothing of a genius, but who, however, designed models and
+advantageously sold them to the manufacturers of lamps in the Rue
+Saint-Louis au Marais. It was Charriere who, in fulfilment of a vow made
+to his friend Marsy, acted as guardian to the boy.
+
+Nobody in Paris now remembered anything about Philippe Marsy. In the
+course of time, all the little rumors are hushed in the roar and rattle
+of Parisian life. Only some semi-flattering rumors were connected with
+Sabine's name, together with some mysterious reminiscences. Moreover,
+she had the special attraction of a hostess who imparts to her salon the
+peculiar charm and flavor of unceremonious hospitality. One was only
+obliged to wear a white cravat about his throat, he did not have to
+starch his wits.
+
+Only very recently had Sabine Marsy's salon acquired the reputation of
+being an easy-going one, where one was sure of a welcome, a sort of
+rendezvous where every one could be found as in the corridor of a
+theatre on the night of a first appearance, or on the sidewalk of a
+boulevard; a salon well-filled, that could rank with the semi-official
+and very distinguished one presided over by Madame Evan, and those
+others quieter, more sober--if a little Calvinistic--of the select
+Alsatian colony.
+
+Sabine Marsy must have had a great deal of tact, force of character and
+perseverance in carrying out her plans, to have reached this point, more
+difficult to her, moreover, than it would have been to any other, as she
+had no political backing whatever. Her connection with society was
+entirely through the world of artists. Many of these, however, had
+brought to her salon some of the Athenians of the political world,
+connoisseurs, good conversationalists, handsome men, who freely declared
+with Vaudrey, that a republic could not exist without the assistance of
+women, that to women Orleanism was due, and those charming fellows had
+made Madame Marsy's hospitable salon the fashion.
+
+Besides it is easy enough in Paris to have a salon if one knows how to
+give dinners. Some squares of Bristol board engraved by Stern and posted
+to good addresses, will attract with an almost disconcerting facility, a
+crowd of visitors who will swarm around a festive board like bees around
+a honeycomb.
+
+Paris is a town of guests.
+
+Then too, Madame Marsy was herself so captivating. She was always on the
+watch for some new celebrity, as a game-keeper watches for a hare that
+he means to shoot presently. One of her daily tasks was to read the
+_Journal Officiel_ in order to discover in the orator of to-day the
+Minister of State of to-morrow. She was always well informed beforehand
+which artist or sculptor would be likely to win the medal of honor at
+the Salon, and was the first to invite such a one and to let him know
+that it was she who had discovered him. In literature, she encouraged
+the new school, liking it for the attention it attracted. It was also
+her aim to give to her salon a literary as well as a political color.
+Artists and statesmen elbowed one another there.
+
+For some days now, she had thought of giving a reception which was to be
+a surprise to her friends. She had heard of Japanese exhibitions being
+given at other houses. She herself was determined to give a _soiree
+exotique_. It happened just then that a friend of Guy de Lissac,
+Monsieur Jose de Rosas, a great lounger, had returned from a journey
+around the world. What a piece of good fortune! She too had known De
+Rosas formerly, and if she could only get him to consent, she could
+announce a most attractive soiree: the travels of such a man as Monsieur
+de Rosas: a rare treat!
+
+"The Comtesse d'Horville gives literary matinees," said Sabine, quite on
+fire with the idea; "Madame Evan has poems and tragedies read at her
+receptions, I shall have lecturers and savants, since that is
+fashionable."
+
+And what a woman wishes, a grandee of Spain willed, it appeared.
+Monsieur de Rosas decided, egged on a little by Guy de Lissac, to come
+and relate to Madame Marsy's friends his adventures in strange lands.
+The invitations to the soiree were already out.
+
+Madame Marsy had also obtained a promise from three Ministers of State
+that they would be present. She had spread the news far and wide. A
+little more and she would have had their names printed on the programmes
+for the evening. She had had a success quite unlooked for--a promise
+from Monsieur Pichereau to be present--from Pichereau, that starched
+Puritan, and all the newspapers had announced his intention. When
+suddenly--stupidly--a cabinet crisis had arisen at the most unexpected
+moment, a useless crisis. Granet had interpellated Pichereau with a view
+to succeed him, and Pichereau fell without Granet succeeding him. A
+Ministry had been hastily formed, with Collard at its head, and Sulpice
+Vaudrey as Minister of the Interior in place of Pichereau! And all those
+Ministers of State who had promised to be present to hear Monsieur de
+Rosas at Madame Marsy's, fell from power with Pichereau.
+
+"Such a Cabinet!" Sabine had exclaimed in a rage. "A Cabinet of
+pasteboard capuchins."
+
+"A Ministry of pasteboard, certainly," Guy had answered.
+
+Madame Marsy was quite beside herself. Granet indeed! Why could he not
+have waited a day or two longer before upsetting the whole
+administration. It would have been quite as easy to have overthrown
+Pichereau a day after her soiree as a few days before. Was Granet then,
+in a great hurry to be made minister? Oh! her opinion of him had always
+been a correct one! An ambitious schemer. He had triumphed, or at least
+he had expected to triumph. And the consequence was that Sabine found
+herself without a Minister to introduce to her guests. It was as if
+Granet had purposely designed this.
+
+No, she did not know a single member of the new Cabinet. She had spoken
+once to the President of the council, Collard, a former advocate of
+Nantes, at a reception at the Elysee. Collard had even, in passing by
+her, torn off a morsel of the lace of her flounce. How charmingly, too,
+he had excused himself! But this acquaintanceship with him would hardly
+justify her in asking him brusquely to honor her with his presence at
+this soiree upon which her social success depended.
+
+Her intimate friend, pretty Madame Gerson, who assisted her in doing the
+honors of her salon until the time when she herself would have a rival
+salon and take Sabine's guests away from her, sought in vain to comfort
+her by assuring her that Pichereau would be sure to come. He had
+promised to do so. He was a sincere man, and his word could be relied
+on. He would, moreover, bring his former colleagues from the
+Departments of Public Instruction, and Post and Telegraph. He had
+promised. Oh! yes, Pichereau! Pichereau, however, mattered very little
+to Sabine now! _Ex_-ministers, indeed! she could always have enough of
+them. It was not that kind that she wanted. She did not care about her
+salon being called the _Invalides_ as that of a rival was called the
+_Salon des Refusees_. No, certainly not, that was something she would
+never consent to.
+
+Granet's impatience had upset all her plans.
+
+So Madame Marsy, side by side in her box with Madame Gerson, whose dark,
+brilliant beauty set off her own fair beauty, had listened with a bored
+and sulky manner to the first act of _L'Africaine_, while Monsieur
+Gerson conversed timidly, half under his breath, with Guy de Lissac, who
+made the fourth occupant of the box.
+
+At the end of the second act, however, Lissac suddenly caught sight of
+Vaudrey's smiling countenance beside Granet's waxed moustaches in the
+manager's box.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "there is Vaudrey!"
+
+Madame Marsy, however, had already caught sight of him. She turned her
+opera-glass upon the new Cabinet Minister, whose carefully arranged
+blonde beard was parted in the middle and spread out in two light tufts
+over his white necktie, his silky moustaches turned jauntily upwards
+against his fleshy cheeks. Sabine, continuing to look at the newcomer
+through her glass, saw as he moved within the shadow of the box, this
+man of forty, with a very agreeable and still youthful face, and as he
+leaned over the edge of the box to look at the audience, she noted that
+he had a slight bald spot on the top of his skull between the fair tufts
+that adorned the sides of his head.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, "I thought that he was a dark man."
+
+"No, no," answered Lissac, "on the contrary, he was a fair, handsome
+youth when we both studied law here in Paris together."
+
+Madame Marsy, as if she had been touched by an electric spark, turned
+quickly round on her chair to look at Guy, displaying to him as she did
+so, a lovely face, surmounting the most beautiful shoulders imaginable.
+
+"What! you know the minister so intimately?"
+
+"Very intimately."
+
+"Then, my dear Lissac, you can do me the greatest favor. No, I do not
+ask you to do it, I insist on it."
+
+Over the pretty Andalusian features of Madame Gerson, a mocking smile
+played.
+
+"I have guessed it," she exclaimed.
+
+"And so have I," said Lissac. "You wish me to present the new Minister
+of the Interior to you? You have a friend you want appointed to a
+prefecture."
+
+"Not at all. I only want him to take Pichereau's place at my reception.
+My dear Lissac, my kind Lissac," she continued in dulcet tones, and
+clasping her little gloved hands entreatingly, like a child begging for
+a toy, "persuade Monsieur Vaudrey to accept this invitation of mine and
+you will be a love, you understand, Lissac, a love!"
+
+But Guy had already risen and with a touch of his thumb snapping out his
+crush hat, he opened the door of the box, saying to Sabine as he did so:
+
+"Take notice that I ask nothing in return for this favor!"
+
+Madame Marsy began to laugh.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, "that is discreet, but I am willing to subscribe to any
+condition!"
+
+"Selika is cold beside you," said Lissac as he disappeared through the
+open doorway, "I will bring you your minister in ten minutes."
+
+Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act.
+The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin
+Vaudrey, and neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again.
+Just then some one knocked at the door of the box. Monsieur Gerson,
+overcome by fatigue, and weary as only a man can be who is dragged
+against his will night after night to some place of amusement, was
+dozing in the rear of the box. At a word from his wife he got up and
+hastened to open the door. It proved to be an artist, an old friend of
+Philippe Marsy, who came to invite Sabine to his studio to "admire" _his
+Envoy_ that he had just finished for the Salon. Sabine received him
+graciously, and promised him somewhat stiffly that she would do so. She
+tapped impatiently with her fan upon her fingers as the orchestra began
+to play the prelude to the fourth act. It was quite certain that Lissac
+had failed in his mission.
+
+Suddenly, in the luminous space made by the open door, Guy's elegant
+figure appeared for a moment, disappearing immediately to allow a man to
+pass who entered, smiling pleasantly, and at whom a group of people,
+standing in the lobby behind, were gazing. He bowed as Lissac said to
+Sabine:
+
+"Allow me, madame, to present to you His Excellency the Minister of the
+Interior."
+
+Sabine, suddenly beaming with joy, saw no one but Sulpice Vaudrey
+amongst the group of men in dress-clothes who gave way to allow the
+dignitary to pass. She had eyes only for him!
+
+She arose, pushing back her chair instinctively, as the Minister
+entered, Monsieur and Madame Gerson standing at one side and Sabine on
+the other and bowing to him,--Sabine triumphant, Madame Gerson curious,
+Monsieur Gerson flattered though sleepy.
+
+Sulpice seated himself at Madame Marsy's side, with the amiable
+condescension of a great man charmed to play the agreeable, and to
+visit, at the solicitation of a friend, a fair woman whom all the world
+delighted to honor. It seemed to him to put the finishing touch to that
+success and power which had been his only a few days.
+
+He went quite artlessly and by instinct wherever he might have the
+chance to inhale admiring incense. It seemed to him as if he were
+swimming in refreshing waters. Everything delighted him. He wished to be
+obliging to every one. It seemed to him but natural that a woman of
+fashion like Sabine should wish to meet him and offer him her
+congratulations, as he himself, without knowing her, should desire to
+listen to her felicitations. To speak in complimentary terms was as
+natural to him as to listen to the compliments of others.
+
+He delighted in the atmosphere of adulation which surrounded him, these
+two pretty women who smiled upon him with a gratitude so impressive,
+pleased him. Sabine appeared especially charming to him when, speaking
+with the captivating grace of a Parisian, she said:
+
+"I hardly know how to thank my friend Monsieur de Lissac for inducing
+you to listen to the entreaties of one who solicits--"
+
+"Solicits, madame?" said the minister with an eagerness which seemed
+already to answer her prayer affirmatively.
+
+"I hope your Excellency will consent to honor with your presence a
+reunion of friends at my house--a reunion somewhat trivial, for this
+occasion, but clever enough."
+
+"A reunion?" replied Vaudrey, still smiling.
+
+"Monsieur de Lissac has not told you then, what my hopes are?"
+
+"We are too old friends, Lissac and I, for him not to allow me the
+pleasure of hearing from your own lips, madame, in what way I may be of
+service to you, or to any of your friends."
+
+Sabine smiled at this well-turned phrase uttered in the most gallant
+tone.
+
+Who then, could have told her that Vaudrey was a provincial? An intimate
+enemy or an intimate friend. But he was not at all provincial. On the
+contrary, Vaudrey was quite charming.
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas has had the kindness, your Excellency, to promise to
+come to my house next Saturday and give a chatty account of his travels.
+He will be, I am quite sure, most proud to know that in his audience--"
+
+Sulpice neatly and half modestly turned aside the compliment that was
+approaching.
+
+He knew Monsieur de Rosas. He had read and greatly admired some
+translations of the Persian poets by that lettered nobleman, which had
+been printed for circulation only amongst the author's most intimate
+friends. Vaudrey had first met Monsieur de Rosas at a meeting of a
+scientific society. Rosas was an eminent man as well as a poet, and one
+whom he would be greatly pleased to meet again. A hero of romance as
+erudite as a Benedictine. Charming, too, and clever! Something like a
+Cid who has become a boulevard lounger on returning from Central Asia.
+
+This portrait of Rosas was a clever one indeed, and Sabine nodded
+acquiescence again and again as each point was hit off by Vaudrey. He,
+in his turn, basked comfortably in the light of her smiles, and listened
+with pleasure to the sound of his own voice. He could catch glimpses
+through the box curtains from between these two charming profiles--one a
+brunette, the other a blonde--of the vast auditorium all crimson and
+gold, blazing with lights and crowded with faces. From this well-dressed
+crowd, from these boxes where one caught sight of white gleaming
+shoulders, half-gloved arms, flower-decked heads, sparkling necklaces,
+flashing glances, it seemed to Vaudrey as if a strange, subtle perfume
+arose--the perfume of women, an intoxicating odor, in the midst of this
+radiancy that rivaled the brilliant sun at its rising.
+
+Upon the stage, amid the dazzling splendor of the ballet, in the milky
+ray of the electric light, the swelling skirts whirled, the pink
+slippers that he had seen but a moment before near by, and the gleaming,
+silver helmets, the tinfoil and the spangles shone in the dance. A fairy
+light enveloped all these stage splendors; and this luxurious ensemble,
+as seen from the depths of the box, seemed to him to be the glory of an
+unending apotheosis, a sort of fete given to celebrate his entrance on
+his public career.
+
+Then, in the unconcealed effusion of his delight, without any effort at
+effect, speaking frankly to this woman, to Guy, and to Gerson, as if he
+were communing with himself to the mocking accompaniment of this Hindoo
+music, he revealed his joys, his prospects, and his dreams. He replied
+to Sabine's congratulations by avowing his intention to devote himself
+entirely to his country.
+
+"In short, your Excellency," she said, "you are really going to do great
+things?"
+
+He gazed dreamily around the theatre, smiling as if he beheld some lucky
+vision, and answered:
+
+"Really, madame, I accepted office only because I felt it was my duty
+and as a means of doing good. I intend to be just--to be honest. I
+should like to discover some unappreciated genius and raise him from the
+obscurity in which an unjust fate has shrouded him, to the height where
+he belongs. If we are to do no better than those we have succeeded, it
+was useless to turn them out!"
+
+"Ah! _pardieu_," said Lissac, while Madame Marsy smiled and nodded
+approval of Vaudrey's words, "you and your colleagues are just now in
+the honeymoon of your power."
+
+"We will endeavor to make this honeymoon of as long duration as
+possible," laughingly replied Sulpice. "I believe in the case of power,
+as in marriage, that the coming of the April moon is the fault of the
+parties connected with it."
+
+"It takes a shrewd person indeed to know why April moons rise at all!"
+said Guy. Vaudrey's thoughts turned involuntarily toward Adrienne, his
+own pretty wife, who was waiting for him in the great lonely apartments
+at the Ministry which they had just taken possession of as they might
+occupy rooms at a hotel.
+
+He felt a sudden desire to return to her, to tell her of the incidents
+of this evening. Yes, to tell her everything, even to his visit behind
+the scenes--but he remained where he was, not knowing how to take leave
+of Madame Marsy just yet, and she, in her turn, divined from the
+slackened conversation that he was anxious to be off.
+
+"I was waiting for that strain," said Madame Marsy to Guy, "now that it
+is over, I will go."
+
+Vaudrey did not reply, awaiting Sabine's departure, so as to conduct her
+to her carriage.
+
+People hurried out into the lobbies to see him pass by. Upon the
+staircases, attendants and strangers saluted him. It seemed to Vaudrey
+that he moved among those who were in sympathy with him. Lissac followed
+him with Madame Gerson on his arm; her jaded husband sighed for a few
+hours' sleep.
+
+In the sharp, frosty air of a night in January, Sulpice, enveloped in
+otter fur, stood with Madame Marsy on his arm, waiting for the
+appearance of that lady's carriage, which was emerging from the luminous
+depths of the Place, accompanied by another carriage without a monogram
+or crest; it was that of the minister.
+
+Sulpice gazed before him down the Avenue de l'Opera, brilliant with
+light, and the bluish tints of the Jablockoff electric apparatus flooded
+him with its bright rays; it seemed to him as if all this brilliancy
+blazed for him, like the flattering apotheosis which had just before
+fallen upon him as he crossed the stage of the Opera. It seemed like an
+aureole lighted up especially to encircle him!
+
+Sabine asked Vaudrey as he escorted her to her carriage:
+
+"Madame Vaudrey will, I trust, do me the honor to accompany your
+Excellency to my house? I will take the liberty to-morrow of calling on
+her to invite her."
+
+The Minister bowed a gracious acquiescence.
+
+Sabine finally thanked him by a gracious smile: her small gloved hand
+raised the window of the coupe, and the carriage was driven off rapidly,
+amid the din of horses' hoofs.
+
+"Good-bye," said Lissac to Vaudrey.
+
+"Cannot I offer you a seat in my carriage?"
+
+"Thank you, but I am not two steps away from the Rue d'Aumale."
+
+Vaudrey turned towards Madame Gerson; she and her husband bowed low.
+
+"May I not set you down at your house, madame?"
+
+"Your Excellency is very kind, but we have our own carriage!"
+
+"Au revoir," said Vaudrey to Lissac, "come and breakfast with me
+to-morrow."
+
+"With pleasure!"
+
+"To the ministry!" said Vaudrey to the coachman as he stepped into his
+carriage.
+
+He sank back upon the cushions with a feeling of delight as if glad to
+be alone. All the scenes of that evening floated again before his eyes.
+He felt once more in his nostrils the subtle, penetrating perfume of the
+greenroom, he saw again the blue eyes of the little danseuse. The
+admiring looks, the respectful salutes, the smiles of the women, the
+soft, caressing tones of Sabine, and Madame Gerson's pearly teeth, he
+saw or heard all these again, and above all, this word clear as a
+clarion, triumphant as a trumpet's blast: _Success!_ All this came back
+again to him.
+
+"You have succeeded!"
+
+He heard Guy's voice again speaking this to him in joyous tones.
+Succeeded! It was certainly true.
+
+Minister! Was it possible! He had at his beck and call a whole host of
+functionaries and servitors! He it was who had the power to make the
+whole machine of government move--he, the lawyer from Grenoble--who ten
+years ago would have thought it a great honor to have been appointed to
+a place in the department of Isere!
+
+All those people whom he could see in the shadow of the lighted
+boulevards buying the newspapers at the kiosks, would read therein his
+name and least gesture and action.
+
+_"Monsieur le Ministre has taken up his residence on the Place Beauvau.
+Monsieur Vaudrey this morning received the heads of the Bureaus and the
+personnel of the Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Monsieur
+Vaudrey, with the assistance of Monsieur Henri Jacquier of Oise,
+undersecretary of State, is actively engaged in examining the reports of
+prefects and under-prefects. Monsieur will doubtless make some needed
+reforms in the administration of the prefectures."_ Everywhere, in all
+the newspapers, Monsieur Vaudrey! The Minister of the Interior! He, his
+name, his words, his projects, his deeds!
+
+Success! Yes, it was his, it had come!
+
+Never in his wildest visions had he dreamed of the success that he had
+attained. Never had he expected to catch sight of such bright rays as
+those which now shone down upon him from that star, which with the
+superstition of an ambitious man, he had singled out. Success! Success!
+
+And now all the world should see what he would do. Already in his own
+little town, in his speeches, during the war, at the elections of 1871,
+and especially at Versailles, during the years of struggle and political
+intrigue, in the tribune, or as a commissioner or sub-commissioner, he
+had given proofs of his qualifications as a statesman, but the
+touchstone of man is power. Emerging from his semi-obscurity into the
+sunshine of success, he would at last show the world what he was and
+what he could do. Power! To command! To create! To impress his ideas
+upon a whole nation! To have succeeded! succeeded! succeeded! Sulpice's
+dreams were realized at last.
+
+And whilst the ministerial carriage was driving at a gallop towards the
+Place Beauvau, Sabine, muffled up in her furs, her fine skin caressed by
+the blue-fox border of her pelisse, said to herself, quite indifferent
+to the man himself, but delighted to have a minister's name to enroll
+upon her list of guests:
+
+"He is a simpleton--Vaudrey--but a very charming simpleton,
+nevertheless."
+
+The iron gates of the Place Beauvau were thrown back for his
+Excellency's carriage to enter. The gravel creaked under the wheels, as
+the coupe turning off to the left, stopped under the awning over the
+door.
+
+Sulpice alighted. The great door opened to admit him. Two
+white-cravatted servants occupied a bench while awaiting the minister's
+return.
+
+Sulpice ran lightly up the great marble staircase leading to his private
+apartments. Handing his hat and coat to a servant in the antechamber, he
+gayly entered the little salon, where he found his wife sitting by a
+table reading _La Revue_ by the light of a shaded lamp. At the sight of
+her pretty, fresh young face extended to greet him, with her blue eyes
+and smiling air, at the sound of her clear, sweet, but rather timid
+voice asking a little anxiously: "Well?" Sulpice took the fair face in
+both his hands and his burning lips imprinted a long kiss on the white
+forehead, over which a few curls of golden hair strayed.
+
+"Well, my dear Adrienne, I have been greatly interested. All the
+kindness with which I was received, the evident delight with which the
+new cabinet has been welcomed by the people, even the grimaces of
+Pichereau whom I met,--if you only knew where--all gave me pleasure,
+delighted me, and yet made me fear. Minister! Do you know what I have
+been thinking of since I was made a minister?"
+
+"Of what have you been thinking?" asked the young wife, who, with her
+hands folded, gazed trustingly and sweetly into Sulpice's feverish eyes.
+
+"I?--I have been telling myself that it is not enough to be a minister.
+One must be a great minister! You understand, Adrienne, a great
+minister!"
+
+As he spoke he took Adrienne's hands in his, and the young wife glanced
+up admiringly at this young man burning with hope, who stood there
+before her, declaring: "I will be great!"
+
+She had never dreamed of his reaching such heights as these on that day
+when she felt the fingers of her fiance trembling in her hand, the day
+that Sulpice had whispered the words in her ear which made her heart
+leap with joy: "I love you, Adrienne, I shall always love you--Always!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Sulpice Vaudrey had married Adrienne for love. She brought to him from
+the convent at Grenoble where she had been educated, the charming
+innocence of a young girl and the innate devotion of a woman. She was an
+orphan with a considerable fortune, but although Sulpice had only
+moderate resources, he had scarcely thought of her wealth, not even
+inquiring of her guardian, Doctor Reboux, on the occasion of his formal
+demand for her hand, about the dowry of Mademoiselle Gerard.
+
+He had met her at more than one soiree at Grenoble, where she appeared
+timid, dazzled and retiring, and quietly interrogating everything by her
+sweet glance. Some few words exchanged carelessly, music which they had
+listened to side by side, the ordinary everyday intercourse in society,
+had made Sulpice acquainted with his wife; but the sight of the pretty
+blonde--so sweet and gentle--the childlike timidity of this young girl,
+something rather pensive in the confiding smile of this blooming
+creature of eighteen summers, had won him completely. He was free, and
+alone, for he had lost, but a short time before, the only creature he
+loved in the world, his mother, of whom he was the son in the double
+sense of flesh and spirit, by the nourishment of her breast and by the
+patient teaching that she had implanted in his mind.
+
+He remembered only his father's dreamy and refined face in the portrait
+of a young, sad-looking man in a lawyer's black gown, before which he
+had stood when quite small, and spelled out as he might have lisped a
+prayer, the four letters: _papa_. Alone in this little town of Grenoble,
+for which he had left his native village of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, he
+had, just before meeting Adrienne, fallen a victim to a profound
+melancholy and realized the necessity of deciding upon his career.
+
+He was then thirty-four. Except the years spent in the study of law at
+Paris amid the turmoil of the left bank of the Seine, he had always
+lived in the province--his own province of Dauphine. He had grown up in
+the old house at Saint-Laurent, where every nook and corner kept for him
+its own sweet memory of his childhood and youth. The great white
+drawing-room with its wainscotings of the time of Louis XVI., which
+opened out upon a flight of steps leading down into a terraced garden;
+the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in powdered wigs and wearing
+the robes of the members of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double
+chins resting upon their broad cravats, amiable old ladies with oddly
+arranged hair and flowered gowns, coquettish still as they smiled in
+their oval, wooden frames, and then the old books in their old-fashioned
+bindings slumbering in a great bookcase with glass doors, or piled up on
+shelves below the fowling-pieces, the game-bags and the powder-horns.
+
+With this dwelling of which he thought so often now, his whole past was
+linked, about it still clung something of its past poetry, and it was
+sacred through the memories it preserved, and as the scene of the
+unforgotten joys of childhood. He could see again, the great
+stone-flagged kitchen, where they sat up at nights telling stories, the
+chamber above it, the bed with its heavy serge curtains, where he
+lay--sometimes shaking with terror--all alone, adjoining the room once
+occupied by his father, and the moonlight shining through the tall old
+trees in the courtyard outside, that entering by the half-open blinds
+cast shadows like trembling lace on the wall opposite to him. It seemed
+to Sulpice then that he could hear the sounds of the weird demon's chase
+as told by old Catherine, the cook, in bated tones during their vigils.
+
+It was there that he went every year to pass his holidays with his
+mother, who had had the courage to send him away,--just as during winter
+she had plunged him into cold water--to the Lyceum at Grenoble, whence
+he would return to Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, "so thin, poor child!" as his
+mother said.
+
+And how fat she would send him back again to school,--to make the
+masters ashamed of their stinginess.
+
+How pleasant were the reminiscences of those sunny days amongst the
+mountains, the excursions to Grande Chartreuse, where the murmuring
+brook trickled among the rocks, the halts at Guiers-Mort or under the
+trees in the stillness of a drowsy day in summer; how delightful to
+stretch one's self out at the foot of the cliffs or on a grassy slope
+with a book, pausing now and then to indulge in day-dreams or glance up
+at the fleecy clouds floating in the blue sky above his head and watch
+them gathering, then vanishing and melting away like smoke wreaths! Ah!
+how sweet were those long, idle days full of dreams, when the noise of
+the waterfall dashing over the rocks lulled the senses like some merry
+song, or a nurse's tender, crooning lullaby.
+
+In those days Sulpice made no plans for his future, where he would go,
+what he would do, or what would become of him; but he felt within
+himself unbounded hope, a hope as limitless and bright as the azure sky
+above him, the inspiration of devotion, love and poetry. He asked
+himself whether he should be a missionary or a representative of the
+people. It seemed to him that his heart was large enough to contain a
+world, and as he grew up he began to ask himself the terrible question:
+"Will a woman ever love me?"
+
+To be loved! What a dream! One day he put this question to one of his
+comrades at college, Guy de Lissac, the son of a country gentleman in
+the neighborhood, who answered:
+
+"Booby! every one is loved some day or other, and there are some who are
+loved even too much!"
+
+Sulpice had received a patriarchal and half-puritanical training, but
+softened materially by his mother's almost excessive care, it had left,
+as it were, a kind of poetic perfume that clung about him and never left
+him.
+
+Even during the days of his struggle in crowded Paris, in the heat of
+political strife, his thoughts would fly back to the old home at
+Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, recalling to mind the old armchair where his
+father used to sit, the father whose kiss he had never known, hearing
+again his mother's voice from the great oak staircase with its heavy
+balusters, and he recalled at the same moment, the landscape with its
+living figures, the spotted, steel-colored guinea-fowl screaming from
+the branches of the elms, the vineyard hands returning from work, to
+trample with bare feet the great clusters of grapes piled up in the
+wine-vat in the cellar whose odor intoxicated! Even as a representative
+or minister, musing over his past that seemed but yesterday, Sulpice
+wandered again in thought to this quiet country spot, so loved by him,
+so sweet, so still, reposing in the silence of provincial calm--far
+away, removed from all the noise and bustle of Paris.
+
+The farmers of Dauphine generally think of making their sons tillers of
+the soil, sending them to school and to college, perhaps to begin later
+the study of law or medicine, but welcoming them joyfully back again to
+their native fields, to their farms, where the youths soon forget all
+they may have learned of the Code or the Codex and lead the healthy,
+hardy life of the country. Good, well-built fellows, their chests
+enlarged by their daily exercise, their thighs strengthened by
+mountain-climbing, gay young men, liking to hunt and drink on the banks
+of the Isere and caring more for good harvests than for the songs of the
+wind amongst the branches of the poplars upon the river-banks.
+
+Sulpice had an old uncle on his father's side who proposed to his
+sister-in-law to give up his broad acres--a fortune in themselves--to
+Sulpice, if his nephew would consent to marry his daughter. Sulpice
+refused. He would not marry for money.
+
+"Fiddle-faddle!" cried his uncle. "Sickly sentimentality! If he
+cultivates that _grain_, my brother's son will not make much headway."
+
+"There is where you are mistaken, brother-in-law. What my poor Raymond
+had not time to become, his child will be: a lawyer at once eloquent and
+honest."
+
+"Well, well," replied the uncle, "but he shall not have my girl."
+
+Sulpice, after finishing his studies at Paris, returned to his mother at
+Grenoble, took her away from the old house at Saint-Laurent and
+installed her in the town with himself, where he began the practice of
+law and attracted everybody's attention from the first. He made pleading
+a sacred office and not a trade. Everyone was astonished that he had not
+remained in Paris.
+
+Why? He loved his native province, the banks of the Isere, the healthy,
+poetic atmosphere hanging over the desert of the Chartreuse and the
+snows of the Grand-Som. A talented man could make his way
+anywhere,--moreover, it was his pleasure to consider it a duty not to
+leave this secluded corner of the earth where he would cause freedom of
+speech to be known. Sulpice, whose heart was open to every ardent and
+generous manifestation of human thought, had imbibed from his mother, as
+well as from his father's writings and books, and from the
+_Encyclopaedia_ that Raymond Vaudrey had interlined with notes and
+reflections, not merely traditional information, but also, so to speak,
+the baptism of liberty. He had lived in the feverish days of the past
+eighty years, through his reading of the _Gazette Nationale_ of those
+stormy days. The speeches that he found in those pages--speeches that
+still burned like uncooled lava--of Mirabeau, Barnave, and Condorcet, a
+son of Grenoble, seemed to impart a glow to his fingers and fire to his
+glance. Then, too, the magnificent dreams of freedom proclaimed from the
+tribune inflamed his mind and made his heart beat fast. He saw as in a
+vision applauding crowds, tricolors gleaming in the clear and golden
+sunlight, processions moving, files marching past, and heard eternal
+truths proclaimed and acclaimed.
+
+His mother smiled at all this enthusiasm. She did not however try to
+repress it. It would vanish at the touch of years, just as the leaves of
+the trees fly before the winds of October. And besides, the dear woman
+herself was in sympathy with his hopes, his dreams and visions,
+remembering that her lost Raymond had loved what his son in his turn so
+much adored.
+
+The termination of the war and the fall of the empire found Sulpice a
+popular man at Grenoble; loved by all, by the populace who knew how
+generous he was, and by the middle-class who regarded him as a prudent
+man, hence the February elections saw him sent to Bordeaux, a member of
+the National Assembly. He had just passed his thirty-fourth year.
+
+His mother lived long enough to see this event, and to be dazzled by
+this brilliant launch on his career.
+
+With what deep emotion, even to-day, Vaudrey recalled that Sunday in
+February, a foul, wet day, when he returned home in a closed carriage
+with a friend, from an electioneering tour. The day before he had made a
+speech in a wineshop to an audience of peasants, who listened,
+open-mouthed, but withal suspicious, examining their candidate as they
+would have handled a beast offered at the market, and who, step by step,
+applauded his remarks, stretching out their rasp-like hands as he left
+them, and crying out: "You are our man!"
+
+That very morning he returned to Grenoble in the rain, passing through
+villages where the posters bearing his name and those of his friends,
+half-demolished by the rain, flapped dismally in the wind. Before the
+mayor's office, little groups were gathered, peaceful folk; a gendarme
+paced slowly to and fro, and bulletins littered the muddy thoroughfare.
+But there was no excitement. Nothing more. Not even a quickened
+pulse-beat was felt by those stolid men upon whose votes depended the
+fate of the nation. Sulpice could not help marvelling at so much
+indifference, but he reflected that it was thus throughout all France,
+and that not only his name but the destiny of the nation was involved in
+the struggle.
+
+Moreover, at night, with what feverish transport he watched the returns
+of the election as they reached the Palais de Justice, black with the
+crowd, and filled with uproar! With what a fearfully fast-beating heart
+he saw the rapidly swelling number of ballots cast for him! Dispatches
+came, and pedestrians hurried in from the country, waving their
+bulletins above their heads, and Sulpice heard on every lip the same
+cry: "Vaudrey leads!"
+
+Some cried bravo, while others clapped their hands. A crowd quickly
+gathered about Vaudrey. It already seemed to him that he was lifted up
+by a great wave and carried to a new world.
+
+A friend seized him by the arm and drew him into a corner of the hall,
+away from the others, and hurriedly said: "You know I am not one to ask
+much of you, to ask anything of you, in fact. I merely reckon on a
+receivership. That is easily done, eh? A mere nothing?"
+
+Sulpice, whose feelings were overcome by this great popular
+consecration, felt a kind of anger stir his heart against this
+solicitor, who, in the triumph of a great popular cause, saw only a
+means of self-advancement, of securing an appointment. The deputy--for
+he was a deputy now, each commune adding its total to the Vaudrey
+vote--was moved by a feeling of disgust.
+
+The crowd followed him home that evening, shouting in triumph.
+
+Amid the joy of victory, Sulpice felt the burden of the anxiety caused
+by duties to be done: a treaty of peace to be signed, and what a peace!
+Must he, alas! append his signature to a document devoted to the
+dismemberment of his country? Far into the night he stood in reverie in
+his chamber, his brow resting against the cold window-pane.
+
+He retired to rest very late, and arose with the gray dawn of February,
+but without having slept.
+
+He looked across the street to a convent garden, with its square and
+lozenge-shaped beds regularly arranged, its bare trees and box-wood
+borders, that he had often gazed upon. Some nuns in their black robes
+passed slowly across this cold and calm horizon that for many years had
+also been the range of his vision.
+
+Henceforth this familiar spot, this sad garden, whose cloistral
+associations charmed him, would be lost to his view. It was Paris now
+that awaited him, feverish Paris, burning with anger and odorous of
+saltpetre. Its very pavements must burn. Sulpice was in haste, however,
+to see it once more, to pass with head aloft beneath the garrets where
+he had once dreamed as a student, fagging and striving to get knowledge.
+How often he would regret that convent garden, those familiar
+flower-beds, the deep silence that enveloped him as he sat working by
+the open window, the passage of a bird near him, as if to fan him with
+its wing, and the vague murmur of the canticles of the sisters ascending
+to his window like the echo of a prayer!
+
+In the recess during one of the years following his election to the
+Assembly, he married Mademoiselle Gerard. Doctor Reboux, her guardian,
+charmed to give his ward to a man with a future like Vaudrey's, had not
+hesitated long about consenting to the marriage. Adrienne delighted
+Sulpice, and the young girl herself was quite happy to be chosen by this
+good-natured, distinguished young man whom everybody at Grenoble, not
+excepting his political adversaries, admired and spoke well of. With
+large, brilliant, black eyes lighting up a thin, fair face, a full
+beard, a high forehead with a deep furrow between the eyebrows, giving
+to his usually wandering, keen and restless glance a somewhat
+contemplative expression, Sulpice was a decidedly attractive man. He was
+not a handsome or a charming fellow, but a good-natured, agreeable,
+refined man, a fine conversationalist, persuasive, enthusiastic and
+alert; learned without being pedantic, a man who could inspire in a
+young girl a perfect passion. Adrienne joyfully married him, as he had
+sought her from love.
+
+And now all the poetry and romance of his youth blossomed again in his
+heart, in the thick of the political struggle in which he was engaged;
+he forgot, amid the idyllic scenes of domestic life, the storms of
+Versailles, the political troubles, forebodings as to the future, all
+anxieties of the present, the routine life of the Assembly into which he
+plunged with all his mind, and the excitement of his labors, his debates
+and his duties.
+
+Sulpice thought again and again of the summer morning when he led his
+wife to the altar, and compared it to a day's halt in the course of a
+journey under the blaze of the sun; he recalled the old house full of
+noisy stir, the crowd of relatives and friends in festive attire, the
+stamping of the horses' feet before the great open gate, the neighbors
+standing at the windows, and the little street-boys scuffling upon the
+pavement, all the joyous bustle of that happy day. It seemed to Sulpice
+that the sunlight came streaming in with Adrienne's entrance into the
+vast salon, from the walls of which her pictured ancestresses in their
+huge leg-of-mutton sleeves seemed to smile at her.
+
+Beneath the orange wreath sent from Paris, her face expressed the happy,
+surprised, and sweetly anxious look of a young communicant wrapped in
+her veil.
+
+Sulpice had never seen her look more beautiful. How prettily she came
+towards him, blushing vividly, and holding out her two little white
+gloved hands! He, somewhat bored by the company that surrounded them,
+cast an involuntary glance at a mirror hanging opposite and decided that
+he looked awkward and formal with his hair too carefully arranged. How
+they had laughed since then and always with new pleasure at these
+recollections, so sweet even now.
+
+His happiness on that joyous day would have been complete had his mother
+been present, when in the presence of the old priest who had instructed
+Adrienne in her catechism, Sulpice stood forward and took by its velvet
+shield the taper that seemed so light to him, and awkwardly held the
+wafer that the priest extended to him. It was a great event in Grenoble
+when the leader of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last
+election, was seen being married like a believing bourgeois. The organ
+pealed forth its tender vibrations, some Christmas anthem, mysterious
+and tremulous, like an alleluia sounding through the aisles of
+centuries; the light streamed through the windows in floods and rested
+upon Adrienne, who was kneeling with her childlike head leaning on her
+gloved hands, kissing her fair locks with sunlight and illumining the
+gleaming satin of her dress with its long train spreading out over the
+carpet.
+
+Sulpice took away from this ceremony in the presence of a crowded
+congregation an impression at once perfumed and dazzling: the perfumes
+of flowers, the play of light, the greetings of the organ, and within
+and about him, all the intoxication of love, singing a song of
+happiness.
+
+All that was now far away! nearly six years had elapsed since that day,
+six years of bitter struggle, during which Vaudrey fought the harder,
+defended his ideas of liberty with fervid eloquence, disputed step by
+step, and through intense work came to the front, living at Paris just
+as he did in the province, having his books brought from there to his
+apartment in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, close to the railroad that
+he took every morning when he regretfully left Adrienne, Adrienne to
+whom he returned every evening that political meetings and protracted
+sittings did not rob him of those happy evenings, which were in truth
+the only evenings that he really lived.
+
+Adrienne seldom went out, not caring to display herself and shunning the
+bustle, living at Paris, as at Grenoble, in peaceful seclusion, caring
+only for the existence of her husband, his work, and his speeches that
+he prepared with so much courageous labor. She sat up with him until
+very late, glancing over the books, the summaries of the laws and the
+old parliamentary reports.
+
+At times she was terrified at the ardor with which Sulpice devoted
+himself to these occupations. She greatly desired to take her part and
+was grieved at being unable to assist him by writing from his dictation,
+or by examining these old books. She felt terribly anxious when Vaudrey
+had to make a speech from the tribune. She dared not go to hear him,
+but knowing that he was to speak, she had not the courage to remain at
+home. Anxiously she ascended to the public gallery. She shuddered and
+was almost ready to faint, when she heard the voice of the president
+break what seemed to her an icy silence, with the words: _Monsieur
+Vaudrey has the ear of the Assembly_.
+
+The sound of Sulpice's voice seemed changed to her. Fearfully she asked
+herself if fright was strangling him. She dared not look at him. It
+seemed to her that the people were laughing, making a disturbance and
+coughing, but not listening to him. Why had she come? She would never do
+so again. An icy chill took possession of her. Then suddenly she heard a
+storm of applause that seemed like an outburst of sympathy. Hands were
+clapped, voices applauded. She half raised herself, and leaning upon the
+rail of the gallery, saw Sulpice between the crowded heads, towering
+above the immense audience, radiant and calm, standing with his arms
+folded or his hands resting on the tribune, below the chair occupied by
+a motionless, white-cravatted man, and throwing back his fair head,
+hurling, as from a full heart, his words, his wishes and his faith. All
+this she saw with supreme happiness and felt proud of the man whose name
+she bore.
+
+At that moment, she would fain have cried out to every one that she was
+his, that she adored him, that he was her pride, even as she was his
+joy! She would like to have folded him to her, to cling to his neck and
+to repeat before all that crowd: _I love you!_
+
+But she reserved all her tender effusions for the intimacy of their
+home, in order to calm the enthusiasm, oftentimes desperate, of this
+nervous man whom everything threw into a feverish excitement, this grand
+man, as they called him at Grenoble, who was for her only a great child
+whom she adored and kept in check by her girlish devotion combined with
+her motherly, delicate attentions.
+
+Vaudrey, however, more ambitious to do good than to obtain power, and
+spending his life in the conflicts of the Chamber, saw the years
+slipping away without realizing that he was making any progress, not a
+single step forward in the direction of his goal. Since the war, the
+years had passed for him as well as for those of his generation, with
+confusing rapidity, and suddenly, all at once, after having been in some
+sense slumbering, flattering himself that a man of thirty has a future
+before him, he was rudely awakened to the astonishing truth that he was
+forty.
+
+Forty! Sulpice had experienced a certain melancholy in advancing the
+figure by ten, and whatever position he had acquired within his party,
+within the circle of his friends, his dream was to reach still higher,
+he was tired of playing second-rate parts, and eager to stand before the
+footlights in full blaze, in the first role.
+
+In the snug interior that Adrienne furnished, he enjoyed all material
+happiness. She soothed him, brought his dreams back to the region of the
+real, terrified at times by his discouragements, his anger, and still
+more by his illusions concerning men and things.
+
+Sulpice often reproached her for having clipped the wings of his
+ambition.
+
+"I!" she would say, "it is rather the fans of your windmills that I
+break, you Don Quixote!"
+
+He would then smile at her, and look earnestly into the depths of the
+timid creature's lovely blue eyes, causing her to blush as if ashamed of
+having seemed to be witty.
+
+Her chief aim was to be the devoted, loving friend of this man whom she
+thought so superior to herself, and although she was totally ignorant of
+political intrigues, she was by virtue of the mere instinct of love, his
+best and most perspicacious adviser and felt delighted only when
+Vaudrey, by chance, listened to her counsel.
+
+"I love you so dearly!" she confessed with the unlimited candor of a
+poor creature who has but a single affection, a single pretext for
+loving.
+
+He saw in the life he led, only the penumbra: his neglected youth, his
+hopes fled, his fears, the disgust which at times filled him as he
+thought of the never-ending recommencements and trickeries of political
+life. So dearly cherished, so beloved, it seemed to him, nevertheless,
+that his life lacked something. He would have liked a child, a son to
+bring up, a domestic tie, since political conditions prevented him from
+accomplishing a civic duty. Ah! yes, a son, a being to mould, a brow to
+kiss, a soul to fashion after the image of his own, a child who would
+not know all the sorrows of life that his own generation had laid on
+him! Perhaps it was only a child that he needed. Something, however, he
+evidently lacked.
+
+Still he smiled, always in love with that young woman of twenty-four
+years, delicate, slender, and full of the fears and artlessness of a
+child. Accustomed to the quiet solitude of the house of her guardian,
+she, when at Paris, in her husband's study, arranging his books, his
+papers, his legislative plans and reports, sought to surround her dear
+Sulpice with the comforting felicity of bourgeois happiness that was
+enjoyed calmly, like a cordial sipped at the fireside.
+
+Then suddenly one day, the news of a startling political change broke in
+on this household.
+
+Sulpice reached home one evening at one and the same time nervous,
+anxious, and happy.
+
+His name was on almost every lip, in connection with a ministerial
+combination. His last speech on domestic policy had more than ever
+brought him into prominence and he was considered to have boldly
+contributed to the development of a fearful crisis.
+
+A minister! he might, before the morning, be a minister! His policy was
+triumphant.
+
+The advocate Collard--of Nantes,--who was pointed out as the future head
+of the Cabinet, was one of his intimate friends. It was
+suggested--positively--that Sulpice should be intrusted with one of the
+most _important portfolios_, that of the Interior or of Foreign Affairs,
+the _lesser portfolios_ being considered those of Public Instruction and
+of Agriculture and Commerce, the former of which concerns itself with
+the spiritual welfare of the people, and the latter with their food
+supply.
+
+Sulpice told all this to Adrienne while eating his dinner mechanically
+and without appetite.
+
+There was to be a meeting of his coterie at eight o'clock. It was
+already seven. He hurried.
+
+Adrienne saw that he was very pale. She experienced a strange sensation,
+evidently a joyful one although mingled with anxiety. Politics drew him
+away from his wife so frequently, and for so long a time, that she was
+already compelled to live in such solitude that the secluded creature
+wondered if in future she would not be condemned to still greater
+isolation. But all anxiety disappeared under the influence of Sulpice's
+manifest joy. He was feverishly impatient. It seemed to him that never
+had he known so decisive a moment in his life.
+
+The sound of the bell, suddenly ringing out its clear note in the
+silence, caused him to start.
+
+The dining-room door was opened by a servant, who handed a letter to
+Vaudrey, bearing on one corner of the envelope the word: _Urgent_.
+
+Sulpice recognized the writing.
+
+It was from Collard of Nantes.
+
+Adrienne saw her husband's cheek flush as he read this letter, which
+Sulpice promptly handed her, while his eyes sparkled with delight.
+
+"It is done! Read!"
+
+Adrienne turned pale.
+
+Collard notified his "colleague" that the ministerial combination of
+which he was the head had succeeded. The President awaited at the Elysee
+the arrival of the new ministers. He tendered Vaudrey the portfolio of
+the Interior.
+
+"A minister!" said Adrienne, now overcome with delight.
+
+Vaudrey had risen and, a little uneasy, was mechanically searching for
+something, still holding his napkin in his hand.
+
+"My hat," he said. "My overcoat. A carriage."
+
+Adrienne, with her hands clasped in a sort of childish admiration,
+looked at him as if he had become suddenly transformed. All his being,
+in fact, expressed complete satisfaction. He embraced Adrienne almost
+frantically, kissed her again and again, and left her, then descended
+the staircase with the speed of a lover hastening to a rendezvous.
+
+This political honeymoon was still at its height at the moment when the
+delighted Vaudrey, seeing everything rosy-hued, was satisfying his
+astonished curiosity in the greenroom of the ballet. He entered office,
+animated by all the good purposes inspired by absolute faith. It seemed
+to him that he was about to save the world, to regenerate the
+government, and to destroy abuses.
+
+"It is very difficult to become a minister," he said, smiling, "but
+nothing is easier than to be a great minister. It only demands a
+determination to do good!"
+
+"And the power to do it," replied his friend Granet, somewhat
+ironically.
+
+What! power? Nothing was more simple, since Vaudrey held the reins of
+power!--If others wrecked the hopes of their friends, it was because
+they had not dared, because they had not the will!
+
+They would now see what he would do himself! Not to-morrow either, nor
+in a month--but at once.
+
+He entered the ministry boldly, like a good-natured despot, determined
+to reform, study and rearrange everything; and a victim to the feverish
+and glorious zeal of a neophyte, he was a little surprised to encounter,
+at the very outset, the obstinate resistance of routine, ignorance, and
+the unyielding mechanism of that vast machine, more eternal than
+empires: Ad-min-is-tra-tion.
+
+Bah! he would have satisfaction! Patience would overcome all. After all,
+time is on one's side.
+
+"Time? Already!" replied Granet, who was a perpetual scoffer.
+
+Adrienne, overwhelmed with surprise, enjoyed the reflections from the
+golden aurora of power that so sweetly tinted Sulpice's life. She
+shared her husband's triumphs without haughtiness, and now, however she
+might love her domestic life, it was incumbent upon her to pass more of
+her time in society than formerly, _to show herself_, as Sulpice said,
+and, surrounded by the success and flattery she enjoyed, she felt that
+that obligation was only an added joy, whose contentment she reflected
+on her husband.
+
+When she entered a salon, she was greeted with a flattering murmur of
+admiration and good-natured curiosity. The women looked at her and the
+men surrounded her.
+
+"Madame Vaudrey?"
+
+"The minister's wife!"
+
+"Charming!"
+
+"Quite young!"
+
+"Somewhat provincial!"
+
+"So much the more attractive!"
+
+"That is true, as fresh as a peach!"
+
+She endeavored to atone by a gracious, very sincere modesty, for the
+enviable position in which chance had suddenly placed her. It was said
+of her that she accepted a compliment as timidly as a boarding-school
+miss receives a prize. They forgave her for retaining her rosy cheeks
+because of her white and exquisitely shaped hands. She was not
+considered to be "_trop de Grenoble_." Witty people called her the
+pretty _Dauphinoise_, and the flatterers the little Dauphine.
+
+In short, her _success_ was great! So said the chroniclers; the entrance
+of a fashionable woman into a salon being daily compared with that of an
+actress on the stage.
+
+It was especially because Vaudrey appeared to be so happy, that his
+young wife was so contented. She felt none of the vainglory of power.
+Generally alone in the vast, deserted apartments of the ministry, with
+all their commonplace, luxurious appointments, she more than once
+regretted the home in the Chaussee-d'Antin, where they enjoyed--but too
+rarely--a renewal of the cherished solitude of the first months of their
+union, the familiar chats of the Grenoble days, the prolonged
+conversations, exchanges of thoughts, hopes and reminiscences--already!
+only recollections,--and she sometimes said to Sulpice, who was
+feverishly excited and glowed with delight at having reached the summit
+of power:
+
+"Do you know what this place suggests to me? Why, living in a hotel!"
+
+"And you are right," Vaudrey gaily answered; "we are at a hotel, but it
+is the hotel in which the will of France lodges!"
+
+"You understand, my dear, that if you are happy--"
+
+"Very happy! it is only now that I can show what I am made of. You shall
+see, Adrienne, you shall see what I will do and become within a year."
+
+Within a year!
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Guy de Lissac occupied a small summer-house forming a residence situated
+at the end of a court on Rue D'Aumale. He had given carte-blanche for
+the arrangement of this bachelor's nest,--a nest in which sitting-hens
+without eggs succeeded each other rapidly,--to one of those upholsterers
+who installed, in regulation style, the knickknacks so much in vogue,
+and who sell at very high prices to Bourse operators and courtesans the
+spurious Clodions and imitation Boulles that they pick up by chance at
+auction sales.
+
+Lissac, who had sufficient taste to discover artistic nuggets in the
+gutters of Paris, had found it very convenient to wake up one fine
+morning in a little mansion crowded with Japanese bric-a-brac, Chinese
+satin draperies, tapestries, Renaissance chests and terra-cotta figures
+writhing upon their sculptured bases. The upholsterer had taste, Lissac
+had money. The knickknacks were genuine. There was a coquettish
+attractiveness about the abode that made itself evident in every detail.
+
+This bachelor's suite lacked, however, something personal, something
+living, some cherished object, the mark of some particular taste, some
+passion for a period, for a thing, or pictures or books. In this jumble
+of ill-matched curiosities, where ivory _netzkes_ on tables surrounded
+Barye bronzes and Dresden figures, there lacked some evidence of an
+individual character that would give a dominant tone, an original key,
+to the collection. This worldly dwelling, with its white lacquered bed
+and Louis XV. canopy and its heads of birds carved in wood like the
+queen's bed at Trianon, vaguely resembled the apartments of a
+fashionable woman.
+
+But Guy had hung around here and there a Samourai sabre, Malay krises,
+Oriental daggers in purple velvet sheaths, and upon the green tapestry
+background of the antechamber a panoply on which keen-bladed swords with
+steel guards were mingled with Scotch claymores with silver hilts, thus
+giving a masculine character to this hotel of a fashionable lounger,
+steeped with the odor of ylang-ylang like the little house of a pretty
+courtesan.
+
+This Guy enjoyed in Paris a free and easy life, leaving to Vaudrey, his
+old college-comrade at Grenoble, the pursuit of the pleasures of
+political life, and, as Lissac said in that bantering tone which is
+peculiar to Parisian gossip, the relish of the "sweets of power"; for
+himself, what kept him in Paris was Paris itself, just that and nothing
+more:--its pleasures, its first nights, its surprises, its women, that
+flavor of scandal and perfume of refined immorality that seemed peculiar
+to his time and surroundings.
+
+He had squandered two fortunes, one after the other, without feeling any
+regret; he had made a brush at journalism, tried finance, won at the
+Bourse, lost at the clubs, knew everybody and was known by all, had a
+smiling lip, was sound of tooth, loved the girls, was dreaded by the
+men, was of fine appearance, and was unquestionably noble, which
+permitted him to enjoy all the frolics of Bohemian life without sullying
+himself, having always discovered a forgotten uncle or met some
+considerate friend to pay his gambling debts and adjust his differences
+on the Bourse speculations at the very nick of time; just now he was
+well in the saddle and decidedly attractive, with a sound heart and a
+well-lined pocket, enjoying, not disliking life, which seemed to him a
+term of imprisonment to be passed merrily--a Parisian to the finger-tips
+and to the bottom of his soul, worse than a Parisian in fact, a
+Parisianized provincial inoculated with _Parisine_, just as certain sick
+persons are with morphine, judging men by their wit, actions by their
+results, women by the size of their gloves; as sceptical as the devil,
+wicked in speech and considerate in thought, still agile at forty,
+claiming even that this is man's best time--the period of fortune and
+gallantry--sliding along in life and taking things as he found them,
+wisely considering that a day's snow or rain lasts no longer than a
+day's sunshine, and that, after all, a wretched night is soon over.
+
+On leaving Vaudrey the previous night, Lissac had passed part of the
+night at his club on Place Vendome. He had played and won. He had gone
+to sleep over a fashionable novel, very faithfully written, but
+wearisome in the extreme, and he had awakened late and somewhat
+heavy-headed. There were fringes of snow upon the window-sills and upon
+the house facing his little mansion. The roofs were hidden under a large
+white sheet and half lost in the grayish-white background of the sky.
+
+"Detestable weather! So much the better," thought Lissac, "I shall have
+no visitors."
+
+"I will see no one," he said to his servant. "In such weather no one but
+borrowers will come."
+
+He had just finished his dejeuner, plunging a Russian enamelled silver
+spoon into his egg, his tea smoking at his side in a burnished silver
+teapot with Japanese designs, when, notwithstanding his orders, the
+servant handed him a card written in pencil on a scrap of paper torn
+from a note-book.
+
+"It is not a borrower, monsieur!"
+
+Guy seized the paper disdainfully, thinking, in spite of the servant's
+opinion, that he would find the name of a beggar who had not even had
+his name printed on a piece of Bristol-board, and, adjusting his glass,
+he deciphered the fine writing on the paper; then after involuntarily
+exclaiming: _Ah! bah_! and _well! well!_ greatly astonished, he said as
+he rose:
+
+"Show her in!"
+
+He had thrown on a chair his damask napkin of Muscovite pattern, and
+instinctively glanced at himself in the mirror, just as a coquette might
+do before a rendezvous, smoothing out his flannel vest and spreading out
+his cravat that only half-fastened the blue foulard collar of his
+dressing-gown.
+
+At the moment that he was examining the folds made on his red leather
+slippers by his ample flannel trousers, a woman half-raised the satin
+portiere, and, standing within a frame formed by the folds of yellow
+satin, looked at the young man, displaying her brilliant teeth as she
+smilingly said:
+
+"Good-morning, Guy!"
+
+Lissac went straight toward her with outstretched hands.
+
+She allowed the large satin portiere to fall behind her, and after
+having permitted her little suede gloved hands to be raised for a
+moment, she boldly abandoned them to Guy, laughing the while, as they
+looked at each other face to face. He betrayed some little astonishment,
+gazing at her as a person examines one whom one has not seen for a long
+time, and the young woman raised her head unabashed, displaying her
+features in full light, as if submitting to an inspection with
+confidence.
+
+"You did not expect me, eh?"
+
+"I confess--"
+
+"Doubtless it is a considerable time since you thought of me."
+
+Guy was inclined to bow and, as his only reply, to kiss the tips of her
+fingers; but he reflected that, since they last met, the parting of his
+brown locks had been devilishly widened, and he remained standing,
+answering with the conceit of a handsome man:
+
+"You are mistaken, I often think of you."
+
+She had, with, a sweeping glance around the room, examined the furniture
+of the apartment, the framed pictures, the designs and the gilding, and,
+on sitting down near the fire with her little feet crossed, she
+expressed her opinion:
+
+"Very stylishly ensconced! You always had good taste, I know, my dear
+Guy."
+
+"I have less now than formerly, my dear Marianne," he said, giving to
+this airy remark the turn of a compliment.
+
+Marianne shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
+
+"Do you find me very much altered?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"Yes, rejuvenated."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"Upon my honor. You look like a communicant."
+
+"Good heavens! what kind?" said Marianne, laughing in a clear, ringing,
+but slightly convulsive tone.
+
+He was still looking at her curiously, seated thus near the fireplace.
+
+The bright and sparkling fire cast its reflections on the gold frames in
+waving and rosy tints that brightened the somewhat pale complexion of
+this young woman and imparted a warm tone to her small and brilliant
+gray eyes. She half turned her fair face toward him, her retrousse nose
+was tiny, spirituelle and mobile, her large sensuous mouth was provoking
+and seductive, and suggested by its upturned corners, encouragement or a
+challenge.
+
+She had allowed her cloak, whose fur trimming was well-worn, to slip
+from her shoulders, exposing her form to the waist; she trembled
+slightly in her tight-fitting dress, and golden tints played on her bare
+neck, which was almost hidden under the waves of her copper-colored
+hair.
+
+She had just taken off her suede gloves with a jerky movement and was
+abstractedly twisting them between her fingers.
+
+In spite of the somewhat depressing effect of her worn garments, she
+displayed a natural elegance, a perfect form and graceful movements, and
+Guy, accustomed as he was to estimate at a glance the material condition
+of people, divined that this woman felt some embarrassment. She whom he
+had known four or five years previously so charming amid the din of a
+life of folly, and the coruscation of an ephemeral luxury, was now
+burned out like an exploded rocket.
+
+Marianne Kayser!
+
+Of all the women whom he had met, he had certainly loved her the most
+sincerely, with an absolute love, unreflecting, passionate and half-mad.
+She was not dissolute but merely turbulent, independent and impatient of
+restraint. Too poor to be married, too proud to be a courtesan, too
+rebellious to accept the humiliations of destiny.
+
+She was an orphan, and had been brought up by her uncle, Simon Kayser, a
+serious painter, indifferent to all that did not concern his art,--its
+morality, its dignity, its superiority--who had, under cover of his own
+ignorance, allowed the ardent dreams of his niece and her wayward fits
+to develop freely like poisonous plants; near this man, in the vicious
+atmosphere of an old bachelor's disorderly household, Marianne had lived
+the bitter life of a young woman out of her element, poor, but with
+every instinct unswervingly leaning towards the enjoyments of luxury.
+
+She had grown up amid the incongruous society of models and artists and,
+as it were, in the fumes of paradoxes and pipes. A little creature, she
+served as a plaything for this painter without talent, and he allowed
+her to romp, bound and leap on the divans like a kitten. Moreover, the
+child lighted his stove and filled his pipe.
+
+The studio was littered with books. As chance offered, she read them all
+eagerly and examined with curiosity the pictures drawn by an Eisen or a
+Moreau, depicting passionate kisses exchanged under arbors, where
+behind curtains, short silk skirts appeared in a rumpled state. She had
+rapidly reached womanhood without Kayser's perceiving that she could
+comprehend and judge for herself.
+
+This falsely inspired man, entirely devoted to mystical compositions,
+vaguely painted--philosophical and critical, as he said--this thinker,
+whose brush painted obscure subjects as it might have produced signs,
+did not dream that the girl growing up beside him was also in love with
+chimeras, and drawn toward the abyss, not however to learn the mysteries
+hidden by the clouds, but the mystery of life, the secret of the visions
+that haunted her, of the disquieting temptations that filled her with
+such feverish excitement.
+
+If Uncle Kayser could for one moment have descended from the nebulous
+regions, and touched the earth, he would have found an impatient ardor
+in the depth of Marianne's glance, and something feverish and restless
+in her movements. But this huge, ruddy, rotund man, speaking above his
+rounded stomach, cared only for the morality of art, aesthetic dignity,
+and the necessity of raising the standard of art, of creating a mission
+for it, an end, an idea--_art the educator, art the moralizer_,--and
+allowed this feverish, wearied, impulsive creature, moulded by vice, who
+bore his name, to wander around his studio like a stray dog.
+
+Isolated, forgotten, the young girl sometimes passed whole days bending
+over a book, her lips dry, her face pale, but with a burning light in
+her gray eyes, while her fingers were thrust through her hair, or she
+rested upon a window-sill, following afar off, some imaginary picture in
+the depths of the clouds.
+
+The studio overlooked a silent, gloomy street in which no sound was
+heard save the slow footfalls of weary and exhausted pedestrians. It was
+stifling behind this window and Marianne's gloomy horizon was this frame
+of stones against which her wandering thoughts bruised themselves as a
+bird might break its wings.
+
+Ah! to fly away, to escape from the solemn egotism and the theories of
+Simon Kayser, and to live the passionate life of those who are free,
+loved, rich and happy! Such was the dream upon which Marianne nourished
+herself.
+
+She had perpetually before her eyes, as well as before her life, the
+gray wall of that high house opposite the painter's studio, pierced with
+its many eyes, and whether on summer's stifling evenings, the shutters
+closed--the whole street being deserted, the neighbors having gone into
+the country--or in winter, with its gray sky, the roofs covered with the
+snow that was stained all too soon, when the brilliant lights behind the
+curtains looked like red spots on the varnished paper, Marianne ever
+felt in her inmost being the bitter void of Parisian melancholy, the
+overwhelming sadness of black loneliness, of hollow dreams, gnawing like
+incurable sorrows.
+
+She grew up thus, her mind and body poisoned by this dwelling which she
+never left except to drag her feet wearily through the galleries of the
+Louvre, leaning on the arm of her uncle, who invariably repeated before
+the same pictures, in the loud and bombastic tone of a _comediante_, the
+same opinions, and grew enthusiastic and excited according as the
+pictures of the masters agreed with his _style_, his _system_, his
+_creed_. One should hear him run the gamut of all his great phrases: My
+_sys-tem!_ Marianne knew when the expression was coming. All these
+Flemish painters! Painters of snuff-boxes, without any ideal, without
+grasp! "And the Titian, look at this Titian! Where is _thought_
+expressed in this Titian? And _mo-ral-i-ty?_ Titian! A vendor of pink
+flesh! Art should have a majesty, a dignity, a purity, an ideality very
+different."
+
+Ah! these words in _ty_, solemn, bombastic, pedantic, with a false ring,
+they entered Marianne's ears like burning injections.
+
+These visits to the museum impressed her with a gloom such as a ramble
+in a cemetery would create, she returned to the house with depressing
+headaches and muttering wrathful imprecations against destiny. She even
+preferred that studio with its worn-out divans and its worm-eaten
+tapestries that were slowly shredding away.
+
+There, at least, she was all alone, face to face with herself, consumed
+by a cowardly fear--the fear of the future--this young girl who had read
+everything, learned everything, understood everything, knew everything,
+sullied by all the jokes of the Kayser studio, which, in spite of the
+exalted, sacrosanct, aesthetic discussions which took place therein,
+sometimes shockingly resembled a smoking-room--this physical virgin
+without any virginity of mind, could there take refuge in herself, and
+there in the solitude to which she was condemned, she questioned herself
+as to the end to which her present life would lead her.
+
+Of dowry she had none. Her father had left her nothing. Kayser was poor
+and in debt. She had no occupation. To run about giving private lessons
+on the piano, seemed to Marianne to degrade her almost to the level of
+domestic service. Those who wished to pose for the Montyon prize might
+do so! She never would!
+
+Ah! what sufferings! what would be the end of such a life? Marriage? But
+who desired her? One of those talentless painters, who ventilated at
+Kayser's house, not merely their contemptuous theories, but also their
+down-at-the-heel shoes? To fall from one Bohemian condition to another,
+from exigency to want, to be the wife of one of these greasy-haired
+dreamers? Her whole nature shuddered in revolt at this idea. Through the
+open window, the tepid breath of nature wafted toward her the odor of
+the rising sap in gentle, warm whiffs that filled her with a feverish
+astonishment. Stretched on the patched divan, her eyes closed and her
+lovely form kissed by the tepid breeze, she dreamed, dreamed, dreamed--
+
+The awakening was folly, a rash act, an elopement.
+
+In the house on Rue de Navarin there happened to be one fellow more
+daring than the rest, he was an artist who, in the jostling daily life,
+kindled his love at the strange flame that burned in the lustful
+virgin's eyes. A glance revealed all.
+
+The meeting with a rake determined the life of this girl. She fell, not
+through ignorance or curiosity, but moved by anger and, as it were, out
+of bravado. Since she was without social position, motherless and
+isolated, having no family, without a prop and unloved, well, she threw
+off the yoke absolutely. She broke through her shackles at one bound.
+She rebelled!--
+
+She eloped with this man.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, who thirsted for pleasure, and took his prize
+boldly about, plunging Marianne into the ranks of vulgar mistresses, and
+had not the mad woman's superior intelligence, will, and even her
+disgust, ruled at once over this first lover and the equivocal
+surroundings into which he had thrust her, she would have become a mere
+courtesan.
+
+Kayser had experienced only astonishment at the flight of his niece. How
+was it that he had never suspected the cause that disturbed her
+thoughts? "These diabolical women, nobody knows them, not even those who
+made them. A father even would not have detected anything. The more
+excuse therefore for an uncle!" So he resumed his musing on elevated
+art, quieting his displeasure--for his comrades jeered him--by the
+fumes of his pipe.
+
+Moreover, all things considered, the painter added, Marianne had
+followed the natural law. Full liberty for everybody, was still one of
+Simon Kayser's pet theories. Marianne was of age and could dispose of
+her lot without the necessity of submitting to a strict endorsement of
+her conduct. When she had "sounded all the depths of the abyss,"--and
+Kayser pronounced these words while puffing his tobacco--she would
+return. Uncle Kayser would always keep a place for her at what he called
+_his fireside_.
+
+"The fireside of your pipe," Marianne once remarked to him.
+
+So Kayser consoled himself for this escapade by the sacredness of art,
+the only sacredness he recognized. On that indeed he yielded nothing.
+What mattered it to the world, if a girl went astray, even if that girl
+were his niece? Public morality was not hurt thereby. Ah! if he, Kayser,
+had exhibited to the world a lewd picture, it would have been "a horse
+of a different color"! The dignity, seriousness, purity of art, that was
+right enough!--But a woman! Pshaw! a woman!--Nor was he heard once to
+express any uneasiness as to what might become of Marianne.
+
+In the course of her perilous career, which, however, was not that of a
+courtesan, but that of a freed woman avenging herself, Marianne had met
+Guy de Lissac and loved him as completely as her nature allowed her to
+love. Guy entertained her. With him she talked over everything, she gave
+herself up to him, and made plans for the future. Why should they ever
+separate? They adored each other. Guy was rich, or at any rate he lived
+sumptuously. Marianne was a lovely mistress, clever, in fact, ten women
+in one. Guy became madly attached to her and he felt himself drawn
+closer to her day by day. She often repeated with perfect sincerity that
+she had never loved any one before.
+
+The first lover, then? She did not even know his name now!
+
+There was no reason why they should not live together for ever, a life
+of mutual joy and happiness, led by the same fancies, stirred by the
+same desires. Why ever leave each other, even once? But it was just this
+that induced Guy to abandon this pretty girl. He was afraid. He saw no
+end to such a union as theirs. The little love-affair that enticed him
+assumed another name: _The Chain_. He sometimes debated with himself
+seriously about marrying this Marianne, whose adventures he knew, but
+who so intoxicated him that he forgot all the past.
+
+Uncle Kayser, entirely engrossed in the "dignity of art," and occupied
+with the composition of an allegorical production entitled _The Modern
+Family_,--a page of pure, mystic, social, regenerative art,--had
+certainly forgotten his niece; nevertheless, Lissac at times felt
+somewhat tempted to restore her to him. He was grieved at the thought
+of abandoning Marianne to another. His dread of marriage triumphed over
+his jealousy. One fine day, Guy suddenly brought about a separation.
+Feeling ill, he took to his bed, when one morning Marianne came to him
+and said in passionate tones:
+
+"Now I will never leave you again! You are in danger, and I am here to
+save you!"
+
+Guy now felt himself lost. His rapid perception, whose operation was as
+sudden as a blow of the fist, warned him that if he allowed this woman
+to install herself in his house, he might say good-by to liberty, and
+probably also to his life. This Parisian had laid down as a principle,
+that a man should always be _unfettered_. He held in horror this
+shameful half-marriage that the language of slang had baptized, as with
+a stain: _Collage_. He therefore decided to play his life against his
+liberty, and during the temporary absence of this nurse established at
+his bedside, he packed his clothes in his trunk at random, shivering as
+he was with fever, threw himself into a hack, and, with chattering teeth
+and a morbid shudder creeping over his entire body, had himself driven
+to the railroad station and departed for Italy.
+
+Marianne was heartbroken anew at this unexpected departure. A hope had
+vanished. She loved Guy very sincerely, and she vainly hoped that she
+would hold him. He fled from her! Whither had he gone? For a moment,
+she was tempted to rejoin him when she received his letters. She
+surmised, however, that Guy, desiring to avoid her, caused his brief
+notes to be sent by some friend from towns that he had left. To play
+there the absurd part of a woman chasing her lover would have been
+ridiculous. She remained, therefore, disgusted, heartbroken for a moment
+like a widow in despair, then she retraced her steps to the Rue de
+Navarin, and returned to the fold, where she found Uncle Kayser still
+quite unruffled, with the almost finished picture of _The Modern
+Family_.
+
+"That is, I verily believe, the best I have done, the most moral," said
+Kayser to her. "In art, morality before everything, my girl! Come, sit
+down and tell me your little adventures."
+
+It was five years--five whole years--since Lissac had seen Marianne.
+Their passion had subsided little by little into friendship,--expressed
+though by letters. Marianne wrote, Guy replied. All the bitter reproofs
+had been exchanged through the post, yet, in spite of this
+correspondence, neither had sought the opportunity nor felt the desire
+to meet. The fancy was dead! Nevertheless, they had loved each other
+well!
+
+Suddenly, without overtures, on this bitingly cold morning, Marianne
+arrived, half shivering, in the new apartment, warmed her tiny feet at
+the fire and raised to him the rosy tip of her cold nose.
+
+Guy was somewhat surprised.
+
+He looked with a curiosity not unmixed with pain at that woman whom he
+had loved truly enough to suffer love's pangs,--the innocents say to die
+of it. He tried to find again in the depths of those gray eyes,
+sparkling and malicious, the old burning passion, extinguished without
+leaving even a fragment of its embers. To think that he had risked his
+life for that woman; that he should have sacrificed his name; that he
+should have torn himself from her with such harsh bravado; that he
+should have cut deep into his own being in order to leave her; that he
+had fled, leaving for Italy with a craving desire for solitude and
+forgetfulness! Eh! yes, Marianne had been his true love, the true love
+of this blase Parisian sceptic and braggart, and he sought, while again
+looking at the lovely girl, to recover some of the sensations that had
+flown, to recall some of those reminiscences which more than once had
+agreeably affected him.
+
+Marianne evidently understood what was passing in Guy's mind. She smiled
+strangely. Buried in the armchair, whose back supported her own, and
+half-bending her fair neck that reclined on the lace-covered head-rest,
+she looked at Lissac fixedly with an odd expression, the sidelong glance
+of a woman, that seems to be her keenest scrutiny.
+
+Through her half-closed lashes he seemed to feel that a malicious glance
+embraced him. The mobile nostrils of her delicate nose dilated with a
+nervous trembling that intensified the mocking smile betrayed by her
+curling lips. Her hands were resting upon her plump arms, and with a
+trembling motion of the fingers beat a feverish little march as if she
+were playing a scale on a keyboard.
+
+Guy sought to evoke from the well-set, gracefully reclining form, from
+the half-sly and half-concealed glance, from the palpitating nostrils,
+something that reminded him of his former ecstasies. Again he saw,
+shadowed by the chin, that part of her neck where he loved to bury his
+brow and to rest his lips, greedily, lingeringly, as when one sips a
+liqueur. A strange emotion seized him. All that had not yet been
+gratified of his shattered, but not wholly destroyed love, surged within
+him.
+
+Were it fancy or reminiscence, beside this woman he still felt as of
+old, a feeling that oppressed his heart and caused him that delightful
+sensation of uneasiness to which he had been a stranger in connection
+with his many later easy love adventures. A light, penetrating and sweet
+odor floated around Marianne, reminding Lissac of the intoxicating
+perfume of vanished days, an irritating odor as of new-mown hay.
+
+He said nothing, while she awaited his remarks with curiosity. Guy's
+mute interrogation possibly embarrassed her, for she suddenly shook her
+head and rose to her feet.
+
+"May one smoke here?" she said, as she opened a Russia leather
+cigarette-case bearing her monogram.
+
+"What next?" said Guy, lighting a sponge steeped in alcohol that stood
+in a silver holder and offering it to Marianne.
+
+She quickly closed her fine teeth on the end of the paper cigarette that
+she had rolled between her fingers and lighted it at the flame. The
+gleam of the alcohol brightened her eyes and slightly flushed her pale
+cheeks, which Guy regarded with strange feelings.
+
+"Your invention is an odd one!" she said, as she returned him the little
+sponge upon which a tongue of blue flame played.
+
+He extinguished it, and abandoning himself to the disturbing charm of
+reminiscences, watched Marianne who was already half-enveloped in a
+light cloud of smoke.
+
+"There is one thing you do not know," he said. "More than once--on my
+honor--at the corner of the street, at some chance meeting, my old
+Parisian heart has beaten wildly on seeing in some coquettish outline,
+or in some fair hair falling loosely over an otter-skin cloak, or in
+some fair, vanishing profile with a pearl set in the lobe of the ear,
+something that resembled you. Those fur toques with little feathers that
+everybody wears now, you wore before any one else, on your fair head.
+Whenever I see one, I follow it. On my word, though, not for her. The
+fair unknown trotted before me, making the sidewalks echo to the touch
+of the high heels of her little shoes, while I continued to follow her
+under the sweet illusion that she would lead me at the end of the
+journey to a spot where it seemed to me a little of paradise had been
+scattered. It is thus that phantoms of loved ones course through the
+streets of Paris in broad daylight, and I am not the only one, Marianne,
+who has felt the anguish and heart-fluttering that I have experienced.
+Often have I found my eyes moist after such an experience; but if it
+were winter, I attributed my tears simply to a cold. Tell me, Marianne,
+was it really the cold that moistened my eyes?"
+
+Marianne laughed.
+
+"Come, but you are idyllic, my dear Guy," said she, looking at Lissac.
+
+"Melancholy, nothing more."
+
+"Let us say elegiac. Those little fits have come upon you rather late in
+the day, have they not? A little valerian and quinine, made up into
+silver-coated pills, is a sovereign remedy."
+
+"You are making fun of me."
+
+"No," she said. "But it was so easy then, seeing that the recollection
+of me could inspire you with so many poetic ideas and cause you to trot
+along for such a distance behind plumed toques--it was so easy not to
+take the train for Milan and not to fly away from me as one skips from a
+creditor."
+
+Guy could not refrain from smiling.
+
+"Ah! it is because--I loved you too dearly!"
+
+"I know that!" exclaimed Marianne with a tone, in contrast with her
+elegance, of an artist's model giving a pupil a retort. "A madrigal that
+has not answered, no; does it rain?"
+
+"I have perhaps been stupid, how can it be helped?" said Lissac.
+
+"Do not doubt it, my dear friend. It is always stupid to deprive one's
+self of the woman who adores one. Such rarities are not common."
+
+"You remember, dear Marianne," said Guy, "the day when you boldly wrote
+upon the photographs to some one who loved you dearly: 'To him I love
+more than every one else in the world?'"
+
+"Yes," said Marianne, blowing a cloud of smoke upward. "Such things as
+that are never forgotten when one writes them with the least sincerity."
+
+"And you were sincere?"
+
+"On the faith of an honest man," she answered laughingly.
+
+"And yet I have been assured since that time, that you adored another
+before that one."
+
+"It is possible," said Marianne with sudden bitterness; "but, in the
+life that I have led, I have been so often purchased that I have been
+more than once able to mistake for love the pleasure that I have
+derived."
+
+In those words, uttered sharply, and in a hissing tone like the stroke
+of a whip-lash in the air, she had expressed so much suffering and
+hidden anger that Lissac was strangely affected.
+
+Guy, the Parisian, experienced a sentiment altogether curious and
+unexpected, and this woman whose bare neck was resting on the back of
+the armchair, allowing the smoke that issued from her lips in puffs to
+enter her quivering nostrils, seemed to him a new creature, a stranger
+who had come there to tempt him. In her languishing and, as it were,
+abandoned pose, he followed the outline of her graceful body, blooming
+in its youth, the fulness of her bust, the lines of her skirt closely
+clinging to her exquisite hips, and the unlooked-for return of the lost
+mistress, the forgotten one, assumed in his eyes the relish of a caprice
+and an adventure. And then, that bitter remark, spoken in the course of
+their light Parisian gossip, whetted his curiosity still further and
+awoke, perhaps, all the latent force of a passion formerly suddenly
+severed.
+
+He was seated on an ottoman beside Marianne, gazing into the young
+woman's clear eyes, his hand endeavoring to seize a white hand that
+nimbly eluded his grasp. The movement of his hands suggested the embrace
+that his feelings prompted.
+
+Marianne suddenly looked him full in the face and curtly said, in a tone
+of raillery, that suggested a past that refused to reopen an account for
+the future:
+
+"Oh! oh! but is that making love, my friend?"
+
+Lissac smiled.
+
+"Come," she said, "nonsense! That is a romance whose pages you have
+already often turned over."
+
+"The romance of my life," whispered Lissac in Marianne's ear.
+
+"The more reason that it should not be read again. It is true there are
+books one never reads but once. And for that reason, probably, one never
+forgets them."
+
+She rose abruptly, threw the stump of her cigarette into the fire and
+looked with a bright, penetrating glance, into Lissac's surprised eyes.
+
+"Ah! it is a long while, you see, since you spoke laughingly--we have
+both heartily laughed at it--of the 'caprices of Marianne.' Do you know
+what I am, my dear Guy? Yes, where is the mad creature who was formerly
+your mistress? Abandoned to dark, profound and incurable _ennui_, I yawn
+my life away, as some one said, I yawn it away even to the point of
+dislocating my jaw. The days seem dull to me, people stupid, books
+insipid, while fools seem idiots and witty people fools. It is to have
+the blues, if you will, or rather to have the grays, to hate colorless
+objects, to be weary of the commonplace, to thirst for the impossible. A
+thirst that cannot be allayed, let me add. The pure, fresh spring that
+should slake my thirst has not yet gushed."
+
+She talked in a dry, bitter tone, with a smile that frequently gave way
+to slight outbreaks of convulsive laughter almost as if she were
+attacked with a fit of coughing. From time to time, she blew away a
+cloud of smoke that escaped from her lips, for she had resumed her
+cigarette, or with the tip of her nail struck her papelito, knocking the
+ashes on the carpet.
+
+Moved and greatly puzzled, but no longer thinking of the temptation of a
+moment before, Guy looked at her and nodded his head gravely, like a
+physician who finds a patient's illness more serious than the latter is
+willing to acknowledge.
+
+"You are very unhappy, Marianne!" he remarked.
+
+"I? Nonsense! Weary, disgusted, bored, yes; but not unhappy. There is
+still something great in misery. That can be battled against. It is like
+thunder. But the rain, the eternal rain, incessantly falling, with its
+liquid mud, that--ah! that, ugh! that is crushing. And in my life it
+rains, it rains with terrible constancy."
+
+As she uttered these words, she stretched her arms out with a movement
+that expressed boundless weariness and disclosed to Guy the dull
+dejection that followed a great deception and a hopeless fall.
+
+"Life? My life? A mere millstone mechanically revolving. A perpetual
+round of joyless love-episodes and intoxication without thirst. Do you
+understand? The life of a courtesan endured by a true woman. My soul is
+mine, my spirit and my intellect, but these are chained to a body that I
+abandon to others--whom I have abandoned, thank God! for I am satiated
+at length and have now no lover, nor do I desire one. I desire to be my
+own mistress, in short, and not the mistress of any person. I have but
+one desire, hear--"
+
+"What?" asked Guy, who was deeply moved by this outburst of anger and
+suffering, this cry of pain that declared itself involuntarily, his
+feelings vacillating between doubt and pity.
+
+"My pleasure," Marianne replied, "is to shut myself up alone in a little
+room that I have rented at the end of an unfrequented lane near the
+Jardin des Plantes, whither I have had transported all the wreckage
+saved from my past life: books, knickknacks, portraits, and I know not
+what. My intention is that I shall remain there unknown to all, my name,
+whence I come, where I go, my thoughts, my hatred, my past loves,
+everything, in fact, a secret. I shall cloister myself. I shall stretch
+myself out on a reclining-chair and think that if, by chance,--as
+happens sometimes--an aneurism, a congestion, or I don't know what,
+should strike me down in that solitude, no one would know who I am,
+nobody, nobody, and my body would be taken to the Morgue, or to the
+grave, it matters little to me, that body of which the little
+otter-trimmed toques recall to you the graceful, serpentine line. Ah!
+those plans are not very lively, are they? Well, my dear, such are my
+good moments. Judge of the others, then."
+
+Lissac was profoundly stirred and very greatly puzzled. To call on him:
+that implied a need of him. But there was no attempt to find the marker
+at the place where the romance had been interrupted: therefore the visit
+was not to renew the relations that had been severed, yet not broken.
+
+What, then, brought this creature, still charming and giddy, whose heart
+was gnawed and wrung with grief? And was she the woman--Guy knew her so
+well!--to return thus, only to conjure up the vanished recollections, to
+communicate the secret of her present sorrows and to permit Lissac to
+inhale the odor of a departed perfume, more airy than the blue
+smoke-wreaths that escaped from her cigarette?
+
+After entrusting Guy with the secret of her yearning for solitude, she
+again indulged in her sickly smile, and still looking at Guy:
+
+"You are, I am told, a constant guest at Sabine Marsy's receptions?" she
+said abruptly.
+
+"Yes," replied Lissac. "But I have no great liking for political
+salons."
+
+"It is a political centre, and yet not, seemingly. It is about to become
+a scientific one, if one may believe the reporters--Monsieur de Rosas is
+announced.--By the way, my dear Guy, you still see Monsieur de Rosas!"
+
+While Marianne uttered this name with an indifferent tone, she slightly
+bent her head in order to scrutinize Guy.
+
+He did not reply at once, seeking first to discover what object
+Marianne had in speaking to him about De Rosas. In a vague way he
+surmised that the great Castilian noble counted for something in
+Marianne's visit.
+
+"I always see him when he is in Paris," he said after a moment's pause.
+
+"Then you will see him very soon, for he will arrive to-morrow."
+
+"Who told you that?"
+
+"The newspapers. You don't read the newspapers, then?--He is returning
+from the East. Madame Marsy is bent on his narrating his travels, on the
+occasion of a special soiree. A lecture! Our Rosas must have altered
+immensely. He was wild enough of old."
+
+"A shy fellow, which is quite different. But," asked Lissac after a
+moment, "what about Rosas?"
+
+"Tell me, in the first place, that you know perfectly well that he will
+arrive to-morrow."
+
+"I know it through the reporters, as you say. To-day, it is through the
+reporters that one learns news of one's friends."
+
+"The important fact is that you know him, and it is because I am
+particularly anxious to hear Monsieur de Rosas that I come to ask you to
+present me at Madame Marsy's."
+
+"Oh! that is it?" Guy began.
+
+"Yes, that is it. I am weary. I am crazy over the Orient. You remember
+Felicien David's _Desert_ that I used to play for you on the piano? I
+would like to hear this story of travel. It would make me forget Paris."
+
+"You shall hear it, my dear Marianne. Madame Marsy asked me to introduce
+Vaudrey to her the other evening. You ask me to present you to Madame
+Marsy. I am both crimp and introducer; but I am delighted to introduce
+you to a salon that you will, I trust, find less gloomy than your little
+room of the Jardin des Plantes. In fact, I thought you were one of
+Sabine Marsy's friends. Did I dream so?"
+
+"I have occasionally met her, and have found her very agreeable. She
+invited me to call on her, but I have not dared--my hunger for
+solitude--my den yonder--"
+
+"Is the little room forbidden ground, is one absolutely prohibited from
+seeing it?" said Guy with a smile.
+
+"It is not forbidden, but it is difficult. Moreover, I have nothing
+hidden from my friends," said Marianne, "on one condition, which is,
+that they are my friends--"
+
+She emphasized the words: "Nothing but my friends."
+
+"Friendship," said Guy, "is all very well, it is very good, very
+agreeable, but--"
+
+"But--?"
+
+"Love--"
+
+"Do not mention that to me! That takes wings, b-r-r! Like swallows. It
+flits. It leaves for Italy. But friendship--"
+
+She extended her small firm hand as rigid as steel.
+
+"When you desire to visit me over there, I shall be at home. I will give
+you the address. But it is not Guy who will come, but Monsieur de
+Lissac, remember. Is that understood?"
+
+"I should be very silly if I answered _yes_."
+
+Marianne shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Compliments! How foolish you are! Keep that sort of talk for others. It
+is a long time since they were addressed to me."
+
+She took that man's face between her hands and kissed his cheeks in a
+frank, friendly way. Guy became somewhat pale.
+
+"I have loved you, and truly, that is enough. Do not complain or ask
+aught besides."
+
+Ah! what an eager desire now prompted him to possess her again, to find
+in her his mistress once more, to restrain her from leaving until she
+had become his, as of old.
+
+She had already thrown her cloak over her shoulders, and said, as she
+gently pushed open the door:
+
+"So it is agreed? I am to go to Madame Marsy's?"
+
+"To Madame Marsy's. I will have an invitation sent you."
+
+"And I will call for you and take you. Yes, I, here, like a jolly
+companion. Or I'll go with my uncle. You will present me to Rosas. We
+shall see if he recognizes me."
+
+She burst out laughing. "You will also introduce me--since that is your
+occupation--" and here her smile disclosed her pretty, almost
+mischievous-looking teeth--"to Monsieur Vaudrey, your comrade. A
+minister! Such people are always useful for something. _Addio, caro!_"
+
+Guy de Lissac had hardly taken two steps toward Marianne before she had
+vanished behind the heavy folds of the Japanese portiere that fell in
+its place behind her. He opened the door. Mademoiselle Kayser was
+already in the hall, with her hand on the handle of the door.
+
+"At nine o'clock I shall be with you," she said to Lissac as she
+disappeared.
+
+She waved a salutation, the valet de chambre hastened to open the door,
+and her outline, that for a moment stood out in the light of the
+staircase, vanished. Guy was almost angry, and returned to his room.
+
+Now that she had left, he opened his window quickly. It seemed to him
+that a little blue smoke escaped from the room, the cloud emitted by
+Marianne's cigarette. And with this bluish vapor also disappeared the
+odor of new-mown hay, bearing with it the passing intoxication that for
+a moment threatened to ensnare this disabused man.
+
+The cold outside air, the bright sunshine, entered in quivering rays.
+Without, the snow-covered roofs stood out clearly against a soft blue
+sky, limpid and springlike. Light wreaths of smoke floated upward in the
+bracing atmosphere.
+
+Guy freely inhaled this buoyant atmosphere that chased away the blended
+odor of tobacco and that exhaled from the woman. It seemed to him that a
+sort of band had been torn from his brow which, but a moment ago, felt
+compressed. The fresh breeze bore away all trace of Marianne's kisses.
+
+"Must I always be a child?" he thought. "It is not on my account that
+she came here, but on Rosas's. Our friends' friends are our lovers.
+Egad! on my word, I was almost taken in again, nevertheless! Compelled,
+in order to cut adrift again, to make another journey to Italy,--at my
+age."
+
+Then, feeling chilly, he closed the window, laughing as he did so.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+On the pavement of the Boulevard Malesherbes, two policemen, wrapped in
+their hooded coats, restrained the crowd that gathered in front of the
+huge double-door of the house occupied by Madame Marsy. A double row of
+curious idlers stood motionless, braving benumbed fingers while
+watching the carriages that rolled under the archway, which, after
+quickly depositing at the foot of the brilliantly lighted perron women
+enveloped in burnooses and men in white gloves, their faces half-hidden
+by fur collars, turned and crossed the row of approaching coupes.
+
+For an hour past there had been a double file of carriages, and a
+continuous stream of guests arriving on foot, who threw their cigars at
+the foot of the perron, chatting as they ascended the steps, which were
+protected by a covering of glass. The curious pointed out the faces of
+well-known persons. It was said in the neighborhood that the greater
+part of the ministers had accepted invitations.
+
+Madame Marsy's salons were brilliant under the blazing lights. Guests
+jostled each other in the lobbies. Overcoats and mantles were thrown in
+heaps or strung up in haste, the gloved hands reaching out as in the
+lobby of a theatre to receive the piece of numbered pasteboard.
+
+"You have No. 113," said Monsieur de Lissac to Marianne, who had just
+entered, wearing a pale blue cloak, and leaning on his arm.
+
+She smiled as she slipped the tiny card into her pocket.
+
+"Oh! I am not superstitious!"
+
+She beamed with satisfaction.
+
+People in the hall stood aside in order to allow this pretty creature
+to pass by; her fair hair fell over her plump, though slender, white
+shoulders, and the folds of her satin skirt, falling over her
+magnificent hips, rustled as she walked.
+
+Lissac, with his eyeglass fixed, and ceremoniously carrying his
+flattened opera-hat, advanced toward the salon, amid the greedy
+curiosity of the guests who contemplated the exquisite grace of the
+lovely girl as if they were inhaling its charm.
+
+Madame Marsy stood at the entrance of the salon, looking attractive in a
+toilet of black silk which heightened her fair beauty, and, with
+extended hands, smilingly greeted all her guests, while the charming
+Madame Gerson, refined and tactful, aided her in receiving.
+
+Sabine appeared perfectly charmed on perceiving Marianne. She had felt
+the influence formerly of this ready, keen and daring intelligence. She
+troubled herself but little about Marianne's past. Kayser's niece was
+received everywhere, and had not Kayser decided to accompany her? He
+followed in the rear of the young girl. People had not observed him. He
+chatted with a man about sixty years old, with a white beard and very
+gentle eyes who listened to him good-naturedly while thinking perhaps of
+something else.
+
+"Ah! my old Ramel, how glad I am to see you!" he said with theatrical
+effusion.
+
+"It is a fact that we rarely see each other. What has become of you,
+Kayser?"
+
+"I? I work. I protest, you know, I have never compromised--Never--The
+dignity of art--"
+
+Their voices were drowned by the hubbub of the first salon, already
+filled with guests; Sabine meanwhile took Marianne, whom Lissac
+surrendered, and led her toward a larger salon with red decorations,
+wherein the chairs were drawn up in lines before an empty space,
+forming, thanks to the voluminous folds of the curtains, a sort of stage
+on which, doubtless, some looked-for actor was about to appear.
+
+Nearly all these chairs were already occupied. The lovely faces of the
+women were illuminated by the dazzling light. Everybody turned toward
+Marianne as she entered the room, under the guidance of Sabine, who led
+her quickly toward one of the unoccupied seats, close to the improvised
+stage on which, evidently, Monsieur de Rosas was going to speak.
+
+Madame Gerson had taken her seat near Marianne, who searched her black,
+bright eyes with a penetrating glance in order to interrogate the
+thoughts of this friend of the family. Madame Gerson was delighted.
+Sabine, dear Sabine, had achieved a success, yes, a success! Monsieur
+Vaudrey was there! And Madame Vaudrey, too! And Monsieur Collard--of
+Nantes--the President of the Council! And Monsieur Pichereau, who, after
+all, had been a minister!
+
+"That makes almost three ministers, one of whom is President of the
+Council! Sabine is overcome with joy, yes, absolutely crazy! Think of
+it: Madame Hertzfield, Sabine's rival, never had more than two ministers
+at a time in her salon."
+
+She added, prattling in soft, linnet-like tones, that Madame
+Hertzfield's salon was losing its prestige. Only sub-prefects were
+created there. But Sabine's salon was the antechamber to the
+prefectures!
+
+"And if you knew how charming Monsieur Vaudrey is--a delightful
+conversationalist--he has dined excellently--he was twice served with
+an entree!"
+
+Marianne listened, but her mind was wandering far away. She was debating
+with herself as to when Monsieur de Rosas would appear on that narrow
+strip of waxed floor before her.
+
+Guy had correctly surmised: it was Rosas and Rosas only whom this woman
+was seeking in Sabine's salon. She wished to see him again, to talk to
+him, to tempt destiny. A fancy.--A final caprice. Why not?
+
+Marianne thought that she played a leading part there. She remembered
+this Jose very well, having met him more than once in former days with
+Guy. A Parisian Castilian, more Parisian than Spanish, he spoke with
+exquisite finish the classic tongue, and with the free-and-easy manner
+of a frequenter of the boulevards, chatted in the slang of the pavement
+or of the greenroom; he was an eminent virtuoso and collector, an author
+when the desire seized him, but only in his own interest, liberal in
+his opinions, lavish in his disposition, attractive in his manners; an
+eager traveller, he had, at thirty years of age, seen all that was to be
+seen, he had visited India and Japan, drunk camel's milk under the tents
+of the Kirgheez, and eaten dates with the Kabyles, and narrated with a
+sort of appetizing irony, love adventures which might have seemed
+romantic brag, if it were not that he lessened their improbability by
+his raillery. He was a kind of belated Byron, who might have been cured
+of his romantic tastes by the wounds and contact of reality.
+
+She especially recalled a visit in Guy's company to Jose at an apartment
+that the duke had furnished in Rue de Laval. He occupied a painter's
+large studio, draping it with Oriental tapestry, crowding it with
+knickknacks and panoplies of weapons: an extravagant luxury,--something
+like the embarrassment of riches in a plundered caravansary. It was
+there that Jose had regaled Marianne and Guy with coffee served in
+Turkish fashion, and while they chatted, they had smoked that pale
+Oriental tobacco, that the Spaniard, quoting some Persian poets,
+gallantly compared to the perfumed locks of Mademoiselle Kayser.
+
+During her years of hardship, she had many a time recalled that
+auburn-haired, handsome fellow, with his blue eye, pensive and
+searching, and lower lip curled disdainfully over his tawny beard
+trimmed in Charles V. style, as he reclined there, stretched on Hindoo
+rugs, chanting some monotonous song as slow as the movement of a
+caravan.
+
+"Isn't my friend Rosas a delightful fellow?" Guy had asked her.
+
+"Delightful!"
+
+"And clever! and learned! and entertaining! and, what is not amiss, a
+multi-millionaire!"
+
+Marianne thought of the absolute power, satisfied desires, whims and
+possible dreams that were linked with that man. He was a mass of
+perambulating gold. How many times she had dreamed, in the mists of her
+recollection, of that somewhat haughty smile that curled his delicate
+mustache, and those keen-edged teeth gleaming though his reddish beard,
+as if greedy to bury themselves deep in flesh!
+
+But where was the duke now? Among the Kabyles or the Mormons? At Tahiti,
+Greenland, or gone to the devil? The papers had once announced that he
+was organizing an expedition to the North Pole. Perhaps he was lost
+among the icebergs in the Arctic Seas! She smiled at that, sighing
+involuntarily with sincere emotion, but prompted by selfish regret.
+
+It had seemed to her that Jose had more than once permitted himself to
+express his affection for her. Politely, correctly, of course, as a
+gallant man addresses a friend's mistress, but manifesting in his
+reserve a host of understood sentiments and tender restraint that
+suggested hidden or implied declarations. Marianne had pretended not to
+understand him. At that time, she loved Guy or thought that she loved
+him, which amounts to the same thing. She contented herself with smiling
+at the flirtation of Monsieur de Rosas.
+
+"I have perhaps been very stupid," she said to herself. "Pshaw! he might
+have been as silly as I, if occasion demanded. The obligations of
+friendship! The phantom of Guy!"
+
+She suddenly stopped and this name escaped her lips: _Jose_--_Joseph!_
+
+Nevertheless, this was one of the vexations of this girl: she was angry
+because she had acted rightly. Others suffer remorse for their ill
+deeds, but she suffered for her virtue. She often thought of the Duc de
+Rosas, as her mother Eve must have thought of Paradise lost. She would
+have stirred, astonished, conquered, crushed Paris, if she had been the
+mistress of Rosas.
+
+"What then! Whose fault was it? How foolish of one not to dare
+everything!"
+
+Now see how suddenly and unexpectedly, just as an adversary might offer
+an opportunity for revenge, chance, at the turning-point of her life,
+had brought back to Paris this Jose whom she had never forgotten, and
+who perhaps remembered her, and by whom she would be recognized most
+assuredly, in any case. It was an unhoped, unlooked-for opportunity that
+restored Marianne's faith in herself, superstitious as she was, like all
+successful gamblers.
+
+She had fallen, but how she could raise herself by the arms of the duke!
+One must be determined.
+
+Guy and Sabine were met on the way, like two helpers. She profited by
+this circumstance, using the one to reach the other and to gain Rosas
+from the latter. She bore a grudge, nevertheless, against Guy de Lissac,
+the insolent and silly fellow who had formerly left her. Bah! before
+taking vengeance on him, it was most important to make use of him, and,
+after all, revenge is so wearisome and useless.
+
+Now Kayser's niece, Guy's mistress, a woman who had given herself or who
+had been taken, who had sold herself or who had been purchased, a young
+girl who remained so in features, gracefulness and the virgin charms
+that clothed her courtesan's body--her smile a virgin's, her glance full
+of frolic--Marianne was now within a few feet of him whom she expected,
+wishing for him as a seducer desires a woman.
+
+"If he has loved me one moment, one single moment, Rosas will love me,"
+she thought.
+
+The salon was stiflingly hot, but Marianne was determined to keep
+herself in the first row, to be directly under the eye of the duke.
+
+She felt the waves of over-heated air rise to her temples, and at times
+she feared that she would faint, half-stifled as she was and
+unaccustomed now to attend soirees. She remained, however, looking
+anxiously toward the door, watching for the appearance of the traveller
+and wondering when the pale face of the Spaniard would show itself.
+
+At a short distance from her there was a young woman of twenty-three or
+twenty-four, courted like a queen and somewhat confused by the many
+questions addressed to her; robed in a white gown, she was extremely
+pretty, fair, and wore natural roses in her ash-colored hair, her eyes
+had a wondering expression, her cheeks were flushed, and in her amiable,
+gracious manner, she disclosed a touch of provincialism, modesty and
+hesitation--Marianne heard Madame Gerson say to her neighbors:
+
+"It is the minister's wife."
+
+"Madame Vaudrey?"
+
+"Yes! Very charming, isn't she?"
+
+"Ravishingly pretty! Fresh-looking!"
+
+Then in lowered tone:
+
+"Too fresh!"
+
+"Rather provincial!"
+
+And one voice replied, in an ironical, apologetic tone:
+
+"Bless me, my dear, nothing dashing! Hair and complexion peculiarly her
+own! So much the better."
+
+Notwithstanding the low tone of this conversation, Marianne heard it
+all. One by one, every one looked at this young woman who borrowed her
+golden tints from the rising sun. She bore the popular name of the new
+minister. She entered into prominence with him, accepting gracefully and
+unaffectedly the weight of his fame. Her timid, almost restless,
+uncertain smile, seemed to crave from the other women pardon for her own
+success, and there, surrounded by a group of men seated near the window,
+were two persons for whom chairs had just been placed, one of whom was a
+young, happy man, who exhaled an atmosphere of joy, and looked from time
+to time toward Adrienne and Marianne as if to see if the young wife were
+annoyed.
+
+"Where is Monsieur Vaudrey then?" Marianne asked Madame Gerson.
+
+"Why, he is just opposite to you! There on your right, beside Monsieur
+Collard, and he is devouring you with his glances."
+
+"Ah, bah!" said Marianne with an indifferent smile.
+
+And she looked in her turn.
+
+She had, in fact, already noticed this very elegant man who had been
+watching her for some time.
+
+But how could she know that he was Monsieur Vaudrey? He was delightful,
+moreover, sprightly in manner and of keen intelligence. A few moments
+before, she had heard him, as she passed by him under Sabine's guidance,
+utter some flattering remarks which had charmed her and made her smile.
+
+Ah! that was Vaudrey?
+
+She had often heard him spoken of. She had read of his speeches. She had
+even frequently seen his photograph in the stationers' windows.
+
+The determined air of this young man, whom she knew to be eloquent, had
+pleased her. She ought then to have recognized him. He was exactly as
+his photographs represented him.
+
+Of all the glances bestowed on the minister, Marianne's especially
+attracted Sulpice. A moment previously he had felt a singular charm at
+the appearance of this woman, threading her way directly between the
+rows of men by whom she was so crowded as to be in danger of having her
+garments pulled from her body. In his love of definitions and analyses,
+Vaudrey had never pictured the Parisian woman otherwise, with her
+piquant and instantaneous seductiveness, as penetrating as a subtle
+essence.
+
+Marianne, smiling restlessly, looked at him and allowed him to look at
+her.
+
+Her cheeks, which were extremely pale, suddenly became flushed as if
+their color were heightened by some feverish attack, when, amid the stir
+caused by the curiosity of the guests, and a greeting manifested by the
+shuffling of feet and the murmuring of voices, Monsieur de Rosas
+appeared; his air was somewhat embarrassed, he offered his arm to Madame
+Marsy, who conducted him to the narrow stage as if to present him.
+
+"At last! ah! it is he!"
+
+"It is really the Duc de Rosas, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, yes, it is he!"
+
+"He is charming!"
+
+The name of Rosas, although only repeated in an undertone by the lips
+of these women, rung in Marianne's ears, sounding like a quickstep
+played on a clarion. It seemed to her that a decisive moment in her life
+was announced fantastically in those utterances. Even now, while burning
+with the very fever of her eagerness, she felt the gambler's
+superstition. As soon as she saw Jose, she said to herself at once that
+if he saw her and recognized her first glance, then he had not forgotten
+her and she could hope for everything. Everything! "Men happily forget
+less quickly than women," she thought. "Through egotism, or from regret,
+some abandon themselves to their reminiscences with complacency, like
+this Guy, and recognize on our countenances the lines of their own
+youth. Others, perhaps, mourn over the lost opportunity, and the duke is
+sentimental enough to be of that class."
+
+She thought that Rosas must look at her, yes, at any cost; and with body
+inclined, her chin resting on her gloved right hand, while the other
+handled her fan with the skill peculiar to the Spanish women, she darted
+at the duke a rapid glance, a glance burning with desire and in which
+she expressed her whole will. The human eye has within it all the power
+of attraction possessed by a magnetic needle. As if he had experienced
+the actual effect of that glance fixed on his countenance, the duke
+raised his head after a polite but somewhat curtly elegant bow, to look
+at the audience of lovely women whom Sabine had gathered to greet him,
+and, as if only Marianne had been present, he at once saw the
+motionless young woman silently contemplating him.
+
+Rosas, as he appeared within the frame formed by the red curtains, his
+thin, regular and ruddy face looking pale against the white of his
+cravat and the bosom of his shirt, looked like a portrait of a Castilian
+of the time of Philip II., clothed in modern costume, his fashionable
+black clothes relieved only by a touch of vermilion, a red rosette. But
+however fashionable the cut of his clothes might be, on this man with
+the vague blue eyes, and looking contemplative and sad with his upturned
+moustache, the black coat assumed the appearance of a _doublet_ of old,
+on which the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor looked like a diminutive
+cross of Calatrava upon a velvet cloak.
+
+In fixing, to some extent, his wandering glance on the fervent look of
+Marianne, this melancholy Spanish face was instinctively lighted up with
+a fleeting smile that immediately passed and was followed by a slight,
+respectful bow, quite sufficient, however, to surround the young woman
+with an atmosphere that seemed to glow.
+
+"He has recognized me! at once! come!--I am not forgotten."
+
+As in the glorious moment of victory, her bloodless face was overspread
+with a dazzling expression of joy. Boldly raising her head and inviting
+his glances as she had braved them, she listened, with glowing eyes,
+drinking each word that flowed from his lips, her nostrils distended as
+if to scent the approach of an Oriental perfume, to the recital of the
+narrative commenced by the duke in a measured, cajoling tone, which grew
+animated and louder.
+
+Everybody listened to Rosas. Only the slight fluttering of fans was
+heard like a beating of wings. Without changing the tone of his
+discourse, and recounting his travels to his audience as if he were
+addressing only Marianne, he told in a voice more Italian than Spanish,
+in musical, non-guttural cadences, of his experiences on the borders of
+the Nile, of the weariness of the caravans, of the nights passed under
+star-strewn skies, of the songs of the camel-driver, slowly intoned like
+prayers, of the gloom of solitary wastes and of the poetic associations
+of the ruins slumbering amid the red sands of the desert. At times he
+recited a translation of an Arabian song or remarked in passing, on some
+mournful ballad, refined as a Sennett, deep as the infinite, in which
+the eternal words of love, tender and affecting in all languages,
+assumed an intensely poetic character under the influence of their
+Semitic nature; songs in which passers-by, strangers, lovers dead for
+centuries, who had strewed, as it were, their joys and their sobs over
+the sands of the desert, told the color of the hair and of the eyes of
+their dear ones, pleaded with their betrothed dead for the alms of love,
+and promised to spectres of women rose-colored garments and flowers that
+time would never wither.
+
+These songs of Arabs dying for Nazarenes, of sons of Mohammed
+sacrificing themselves for the daughters of Aissa were so translated by
+this Castilian that the exquisite charm of the original, filtered
+through his rendering, lost none,--even in French,--of the special
+characteristics of his own nation, a half-daughter of the Orient. And
+inevitably, with its melancholy repetition, the poetry he spoke of dwelt
+on wounded, suffering love, on the anguish of timid hearts, and the sobs
+of unknown despairing Arabs, buried for ages under the sands of the
+desert.
+
+The duke seemed to take pleasure in dwelling on these poetic quotations
+rather than on the reminiscences of his travels. His individuality, his
+own impressions vanished before this passionate legacy bequeathed by one
+human race to another. Marianne trembled, believing that she could see
+even in Rosas's thoughts a desire to speak especially for her and to
+her. Was it not thus that he spoke in his own house in the presence of
+Lissac, squatting on his divan like an Arab story-teller?
+
+She felt her youth renewed by the memory of all those past years. She
+thought herself back once more in the studio on Rue de Laval. Sabine
+Marsy's salon disappeared, Rosas was whispering in her ear, looking at
+her, and allowing the love that he felt to be perceived, in spite of
+Guy.
+
+Guy! who was Guy? Marianne troubled herself about no one but De Rosas.
+Only the duke existed now. Had Guy been blended with her life but for a
+single moment? She embraced Rosas with her burning glance.
+
+She no longer saw Sulpice, but he never looked away from Mademoiselle
+Kayser. He thought her a most charming woman. A magnetic fluid, as it
+were, flowed from her to this man, and he, with wandering mind, did not
+hear one word of Monsieur de Rosas's narrative, but concentrated his
+thoughts upon that pretty, enticing woman, whom he could not refrain
+from comparing with his wife, sitting so near her at this moment.
+
+Adrienne was very pretty, her beauty was more regular than the other's.
+Her smooth, blond hair was in contrast with the tumbled, auburn locks of
+Marianne, and yet, extraordinary as it was--Adrienne had never seemed to
+be so cold as on that evening, as she sat there motionless, watching,
+while a timid habitual smile played over her lips.
+
+Sulpice suffered somewhat in consequence of this awkwardness on
+Adrienne's part, contrasted as it was with the clever freedom of manner,
+graceful attitude, and flowing outlines of that disturbing neighbor,
+with her dull white countenance, half-closed mouth, strange curl of her
+lips, which seemed turned up as if in challenge. She was decidedly a
+Parisian, with all her intoxicating charms, that alluring, if vicious
+attraction that flows from the eyes of even modest girls. Some words
+spoken by Monsieur de Rosas reaching Vaudrey's ears--a description of
+the somewhat fantastical preparation of poison by the Indians,
+explained by the duke by way of parenthesis--suggested to Sulpice that
+the most subtle, the gentlest and most certainly deadly poison was,
+after all, the filtering of a woman's glance through the very flesh of a
+man, and he thirsted for that longed-for poison, intoxicating and
+delicious--
+
+He was anxious for the duke to finish his remarks. What interest had he
+in all those travels, those Arabic translations, that Oriental poetry,
+or that poison from America? He was seized with the desire to know what
+such a charming creature as Marianne thought. Ah! what a pretty girl! He
+had already inquired her name; he happened to know Uncle Kayser; the
+painter had formerly sent him a printed memoir _On the Method of
+Moralizing Art through the Mind_.
+
+The minister experienced on hearing Rosas the feeling of enervation that
+attacked him in the Chamber when, near the dinner-hour, an orator became
+too long-winded in his speech. He was unable to resist remarking in a
+whisper to the President of the Council, who was near him:
+
+"Suppose we call for the cloture?"
+
+Monsieur Collard in a diplomatic way expressed his approval of Rosas by
+a look that at the same time rebuked his colleague Vaudrey for his lack
+of sufficient gravity.
+
+The duke did not tire any one except Sulpice. He was listened to with
+delight. The sentimental exterior of this man concealed a jester's
+nature, and the sober appearance of this Castilian wore all the
+characteristics of a polished lounger. The least smile that animated his
+passive countenance became at once attractive. Marianne thought him most
+delightful, or rather, she found him just what she had formerly believed
+him to be, a refined, delicate and very simple man in spite of his
+graciously haughty manner. When he concluded, the room echoed with the
+thunder of the applause. Even in the adjoining rooms the people
+applauded, for silence had been secured so as to hear his remarks. With
+a wave of his gloved hand, Rosas seemed to disclaim that his discourse
+merited the applause, and he received the greetings as a man of the
+world receives a salutation, not as a tenor acknowledging the homage
+paid to him. He strove to make his way through the group of young men
+who were stationed behind him.
+
+"At last!" said Vaudrey, in a half-whisper.
+
+It was the moment for which he had been waiting. He would be able now to
+address himself to Mademoiselle Kayser!
+
+He hastened to offer his arm to Marianne.
+
+Madame Marsy, eagerly and quickly, had already appropriated Monsieur de
+Rosas, who was moreover surrounded and escorted by a crowd who
+congratulated him noisily. Except for that, Marianne would have gone
+direct to him in obedience to her desires.
+
+Vaudrey's arm, however, was not to be despised. The new minister was
+the leading figure in the assembly. She looked at Sulpice full in the
+face as if to inquire the cause of his eagerness in placing himself at
+her side, and observing that this somewhat mocking interrogation
+disconcerted him, she smiled at him graciously.
+
+She passed on smiling, amid the double row of guests who bowed as she
+passed. She suddenly felt a sort of bewilderment, it seemed to her that
+all these salutations were for her benefit. She believed herself created
+for adoration. Inwardly she felt well-disposed towards Sulpice now,
+because he had so gallantly chosen and distinguished her among all these
+women.
+
+After all, she would easily find Rosas again. And who knows? It would
+perhaps be better that the duke should seek her. Meanwhile, she crossed
+the salons, leaning on the arm of the minister. It was a kind of
+triumph.
+
+Good-naturedly and politely, but without pride, the minister received
+all these attentions, becoming as they were to him in his official
+capacity, and as he moved on he uttered from time to time some
+commonplace compliment to Marianne, reserving his more intimate remarks
+for the immediate future.
+
+Before the buffet, brilliant with light and the gleaming of crystal, the
+golden-tinted champagne sparkling in the goblets, the ruddy tone of the
+punch, the many fruits, the bright-colored _granite_ and the ices,
+Vaudrey stopped, releasing the arm of the young girl but remaining
+beside her and passing her the sherbet which a lackey handed him over
+the piled-up plates.
+
+Groups were always encircling him; searching, half-anxious glances
+greeted his. An eager hunt after smiles and greetings accompanied the
+hunt for _tutti frutti_. But the minister confined his attentions to
+Marianne, chafing under the eagerness of his desires, though bearing
+them with good grace, as if he were really the lover of the pretty girl.
+
+Marianne stood stirring the sherbet with the point of a silver-plated
+spoon, examining this statesman, as seductive as a fashionable man, with
+that womanly curiosity that divines a silent declaration. A gold weigher
+does not balance more keenly in his scales an unfamiliar coin than a
+woman estimates and gauges _the value_ of a stranger.
+
+Marianne readily understood that she had fascinated Vaudrey. This
+Vaudrey! Notwithstanding that he possessed a charming wife, he still
+permitted himself to recognize beauty in other women, and to tell them
+so, for he so informed Marianne! He declared it by his smile, his
+sparkling eyes, and the protecting bearing that he instinctively
+manifested in the presence of this creature who glanced at him with
+perfect composure.
+
+In the confusion attending the attack on the buffet and in the presence
+of the crowd that formed a half-circle round the minister, it was not
+possible for him to commit himself too much; and the conversation,
+half-drowned by the noise of voices, was carried on by fits and starts;
+but in order to make themselves understood, Vaudrey and Marianne drew
+nearer each other and found themselves occasionally almost pressed
+against each other, so that the light breath of this woman and the scent
+of new-mown hay that she exhaled, wafted over Sulpice's face. He looked
+at her so admiringly that it was noticeable. She was laced in a light
+blue satin gown that showed her rosy arms to the elbows, and her
+shoulders gleamed with a rosy tint that suggested the rays of a winter
+sun lighting up the pure snow. A singular animation, half-feverish,
+beamed in her small, piercing, restless eyes, and her delicate ears with
+their well-marked rims were quite red. The light that fell from the wax
+candles imparted to her hair a Titian red tint as if she had bound her
+locks with henna during the night. She was visibly assured of her power
+and smiled with a strange and provoking air.
+
+Vaudrey felt really much disturbed, he was attracted and half-angered by
+this pretty girl with dilating nostrils who calmly swallowed her glass
+of sherbet. He thought her at once exquisite and lovely, doubly charming
+with her Parisian grace and in her ball costume, her bare flesh as
+lustrous as mother-of-pearl under the brilliant light.
+
+Her corsage was ornamented on the left side by an embroidered black
+butterfly, with outstretched wings of a brownish, brilliant tint, and
+Vaudrey, with a smile, asked her, without quite understanding what he
+said, if it were an emblematic crest.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Precisely," she replied. "What I wear in my corsage I have in my mind.
+Black butterflies--or _blue devils_, as you choose."
+
+"You are not exceptional," said Sulpice. "All women are such."
+
+"All women in your opinion then, are a little--what is it called? a
+little out of the perpendicular--or to speak more to the point, a little
+queer, Monsieur le Ministre?"
+
+The minister smiled in his turn, and looked at Marianne, whose eyes,
+seen between the blinking lids, gleamed as the electric eyes of a cat
+shine between its long lashes.
+
+"No," he said, "no, but I blame them somewhat for loving the blue only
+in the butterflies of which you speak, the _blue devils_ that penetrate
+their brain! They are born for blue, however, for that which the
+provincial poets style 'the azure', and they shun it as if blue were
+detestable. _Blue!_ Nonsense! Good for men, those simpletons, who in the
+present age, are the only partisans of _blue_ in passion and in life."
+
+Whether he desired it or not, he had drawn still closer to this creature
+who studied him like a strategist while he fawned on her with his
+glances, losing himself in that "blue" of which he spoke with a certain
+elegance, in which he desired to express mockery, but which was
+nevertheless sincere. In the same jesting tone, pointing to the light
+blue of her gown, she said:
+
+"You see, your Excellency, that all women do not dislike blue."
+
+"If it is fashionable, _parbleu!_ And if it becomes their beauty as well
+as this stuff of yours, they would adore it, most assuredly."
+
+"They love it otherwise, too--In passion and in life. That depends on
+the women--and on men," she added, showing her white teeth while smiling
+graciously.
+
+She dropped her spoon in the saucer and handed the sherbet to a servant.
+With an involuntary movement--or perhaps, after all, it was a shrewdly
+calculated one--she almost grazed Sulpice's cheek and lips when she
+extended her round and firm arm, and Sulpice, who was somewhat
+bewildered, was severely tempted, like some collegian, to kiss it in
+passage.
+
+He closed his eyes and a moment after, on reopening them, the disturbing
+element having passed, he saw Marianne before him with her fan in her
+hand, and as if the image of which he spoke only now recurred to his
+memory, he said:
+
+"Mademoiselle, it seems to me that in this very costume and as charming
+as you are at this moment, I have seen your portrait at the Salon; is it
+not so?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "It is the very best painting that my uncle has
+produced."
+
+"I thought it excellent before seeing you," said Sulpice, "but now--"
+
+She did not feel satisfied with the smile that accompanied the
+compliment. She wished to hear the entire phrase.
+
+"Now--?" said she, as a most seductive smile played on her lips.
+
+"Now, I find it inferior to the original!"
+
+"One always says so, your Excellency, except perhaps to the artist; but
+I was greatly afraid that you would not think me so, arrayed in
+this--this famous blue--this sky-blue that you love so much."
+
+"And that I love a hundred times more from this evening forward," said
+he, in a changed and genuinely affected tone.
+
+She did not reply, but looked at him full in the face as if to inform
+him that she understood him. He was quite pale.
+
+"Would you not like to be one of the bright ornaments of my salon, as
+you are of that of Madame Marsy?" said he, in a whisper.
+
+"With the greatest happiness, your Excellency."
+
+What Sulpice said was not heard by the others; but Marianne felt that
+she was observed, envied already, and manifested her complete
+satisfaction with a toss of her head. In this atmosphere of flattery,
+oppressive as with the heavy odor of incense, she experienced a
+sensation of omnipotence, the intoxication of that power with which
+Vaudrey was invested, whose envied reflection was cast on her by that
+simple aside spoken in the midst of the crowd.
+
+She was delighted and exceedingly proud. She almost forgot that her
+visit had been made on Rosas's account.
+
+Vaudrey was about to add something, when Madame Marsy in passing to
+greet her guests, noticed Marianne and grasping her hand:
+
+"I beg your pardon, your Excellency," she said, "but I must take her
+away from you. I have been asked for her."
+
+"By whom?" said Vaudrey.
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas!"
+
+Vaudrey looked at Marianne. He observed distinctly a flash of joy
+illuminate her pale face and he felt a sudden and singular discontent,
+amounting almost to physical anguish. And why, great heavens?
+
+Marianne smiled a salutation; he half-bowed and watched her as she went
+away, with a sort of angry regret, as if he had something further to say
+to this woman who was almost a stranger to him, and who, guided by
+Sabine, now disappeared amid the crowd of black coats and bright
+toilets. And then, almost immediately and suddenly, he was surrounded
+and besieged by his colleagues of the Chamber, men either indifferent or
+seeking favors, who only awaited the conclusion of the conversation with
+Mademoiselle Kayser, which they would certainly have precipitated,
+except for the fear of acting indiscreetly, in order to precipitate
+themselves on him. Amid all those unknown persons who approached him,
+Vaudrey sought a friend as he felt himself lost and taken by assault by
+this rabble.
+
+The sight of the face of a friend, older than himself, a spare man with
+a white beard very carefully trimmed, caused him a feeling of pleasure,
+and he joyfully exclaimed:
+
+"Eh! _pardieu!_ why, here is Ramel!"
+
+He immediately extended both hands in warm greeting to this man of sixty
+years, wearing a white cravat twisted round his neck, like a neckerchief
+in the old-fashioned style, and whose black waistcoat with its standing
+collar of ancient pattern was conspicuous amid the open waistcoats of
+the fashionably-dressed young men who had been very eagerly surrounding
+the minister for the last few moments.
+
+"Good day, Ramel!--How delighted I am to see you!"--
+
+"And I also," said Ramel in a friendly and affectionate tone, while his
+face, that seemed severe, but was only good-natured and masculine,
+suddenly beamed. "It is not a little on your account that I came here."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Really. I was anxious to shake hands with you. It is so long since I
+saw you. How much has happened since then!"
+
+"Ah! Ramel, who the devil would have said that I should be minister when
+I took you my first article for the _Nation Francaise_!" said Vaudrey.
+"Bah! who is not a minister?" said Ramel. "You are. Remember what
+Napoleon said to Bourrienne as he entered the Tuileries: 'Here we are,
+Bourrienne! now we must stay here!'"
+
+"That is exactly what Granet said to me when he told me of the new
+combination."
+
+"Granet expressed in that more of an after-thought than your old Ramel."
+
+"My best friend," said Sulpice with emotion, grasping this man's hands
+in his.
+
+"It is so much more meritorious on your part to tell me that," said
+Ramel, "seeing that now you do not lack friendships."
+
+"You are still a pessimist, Ramel?"
+
+"I--A wild optimist, seeing that I believe everything and everybody! But
+I must necessarily believe in the stupidity of my fellows, and upon this
+point I am hardly mistaken."
+
+"But what brings you to Madame Marsy's, you who are a perfect savage?"
+
+"Tamed!--Because, I repeat to you, I knew that you were coming and that
+Monsieur de Rosas was to speak on the subject of savages, and these
+please me. If I had been rich or if I only had enough to live on, I
+should have passed my life in travelling. And in the end, I shall have
+lived between Montmartre and Batignolles: a tortoise dreaming that he is
+a swallow--"
+
+"Ramel, my dear fellow," said the minister, "would you wish me to give
+you a mission where you could go and study whatever seemed good to you?"
+
+"With my rheumatism? Thanks, your Excellency!" said Ramel, smiling. "No,
+I am too old, and never having asked any one for anything, I am not
+going to begin at my age."
+
+"You do not ask, it is offered you."
+
+"Well, I have no desire for that. I am at the hour of the _far niente_
+that precedes the final slumber. It is a pleasant condition. One has
+seen so many things and persons that one has no further desires."
+
+"The fact is," said the minister, "that if all the people you have
+obligated in your life had solicited an invitation from Madame Marsy,
+these salons would not be large enough to contain them."
+
+"Bah! they have all forgotten as I have, myself," said Ramel, with a
+shake of his head and smiling pleasantly.
+
+Vaudrey felt intense pleasure in meeting, in the midst of this crowd of
+indifferent or admiring persons, the man who had formerly seen him
+arrive in Paris, and with whom he had corresponded from the heart of his
+province, as with a kinsman. There was, in fact, between them, a
+relationship of mind and soul that united this veteran of the press with
+this young statesman.
+
+The ideal sought was the same, but the temperaments were different.
+Ramel, although he had known them, had for a long time avoided those
+excitements of struggle and power that inflamed Vaudrey's blood.
+
+"It was a glorious day when my pulse became regulated," he said.
+"Experience brought me the needed tonic."
+
+Denis Ramel was a wise man. He took life as he found it, without
+enthusiasm as without bitterness. He was not wealthy. More than sixty
+years old, he found himself, after a life of hard, rough and continuous
+struggle, as badly off as when he started out on his career, full of
+burning hopes. He had passed his life honorably as a journalist--a
+journalist of the good old times, of the school of thought, not of
+news-tellers,--he had loyally and conscientiously exercised a profession
+in which he took pleasure; he had read much, written much, consumed much
+midnight oil, touched upon everything; put his fingers into every kind
+of pie without soiling them, and after having valiantly turned the heavy
+millstone of daily labor incessantly renewed for forty years, he had
+reached the end of his journey, the brink of the grave, almost
+penniless, after having skirted Fortune and seen Opportunity float
+toward him her perfumed and intoxicating locks more than a hundred
+times. Bent, weary, almost forgotten, and unknown and misunderstood by
+the new generation, that styled this enthusiasm, more eager, moreover,
+than that of juvenile faith, "old"--he saw the newcomers rise as he
+might have beheld the descent of La Courtille.
+
+"It amuses me."
+
+Ramel had, in the course of his career as a publicist, as a dealer in
+fame, assisted without taking part therein, in the formation of
+syndicates, allotments of shares and financial intrigues; and putting
+his shoulder to the wheel of enterprises that appeared to him to be
+solid, while seeking to strike out those which appeared to be doubtful,
+he had created millionaires without asking a cent from them, just as he
+had made ministers without accepting even a thread of ribbon at their
+hands.
+
+This infatuating craft of a maker of men pleased him. All those pioneers
+in the great human comedy, he had seen on their entrance, hesitating and
+crying to him for assistance. This statesman, swelling out with his
+importance in the tribune, had received the benefit of his correction of
+his earlier harangues. He had encouraged, during his competition for the
+Prix de Rome, this member of the Institute who to-day represented
+national art at the Villa Medicis; he had seen this composer, now a
+millionaire, beg for a private rehearsal as he might ask alms, and slip
+into one's hands concert tickets for the Herz hall. He was the first to
+point out the verses of the poet who now wore _l'habit vert_. He had
+first heralded the fame of the actor now in vogue, of the tenor who
+to-day had his villas at Nice, yes, Ramel was the first to say: "He is
+one of the chosen few!"
+
+Old, weary and knowing, very gentle and refined in his banter, and
+refusing to be blinded or irritated by the trickeries of destiny, Denis
+Ramel, when asked why, at his age and with his talents, he was neither a
+deputy, nor a millionaire, nor a member of the Institute, but only a
+Warwick living like a poor devil, smiled and said, with the tone of a
+man who has probed to the bottom the affairs of life:
+
+"Bah! what is the use? All that is not so very desirable. Ministers,
+academicians, millionaires, prefects, men of power, I know all about
+them. I have made them all my life. The majority of those who strut
+about at this very time, well! well! it is I who made them!"
+
+And, like a philosopher allowing the rabble to pass him, who might have
+been their chief, but preferred to be their judge, he locked himself in
+his apartments with his books, his pictures, his engravings, his little
+collection slowly gathered year by year, article by article, smoking his
+pipe tranquilly, and at times reviewing the pages of his life, just as
+he might have fingered the leaves of a portfolio of engravings, thinking
+when he chanced to meet some notable person of the day who shunned him
+or merely saluted him curtly and stiffly:
+
+"You were not so proud when you came to ask me to certify your pay-slip
+for the cashier of the journal."
+
+Ramel had always greatly esteemed Sulpice Vaudrey. This man seemed to
+him to be more refined and less forgetful than others. Vaudrey had never
+"posed." As a minister, he recalled with deep emotion the period of his
+struggles. Ramel, the former manager of the _Nation Francaise_, was one
+of the objects of his affection and admiration. He would have been
+delighted to snatch this man from his seclusion and place him in the
+first rank, to make this sexagenarian who had created and moulded so
+many others, noteworthy by a sudden stroke.
+
+Amid the tumultuous throng, and feeling overjoyed to find once more one
+whom he could trust, to whom he could abandon himself entirely, he
+repeated to him in all sincerity:
+
+"Come, Ramel! Would you consent to be my secretary general?"
+
+"No! your Excellency," Ramel answered, as a kindly smile played beneath
+his white moustaches.
+
+"To oblige me?--To help me?"
+
+"No--Why, I am an egotist, my dear Vaudrey. Truly, that would make me
+too jealous. Take Navarrot," he added, as he pointed to a fashionable
+man, elegantly cravatted, carrying his head high, who had just greeted
+Vaudrey, using the same phrase eight times: "My dear minister--your
+Excellency--my minister--"
+
+"Navarrot?"
+
+"He appears to be very much attached to you!"
+
+"You are very wicked, Ramel. He holds to the office and not to the man.
+He is not the friend of the minister, but of ministers. He is one of the
+ordinary touters of the ministry. He applauds everything that their
+Excellencies choose to say."
+
+"Oh! I know those touters," said the old journalist. "When a minister is
+in power, they cheer him to the echo; when he is down, they belabor
+him."
+
+Vaudrey looked at him and laughingly said: "Begone, journalist!"
+
+"But at any rate,"--and here he extended his hand to Ramel,--"you will
+see me this evening?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And you still live at--?"
+
+"Rue Boursault, Boulevard des Batignolles."
+
+"Till then, my dear Ramel! If occasion require, you will not refuse to
+give me your advice?"
+
+"Nor my devotion. But without office, remember without office," said
+Ramel, still smiling.
+
+Vaudrey took great delight in chatting with his old friend, but for a
+moment he had been seized with an eager desire to find amid the
+increasing crowd that thronged the salons, the pretty girl who had
+appeared to him like a statue of Desire, whetted desire, but even in her
+charms somewhat unwholesome, yet disturbing and appetizing.
+
+He had come to Sabine Marsy's only by chance and as if to display in
+public the joy of his triumph, just as a newly decorated man willingly
+accepts invitations in order to show off his new ribbon, but he now felt
+happy for having done so. He had promised himself only to put himself in
+evidence and then disappear with Adrienne to the enjoyment of their
+usual chats, to taste that intimacy that was so dear to him, but which,
+since his establishment on Place Beauvau, had vanished.
+
+He habitually disliked such receptions as that in which he now took
+part, those soirees as fatiguing as those crowds where one packs six
+hundred persons in salons capable of holding only sixty: commonplace
+receptions, where the master of the house is as happy when he refuses
+invitations as a theatre-manager when his play is the rage; where one is
+stifled, crushed, and where one can only reach the salon after a
+pugilistic encounter, and where the capture of a glass of syrup entails
+an assault, and the securing of an overcoat demands a battle. He held in
+horror those salons where there is no conversation, where no one is
+acquainted, where, because of the hubbub of the crowd or the stifling
+silence attending a concert, one cannot exchange either ideas or
+phrases, not even a furtive handshake, because of the packing and
+crushing of the guests. It was a miracle that he had just been able to
+exchange a few words with Mademoiselle Kayser and Ramel. The vulgarity
+of the place had at once impressed him,--the more so because he was the
+object of attraction for all those crowded faces.
+
+All that gathering of insignificant, grave and pretentious young men,
+who, while they crowded, made their progress in the ranks of the
+sub-prefects, councillors of prefectures, picking up nominations under
+the feet of the influential guests as they would cigar stumps, disgusted
+him; men of twenty years, born, as it were, with white cravats,
+pretentious and pensive, creatures of office and not of work, haunting
+the Chambers and the antechambers, mere collectors of ideas, repeaters
+of serious commonplaces, salon democrats who would not offer their
+ungloved hand to a workman on the street; staff-majors ambitious of
+honors and not of devotion, whom he felt crowding around him, with
+smiles on their lips and applications in their pockets. How he preferred
+the quiet pleasure of reading at the fireside, a chat with a friend, or
+listening to one of Beethoven's sonatas, or a selection from Mendelssohn
+played by Adrienne, whose companionship made the unmarked flight of the
+hours pass more sweetly.
+
+It was for that that he was created. At least he thought so and believed
+it. And now this salon that he had simply desired to traverse, at once
+seemed altogether delightful to him. And all this was due to his meeting
+a divine creature in the midst of this crowd. He was eager to find
+Marianne, to see her again. She aroused his curiosity as some enigma
+might.
+
+What, then, was this woman, was she virtuous or of questionable status?
+Ah! she was a woman, or rather ten women in one, at the very least! A
+woman from head to foot! A woman to her finger tips, a refined, Parisian
+woman, perverse even in her virginity, and a virgin perhaps in her
+perversity. A problem in fair flesh.
+
+As Vaudrey hurriedly left the buffet, every one made way for him, and he
+crossed the salons, eagerly looking out for Marianne. As he passed
+along, he saw Guy de Lissac sitting on a chair upholstered in garnet
+satin, his right hand resting on the gilded back and chatting with
+Adrienne who was fanning herself leisurely. On noticing Sulpice, the
+young woman smiled at him even at a distance, the happy smile of a
+loving woman, and she embraced him with a pure glance, asking a question
+without uttering a word, knowing well that he habitually left in great
+haste.
+
+"Do you wish to return?" was the meaning of her questioning glance.
+
+He passed before her, replying with a smile, but without appearing to
+have understood her, and disappeared in another salon, while Lissac said
+to Adrienne:
+
+"What about the ministry, madame?"
+
+"Oh! don't speak to me of it!--it frightens me. In those rooms, it seems
+to me that I am not at home. Do you know just what I feel? I fancy
+myself travelling, never, however, leaving the house. Ministers
+certainly should be bachelors. Men have all the honor, but their wives
+endure all the weariness."
+
+"There must, however, be at the bottom of this weariness, some pleasure,
+since they so bitterly regret to take leave of it."
+
+"Ah! _Dieu!_" said Adrienne. "Already I believe that I should regret
+nothing. No, I assure you, nothing whatever."
+
+She, too, might have desired,--as Vaudrey did formerly--to leave the
+soiree, to be with her husband again, and she thought that Sulpice found
+it necessary to remain longer, since he had not definitely decided on
+going away.
+
+The new salon that he entered, communicated with a smaller, circular
+one, hung with Japanese silk draperies, and lighted by a Venetian
+chandelier that cast a subdued light over the divans upon which some of
+the guests sat chatting. Sulpice immediately divined, as if by instinct,
+that Marianne was there. He went straight in that direction, and as he
+entered the doorway, through the opening framed by two pale blue
+portieres, he saw in front of him, sitting side by side, the pretty girl
+and the Duc de Rosas to whom she had listened so attentively, almost
+devotedly, a little earlier; he recalled this now.
+
+The light fell directly on Mademoiselle Kayser's shoulders and played
+over her fair hair. The duke was looking at her.
+
+Vaudrey took but a single step forward.
+
+He experienced an altogether curious and inexplicable sensation. This
+tete-a-tete displeased him.
+
+At that moment, on half-turning round,--perhaps by chance--she perceived
+the minister and greeting him with a sweet smile, she rose and beckoned
+to him to approach her.
+
+The sky-blue satin hangings, on which the light fell, seemed like a
+natural framework for the beautiful blonde creature.
+
+"Your Excellency," she said, "permit me to introduce my friend, the Duc
+de Rosas, he is too accomplished not to appreciate eloquence and he
+entertains the greatest admiration for you."
+
+Rosas had risen in his turn, and greeted the minister with a very
+peculiar half-inclination, not as a suitor in the presence of a powerful
+man, but as a nobleman greeting a man of talent.
+
+Vaudrey sought to discover an agreeable word in the remarks of this man
+but he failed to do so. He had, nevertheless, just before applauded
+Rosas's remarks, either out of condescension or from politeness. But it
+seemed to him that here the duke was no longer the same man. He gave him
+the impression of an intruder who had thrust himself in the way that led
+to some possible opportunity. He nevertheless concealed all trace of the
+ill-humor that he himself could not define or explain, and ended by
+uttering a commonplace phrase in praise of the duke, but which really
+meant nothing.
+
+As he was about to move away, Marianne detained him by a gesture:
+
+"Well, your Excellency," she remarked, with a charming play of her lips
+as she smiled, "you see,"--and she pointed to the blue draperies of the
+little salon, as dainty as a boudoir--"you see that there are some women
+who like blue."
+
+"Yes, Madame Marsy!--" Vaudrey answered, with an entirely misplaced
+irony that naturally occurred to him, as a reproach.
+
+"So do I," said Marianne. "We have only chatted together five minutes,
+but I have found that time enough to discover that you and I have many
+tastes in common. I am greatly flattered thereby."
+
+"And I am very happy," replied Vaudrey, who was disturbed by her direct
+glances that pierced him like a blade.
+
+She had resumed her place on the divan, but Vaudrey had already forgiven
+her tete-a-tete with Rosas--and in truth, what had he to forgive?--This
+burning glance had effaced everything. He bore it away like a bright ray
+and still shuddered at the sensation he experienced.
+
+He was in a hurry to leave. He now felt a sudden attack of nervousness.
+He was at the same moment charmed and bored. Again he resumed--amid the
+throng that made way for him, humbly performing its duty as a crowd--his
+role of minister, raising his head, and greeting with his official
+smile, but, at the bottom of his heart, really consumed by an entirely
+different thought. His brain was full of blue, of floating clouds, and
+he still heard Marianne's voice ringing in his ears with an insinuating
+tone, whispering: "We have many tastes in common," together with all
+kinds of mutual understandings which, as it were, burned like a fire in
+his heart.
+
+He saw Adrienne still seated in the same place and smiling sweetly at
+him,--a smile of ardent devotion, but which seemed to him to be
+lukewarm. He leaned toward her, reached his hands out and said to De
+Lissac, hurriedly, as he grasped his hand: "We meet later, do we not,
+Guy?" Then he disappeared in the antechamber, while the servants
+hurried toward Madame Vaudrey, bearing her cloak, and as Vaudrey put on
+his overcoat, a voice called out:
+
+"His Excellency's carriage."
+
+"I am exhausted," said Adrienne, when she had taken her place in the
+carriage. "What about yourself?"
+
+"I? not at all! I am not at all tired. It was very entertaining! One
+must show one's self now--"
+
+"I know that very well," the young wife replied.
+
+Like a child who is anxious to go to sleep, she gently rested her
+hood-covered head on Sulpice's shoulder. Her tiny hands sought her
+husband's hand, to press it beneath her cloak, as warm as a nest; and
+after she had closed her eyes, overcome as she was by weariness, her
+breathing seemed to become gradually almost as regular as in slumber,
+and Sulpice Vaudrey recalled once more, beneath the light of the
+chandeliers, that pretty blonde, with her half-bare arms and shoulders,
+and strange eyes, who moistened her dry lips and smiled as she swallowed
+her sherbet.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+In the pretty little Japanese salon, with its panels of sky-blue satin,
+framed with gilded bamboo, Marianne was seated on the divan, half-facing
+the duke as if to penetrate his inward thoughts, and she seemed to the
+Castilian as she did to Vaudrey, to be a most charming creature amid
+all those surroundings that might have been made expressly to match her
+fair beauty. Moreover, with Rosas, her freedom of manner was entirely
+different from that which she manifested to Sulpice, and she embraced
+the young man with a passionate, fervent glance.
+
+Jose felt himself grow pale in the presence of this exquisite creature
+whose image, treasured in the depths of his heart, he had borne with him
+wherever his fancy had led him to travel. He gazed at her as a man looks
+at a woman whom he has long desired, but whom some urgent necessity has
+kept out of his way, and who by chance is suddenly brought near him,
+fate putting within our reach the dream--
+
+She was prettier than ever, graceful and blooming, "more matured," like
+a fruit whose color is more tempting to the appetite. Sabine had just
+before very naturally brought these two together and instinctively, as
+if they had to exchange many confidences, they had immediately sought a
+retired spot away from that crowd and were seated there in that salon
+where Vaudrey, already half-jealous, guessed that Marianne would be.
+
+Yes, indeed, she had many confidences to impart to that man who had
+suddenly entered the sphere of her life and had suddenly disappeared,
+remaining during several years as if dead to her. It seemed to her as
+they sat face to face that this flight of wasted time had made her still
+younger, and Rosas, notwithstanding his cold demeanor, allowed his
+former passion to be divined: the women one loves unmask one's secret
+before a man can himself explain what he feels.
+
+She felt a profound, sincere joy. She recalled a similar conversation
+with Jose in his studio, that Oriental corner hidden in the Rue de
+Laval. The Japanese satin enhanced the illusion.
+
+"Do you know that it seems to me," she said, "that I have been dreaming,
+and that I am not a whit older?"
+
+"You are not altered, in fact," said Rosas. "I am mistaken--"
+
+"Yes, I know. I have grown lovelier. That is a compliment that I am used
+to--Lissac has told me that already, only the other morning."
+
+She bit her lips almost imperceptibly, as if to blame herself for her
+imprudence, but had she mentioned Guy's name designedly, she could not
+have been better satisfied with the result. Monsieur de Rosas, usually
+very pale, became pallid, and a slight curl of his lip, although
+immediately suppressed, gave an upward turn to his reddish moustache.
+
+"Ah!" he said, "You still see Guy."
+
+"I!--I had not spoken a single word to him until I asked him to have an
+invitation sent me for this soiree, and then it was merely because I
+knew you would be here."
+
+"Ah!" said Jose again, without adding a word.
+
+Marianne was satisfied. She knew now that the duke still loved her,
+since the mention of Lissac's name had made him tremble. Well! she had
+shrewdly understood her Rosas.
+
+"And what have you been doing, my dear duke, for such an age?" she said.
+
+She looked at him as she had looked at Vaudrey, with her sweet and
+shrewd smile, which moved him profoundly, and her glance penetrated to
+the inmost depths of his being.
+
+"You know the old saying: 'I have lived.' It is great folly, perhaps,
+but it is the truth."
+
+"And I wager," boldly said Marianne, "that you have never thought of
+me."
+
+"Of you?"
+
+"Of me. Of that mad Marianne, who is the maddest creature of all those
+you have met in your travels from the North Pole to Cambodia, but who
+has by no means a wicked heart, although a sufficiently unhappy one, and
+that has never ceased to beat a little too rapidly at certain
+reminiscences which you do not recall, perhaps--who knows?"
+
+"I remember everything," replied the duke in a grave voice.
+
+Marianne looked at him and commenced to laugh.
+
+"Oh! how you say that, _mon Dieu!_ Do you remember I used to call you
+Don Carlos? Well, you have just reminded me of Philip II. 'I remember
+everything!' B-r-r! what a funereal tone. Our reminiscences are not,
+however, very dramatic."
+
+"That depends on the good or ill effects that they cause," said Rosas
+very seriously.
+
+"Ah! God forgive me if I have ever willingly done you the least harm, my
+dear Rosas. Give me your hand. I have always loved you dearly, my
+friend."
+
+She drew him gently toward her, half bending her face under the cold
+glance of the young man:
+
+"Look at me closely and see if I lie."
+
+The duke actually endeavored to read the gray-blue eyes of Marianne; but
+so strange a flash darted from them, that he recoiled, withdrawing his
+hands from the pressure of those fingers.
+
+"Come, come!" she said, "I see that my cat-like eyes still make you
+afraid. Are they, then, very dreadful?"
+
+She changed their expression to one of sweetness, humility, timidity and
+winsomeness.
+
+"After all, that is something to be proud of, my dear duke. It is very
+flattering to make a man tremble who has killed tigers as our sportsmen
+kill partridges."
+
+"You know very well why I am still sufficiently a child to tremble
+before you, Marianne," murmured Jose. "At my age, it is folly; but I am
+as superstitious as gamblers--or sailors, those other gamblers, who
+stake their lives, and I have never met you without feeling that I was
+about to suffer."
+
+"To suffer from what?"
+
+"To suffer through you," said the duke. "Do you know that if I had
+never met you, it is probable that I should never have seen all those
+countries of which I spoke just now, and that I should have been married
+long ago, at Madrid or at Toledo?"
+
+"And I prevented you?--"
+
+Rosas interrupted Marianne, saying abruptly, and smiling almost sadly:
+
+"Ah! my dear one, if you only knew--you have prevented many things."
+
+"If I have prevented you from being unhappy, I am delighted. Besides, it
+is evident that you have never had a very determined inclination for
+marriage, seeing that you have preferred to trot around the world."
+
+"Like Don Quixote, eh? Do you know, moreover, since we are talking of
+all these things, that you have saved me from dying in the corner like
+an abandoned dog?"
+
+"I?" said Marianne.
+
+"You or your songs, as you please. Yes, in Egypt I suffered from fever
+something like typhus. They left me for dead, as after a battle, in the
+most wretched and frightful of native villages. No doctors, who might,
+perhaps, have cured me, not a bed, not even a mattress. My servants,
+believing me past hope, abandoned me--or rather, for I prefer your
+Parisian word--cast me adrift--there is no other expression. There I
+was, stretched out on a heap of damp straw--in short, on a dunghill--"
+
+"You, Rosas?"
+
+"In all conscience, I correctly portrayed Job there; lean, with a three
+months' old beard, and with the death-rattle in my throat; in the open
+air--don't alarm yourself, the nights were warm. In the evening the
+fellah-women gathered round me, while I watched the sun that tinted
+their cheeks with bronze--there were some pretty ones among them, I have
+painted them in water-colors from memory--they poured out their insults
+upon me in guttural tones, which I unfortunately understood, as I am an
+Orientalist,"--he smiled--"and in addition to those insults they threw
+mud at me, a fetid mass of filth. The women were charming, although they
+took part in it. These people did not like the _roumi_, the shivering
+Christian. Besides, women do not like men who have fallen. They do not
+like feeble creatures.--"
+
+"Bah!--and where were the hospitals, the Sisters of Charity?"
+
+"Are you quite sure that the Sisters of Charity are women, my dear
+Marianne?--In a word, I swear that I asked only one thing, as I lay on
+that devilish, poisonous dunghill, and that was, to end the matter in
+the quickest possible way, that I might be no longer thought of,
+when--don't know why, or, rather, I know very well--in my fever, a
+certain voice reached me--whence?--from far away it commenced
+humming,--I should proclaim it yours among a thousand--a ridiculously
+absurd refrain that we heard together one evening at the Varietes, at
+an anniversary celebration. And this Boulevard chant recurred to me
+there in the heart of that desert, and transported me at a single bound
+to Paris, and I saw you again and these fair locks that I now look at, I
+saw them, too, casting upon your forehead the light shadow that they do
+now. I heard your laugh. I actually felt that I had you beside me in one
+of the stage-boxes at the theatre, listening to the now forgotten singer
+humming the refrain that had so highly amused you, Guy and myself--"
+
+It seemed to Marianne that the duke hesitated for a moment before
+pronouncing Guy's name. It was an almost imperceptible hesitation,
+rather felt than seen.
+
+Rosas quickly recovered:
+
+"On my word, you will see directly that the Boulevard lounger was hidden
+under your gloomy Castilian,--that refrain took such a hold on my poor
+wandering brain, such an entire possession, that I clung to it when the
+fever was at its height--I hummed it again and again, and on my honor,
+it banished the fever, perhaps by some homeopathic process, for at any
+other time, this deuced refrain would have aroused a fever in me."
+
+"Why?--Because it was I who formerly hummed it?"
+
+"Yes," said Rosas in a lowered tone. "Well! yes, just for that
+reason!--"
+
+He drew closer to her on the divan, and she said to him, laughingly:
+
+"How fortunate it is that Faure is singing yonder! He attracts
+everybody and so leaves us quite alone in this salon. It is very
+pleasant. Would you like to go and applaud Faure? It is some years since
+I heard him."
+
+"You are very malicious, Marianne," said the duke. "Let me steal this
+happy, fleeting hour. I am very happy."
+
+"You are happy?"
+
+"Profoundly happy, and simply because I am near you, listening to you
+and looking at you--"
+
+"My poor Job," she said, still laughing, "would you like me to sing you
+the refrain that we heard at the Varietes?"
+
+De Rosas did not reply, but simply looked at her.
+
+He felt as if he were surrounded with all the perfume of youth. On a
+console beside Marianne, stood a vase of inlaid enamel containing sprigs
+of white lilacs which as she leaned forward, surrounded her fair head as
+with an aureole of spring. Her locks were encircled with milk-white
+flowers and bright green leaves, transparent and clear, like the limpid
+green of water; and at times these sprigs were gently shaken, dropping a
+white bud on Marianne's hair, that looked like a drop of milk amid a
+heap of ruddy gold.
+
+Ah! how at this moment, all the poetry, all the past with its
+unacknowledged love swelled Rosas's heart and rushed to his lips. In
+this brilliantly-lighted salon, under the blaze of the lights, amid the
+shimmering reflections of the satin draperies, he forgot everything in
+his rapture at the presence of this woman, lovely to adoration, whose
+glance penetrated his very veins and filled him with restless thoughts.
+
+The distant music, gentle, penetrating and languishing, some soothing
+air from Gounod, reached them like a gentle breeze wafted into the room.
+
+Jose believed himself to be in a dream.
+
+"Ah! if you only knew, madame," he said, becoming more passionate with
+each word that he spoke, as if he had been gulping down some liqueur,
+"if you only knew how you have travelled with me everywhere, in thought,
+there, carried with me like a scapular--"
+
+"My portrait?" said Marianne. "I remember it. I was very slender then,
+prettier, a young girl, in fact."
+
+"No! no! not your portrait. I tore that up in a fit of frenzy."
+
+"Tore it up?"
+
+"Yes, as I thought that those eyes, those lips and that brow belonged to
+another."
+
+Marianne's cheeks became pallid.
+
+"But I have taken with me something better than that portrait: I
+preserved you, you were always present, and pretty, so pretty--as you
+are now, Marianne--Look at yourself! No one could be lovelier!"
+
+"And why," she said slowly, speaking in a deep, endearing tone, "why did
+you not speak to me thus, of old?"
+
+"Ah! of old!" said the duke angrily.
+
+She allowed her head to fall on the back of the divan; looking at this
+man as she well knew how, and insensibly creeping closer to him, she
+breathed in his ears these burning words:
+
+"Formerly, one who was your friend was beside me, is that not so?"
+
+"Do not speak to me of him," Jose said abruptly.
+
+"On the contrary, I am determined to tell you that even if I had loved
+him, I should not have hesitated for a moment to leave him and follow
+you. But I did not love him."
+
+"Marianne!"
+
+"You won't believe me? I never loved him. I have never been his
+mistress."
+
+"I do not ask your secret. I do not speak of him," said the duke, who
+had now become deadly pale.
+
+"And I am determined to speak to you of him. Never, you understand,
+never was Guy de Lissac my lover. No, in spite of appearances; he has
+never even kissed my lips. I thought I loved him, but before yielding, I
+had time to discover that I did not love him! And I waited, I swear to
+you, expecting that you would say to me: 'I love you!'"
+
+"I?"
+
+"You," said Marianne, in a feeble tone. "You never guessed then?"
+
+And she crept with an exquisitely undulating movement still closer to
+Rosas, who, as if drawn by some magnetic fluid, surrendered his face to
+this woman with the wandering eyes, half-open lips, from which a gentle
+sigh escaped and died away in the duke's hair.
+
+He said nothing, but hastily seizing Marianne's hand, he drew her face
+close to his lips, her pink nostrils dilated as if the better to breathe
+the incense of love; and wild, distracted, intoxicated, he pressed his
+feverish, burning lips upon that fresh mouth that he felt exhaled the
+perfume of a flower that opens to the morning dew.
+
+"I love you now, I loved you then!--" Marianne said to him, after that
+kiss that paled his cheeks.
+
+Rosas had risen: a thunder of applause greeted the termination of a song
+in the other salon and the throng was pouring into the smaller salon.
+Marianne saw Uncle Kayser, who was arguing with Ramel, whose kindly,
+lean face wore an expression of weariness. She also rose, grasped the
+duke's hands with a nervous pressure and said as she still gazed at him:
+
+"There is my uncle. We shall see each other again, shall we not?"
+
+She crushed Rosas with her electric glance.
+
+Preceding the duke, she went straight to Kayser and took his arm,
+leaning on it as if to show that she was not alone, that she had a
+natural protector, and was not, as Rosas might have supposed, a girl
+without any position.
+
+Kayser was almost astonished at the eagerness of his niece.
+
+"Let us go!" she said to him.
+
+"What! leave? Why, there is to be a supper."
+
+"Well! we will sup at the studio," she replied nervously. "We will
+discuss the morality of art."
+
+She had now attained her end. She realized that anything she might add
+would cool the impression already made on the duke. She wished to leave
+him under the intoxication of that kiss.
+
+"Let us go!" said Kayser, drawing himself up in an ill-humored way.
+"Since you wish it--what a funny idea!--Ramel," he said, extending his
+hand to the old journalist, "if your feelings prompt you, I should like
+to show you some canvases."
+
+"I go out so rarely," said Ramel.
+
+"Huron!" said the painter.
+
+"Puritan!" said Marianne, also offering her hand to Denis Ramel.
+
+Rosas looked after her and saw her disappear amongst the guests in the
+other salon, under the bright flood of light shed by the chandeliers;
+and when she was gone, it seemed to him that the little Japanese salon
+was positively empty and that night had fallen on it. Profound ennui at
+once overcame him, while Marianne, in a happy frame of mind, on
+returning to Kayser's studio, reviewed the incidents of that evening,
+recalling Vaudrey's restless smile, and seeming again to hear Rosas's
+confidences, while she thought: "He spoke to me of the past almost in
+the same terms as Lissac. Is human nature at the bottom merely
+commonplace, that two men of entirely different characters make almost
+identical confessions?" While she was recalling that passionate moment,
+the duke was experiencing a feeling of disappointment because of their
+interrupted conversation, and he reproached himself for not having
+followed Marianne, for having allowed her to escape without telling
+her--
+
+But what had he to tell her?
+
+He had said everything. He had entirely surrendered, had opened his
+soul, as transparent as crystal. And this notwithstanding that he had
+vowed in past days that he would keep his secret locked within him. He
+had smothered his love under his frigid Castilian demeanor. And now,
+suddenly, like a child, on the first chance meeting with that woman, he
+had allowed himself to be drawn into a confession that he had been
+rigidly withholding!
+
+Ah! it was because he loved her, and had always loved her. There was
+only one woman in the whole world for him,--this one. He did not lie.
+Marianne's smile haunted him, wherever he was. In her glance was a
+poison that he had drunk, which set his blood on fire. He was hers.
+Except for the image of Lissac, he would most certainly have returned
+long since to Paris to seek Mademoiselle Kayser.
+
+But Lissac was there. He recalled how much Guy had loved her. He had
+more than once made the third in their company. He had often accompanied
+Lissac to Marianne's door. How then had she dared to say just now that
+she had never been his mistress?
+
+But how was he to believe her?
+
+And why, after all, should she have lied? What interest had she?--
+
+In proportion as Rosas considered the matter, he grew more angry with
+himself, and in the very midst of the crowd, he was seized with a
+violent attack of frenzy, such as at times suddenly determined him to
+seek absolute solitude. He was eager to escape.
+
+In order to avoid Madame Marsy, who was perhaps seeking him, he slipped
+through the groups of people and reached the door without being seen,
+leaving without formal salutation, as the English do.
+
+He was in the hall, putting on his overcoat, while a servant turned up
+its otter-fur collar, when he heard Guy say:
+
+"You are going, my dear duke? Shall we bear each other company?"
+
+The idea was not distasteful to Rosas. Involuntarily, perhaps, he
+thought that a conversation with Lissac was, in some way, a _chat_ with
+Marianne. These two beings were coupled in his recollections and
+preoccupations; besides, he really liked Guy. The Parisian was the
+complement of the Castilian. They had so many reminiscences in common:
+fetes, suppers, sorrows, Parisian sadnesses, girls who sobbed to the
+measure of a waltz. Then they had not seen each other for so long.
+
+Rosas experienced a certain degree of pleasure in finding himself once
+more on the boulevard with Guy. It made him feel young again. Every
+whiff of smoke that ascended from his cigar in the fresh air, seemed to
+breathe so many exhalations of youth. They had formerly ground out so
+many paradoxes as they strolled thus arm in arm, taking their recreation
+through Paris.
+
+In a very little time, and after the exchange of a few words, they had
+bridged the long gap of years, of travel and separation. They expressed
+so much in so few words. Rosas, as if invincibly attracted by the name
+of Marianne, was the first to pronounce it, while Guy listened with an
+impassive air to the duke's interrogations.
+
+In this way they went toward the boulevard, along which the rows of
+gas-jets flamed like some grand illumination.
+
+"Paris!" said Rosas, "has a singular effect on one. It resumes its
+dominion over one at once on seeing it again, and it seems as if one had
+never left it. I have hardly unpacked my trunks, and here I am again
+transformed into a Parisian."
+
+"Paris is like absinthe!" said Guy. "As soon as one uncorks the bottle,
+one commences to drink it again."
+
+"Absinthe! there you are indeed, you Frenchmen, who everlastingly
+calumniate your country. What an idea, comparing Paris with absinthe!"
+
+"A Parisian's idea, _parbleu!_ You have not been here two days and you
+are already intoxicated with _Parisine_, you said so yourself. The
+hasheesh of the boulevard."
+
+"Perhaps it is not _Parisine_ only that has, in fact, affected my
+brain," said Rosas.
+
+"No doubt, it is also the _Parisienne_. Madame Marsy is very pretty."
+
+"Charming," said Rosas coldly.
+
+"Less charming than Mademoiselle Kayser!"
+
+Guy sent a whiff of smoke from his cigar floating on the night breeze,
+while awaiting the duke's reply; but Jose pursued his way beside his
+friend, without uttering a word, as if he were suddenly absorbed, and
+Lissac, who had allowed the conversation to lapse, sought to reopen it:
+"Then," he said suddenly,--dropping the name of Mademoiselle
+Kayser:--"You will be in Paris for some time, Rosas?"
+
+"I do not in the least know."
+
+"You will not, I hope, set out again for the East?"
+
+"Oh! you know what a strange fellow I am. It won't do to challenge me
+to!"
+
+Lissac laughed.
+
+"I don't challenge you at all, I only ask you not to leave the
+fortifications hereafter. We shall gain everything. You are not a
+Spaniard, you are a born Parisian, as I have already told you a hundred
+times. If I were in your place, I would set myself up here and stick to
+Paris. Since it is the best place in the world, why look for another?"
+
+"My dear Guy," interrupted the duke, who had not listened, "will you
+promise to answer me, with all frankness, a delicate, an absurd
+question, if you will, one of those questions that is not generally put,
+but which I am going to ask you, nevertheless, without preface,
+point-blank?"
+
+"To it and to any others that you put me, my dear duke, I will answer as
+an honest man and a friend should."
+
+"Have you been much in love with Mademoiselle Kayser?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"And has she loved you--a little?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"That is not what she has just told me."
+
+"Ah!" said Lissac, as he threw away his cigar. "You spoke of me, then?"
+
+"She told me that she believed she loved you sincerely."
+
+"That is just what I had the pleasure of telling you."
+
+"And--Marianne?--"
+
+"Marianne?" repeated Lissac, who perfectly understood the question from
+De Rosas's hesitation.
+
+"My dear friend, when a man feels sufficiently anxious, or sufficiently
+weak, or sufficiently smitten, whichever you please, to stake his life
+on the throw of the dice, he is permitted to put one of those misplaced
+questions to which I have just referred. Well! you can tell me what,
+perhaps, none other than I would dare to ask you: Have you been
+Marianne's lover?"
+
+Before replying, Guy took the arm of the duke in a friendly way, and,
+leaning upon it, felt that it trembled nervously. Then, touching his
+hand by chance, he observed that Rosas was in a burning fever.
+
+"My dear fellow, it is the everlasting question of honor between men and
+of duty to a woman that you put before me. Had I been Marianne's lover,
+I should be bound to tell you that Marianne had never been my mistress.
+These falsehoods are necessary. No; I have not been Marianne's lover,
+but I advise you, if you do not wish to be perfectly miserable, not to
+seek to become so. You are one of those men who throw their hearts open
+as wide as a gateway. She is a calculating creature, who pursues, madly
+enough I admit, without consistency or constancy in her ideas, any plan
+that she may have in view. She might be flattered to have you as a
+suitor, as I was, or as a lover, as I have been assured others were. I
+do not affirm this, remember; but she will never be moved by your
+affection. She is a pure Parisian, and is incapable of loving you as
+you deserve, but you could not deceive her, as they say she has been."
+
+"Deceived?" asked Rosas, in a tone of pity that struck Lissac.
+
+"Deceived! yes! deceit is the complementary school of love."
+
+"Then--if I loved Marianne?" asked Rosas.
+
+"I would advise you to tell it to her at first, and prove it afterward,
+and finally to catalogue it in that album whose ashes are sprinkled at
+the bottom of the marriage gifts."
+
+"You speak of Mademoiselle Kayser as you would speak of a courtesan,"
+said the duke, in a choking voice.
+
+"Ah! I give you my word," said Lissac, "that I should speak very
+differently of Mademoiselle Alice Aubry, or of Mademoiselle Cora
+Touchard. I would say to you quite frankly: They are pretty creatures;
+there is no danger."
+
+"And Marianne, on the contrary, is dangerous."
+
+"Oh! perfectly, for you."
+
+"And why is she not dangerous for you?"
+
+"Why, simply, my dear duke, because I am satisfied to love her as you
+have hitherto done and because I had, as I told you, the good fortune
+not to be her lover."
+
+"But you brought her to Madame Marsy's this evening?"
+
+"Oh! her uncle accompanied us, but I was there."
+
+"You offer your arm then to a woman whom, as you have just told me, you
+consider dangerous?"
+
+"Not for Sabine!--and then, that is a drop of the absinthe, a little of
+the hasheesh of which I spoke to you. One sees only concessions in
+Paris, and even when one is dead, one needs a further concession, but in
+perpetuity. One only becomes one's self"--and Guy's jesting tone became
+serious,--"when a worthy fellow like you puts one a question that seems
+terribly like asking advice. Then one answers him, as I have just
+answered you, and cries out to him: 'Beware!'"
+
+"I thank you," said Rosas, suddenly stopping short on the pavement. "You
+treat me like a true friend."
+
+"And if I seem to you to be too severe," added Lissac, smiling, "charge
+that to the account of bitterness. A man that has loved a woman is never
+altogether just toward her. If he has ceased to love her, he slights
+her, if he still loves her, he slanders her. I have perhaps, traduced
+Marianne, but I have not slighted you, that is certain. Now, take
+advantage of this gossip. But when?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the duke. "I will write you. I shall perhaps
+leave Paris!"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Just what I say."
+
+"The deuce!" said Lissac. "Do you know that if you were to fly from the
+danger in question, I should be very uneasy? It would be very serious."
+
+"That would not be a flight. At the most, a caprice," the duke replied.
+
+They separated, less pleased with each other than they were at the
+commencement of their interview. Lissac felt that in some fashion or
+other, he had wounded Rosas even in adopting the flippant tone of the
+lounger, without any malice, and the Spaniard with his somewhat morose
+nature, retired within himself, almost gloomy, and reproached Guy for
+the first time for smiling or jesting on so serious a matter.
+
+Discontented with himself, he entered his house. His servant was waiting
+for him. He brought him a blue envelope on a card-tray.
+
+"A telegram for monsieur le duc."
+
+Rosas tore it open in a mechanical way. It was from one of his London
+friends, Lord Lindsay, who having learned of Rosas's return, sent him a
+pressing invitation. If he did not hasten to Paris to welcome him, it
+was simply because grave political affairs demanded his presence in
+London.
+
+The duke, while taking off his gloves, looked at the crumpled despatch
+lying under the lamp. He was, like most travellers, superstitious.
+Perhaps this despatch had arrived in the nick of time to prevent him
+from committing some act of folly.
+
+But what folly?
+
+He still felt Marianne's kiss on his lips, burning like ice.
+To-morrow,--in a few hours,--his first thought, his only thought would
+be to find that woman again, to experience that voluptuous impression,
+that dream that had penetrated his heart. A danger, Lissac had said. The
+feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor; but it was their charm,
+their strength and their adorable seductiveness, that filtered like a
+flame through her long, fair lashes.
+
+He closed his eyes to picture Mademoiselle Kayser, to inhale the
+atmosphere, to enjoy something of the perfume surrounding her.
+
+A danger!
+
+Guy was perhaps right. The best love is that which is never gathered,
+which remains immature, like a blossom in spring that never becomes a
+fruit. Lord Lindsay's despatch arrived seasonably. It was a chance or a
+warning.
+
+In any case, what would Rosas risk by passing a few days in London, and
+losing the burning of that kiss? The sea-breezes would perhaps efface
+it.
+
+"I am certainly feverish," the duke thought. "It was assuredly necessary
+to speak to Lissac. It was also necessary to speak to her," he added, in
+a dissatisfied, anxious, almost angry tone.
+
+A danger!
+
+Lissac had acted imprudently in uttering that word, which addressed to
+such a man as Rosas, had something alluring about it. What irritated the
+duke was Guy's reply, asserting that he had not been Marianne's lover,
+but that Marianne had had other lovers. Others? What did Lissac know of
+this? A species of jealous frenzy was blended with the feverish desire
+that Marianne's kiss had injected into Rosas's veins. He would have
+liked to know the truth, to see Marianne again, to urge Guy to further
+confidences. And, then, he felt that he would rather not have come, not
+have seen her again, not have gone to Sabine's.
+
+"Well, so be it! Lord Lindsay is right, I will go."
+
+The following morning, Guy de Lissac found in his mail a brief note,
+sealed with the arms of the duke, with the motto: _Hasta la muerte_.
+
+Jose wrote to him as he was leaving Paris:
+
+     "You are perhaps right. I am a little intoxicated with
+     _Parisine_. I am going to London to visit a friend and if I
+     ever recount my voyages there, it will only be to the
+     serious-minded members of the Geographical Society. There, at
+     least, there is no 'danger.' With many thanks and until we meet
+     again.
+
+         "Your friend,
+             "J. DE R----"
+
+"Plague on it," said Lissac, who read the letter three times, "but our
+dear duke is badly bitten! _Ohime!_ Marianne Kayser has had a firm and
+sure tooth this time!--We shall see!--" he added, as he broke the seal
+of another letter, containing a request for a loan on the part of
+someone richer than himself.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The soiree at Sabine Marsy's had caused Vaudrey to feel something like
+the enervation that follows intoxication. The next morning he awoke with
+his head heavy, after a night of feverish sleep, interrupted by sudden
+starts, wherein he saw that pretty, fair girl standing before him
+devouring sherbet and smiling gayly.
+
+Every morning since he had been at the ministry, Sulpice had experienced
+a joyous sensation at finding himself again on his feet and rejoicing in
+life. He paced about his apartments, feeling a sort of physical delight,
+opening his window and looking out on the commonplace garden through
+which so many ministers had passed and which he called, as so many
+before him had done: _My garden_. His thoughts took him back then to
+that little convent garden at Grenoble. What a distance he had travelled
+since then! and how good it was to live!
+
+That morning, on the contrary, the black and bare trees in the garden
+appeared to him to be very gloomy. He felt morose. He had been awakened
+early so that the despatches from the provinces might be laid before
+him. The information in them was quite insignificant. But then his
+spirit was not present. Once again he was at Sabine's, beside Marianne,
+so lovely in her sky-blue gown, and with her wavy locks.
+
+If he had been free, he would have gladly sought the opportunity to see
+that woman again as soon as the morning commenced. He felt a kind of
+infantile joy in being thus perturbed and haunted. It seemed to him that
+this emotion made him feel younger. Formerly, on awakening, the dream of
+the night had followed him like some intoxication.
+
+Formerly! but "formerly" he was not the important man, the distinguished
+personage of to-day.--He had not the charge of power as some others have
+the charge of souls. A minister has something else to do than to be
+under the sway of a vision. Sulpice dressed hurriedly, went down to his
+office, where a huge log-fire flamed behind an antique screen. He sat
+down in front of his large mahogany bureau, covered with papers, and on
+which was lying a huge black portfolio stuffed with documents bearing
+this title in stamped letters: _Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur_. In
+the centre of the bureau had been placed a leather portfolio filled with
+sheets of paper bearing the title: _Documents to be signed by Monsieur
+le Ministre_. Beside this were spread out various reports, bearing upon
+one corner of the sheet a printed headline: _Office of the Prefect of
+Police_ and _Director-General of the Press_.
+
+Vaudrey settled down in his chair with the profound satisfaction of a
+man who has not grown weary of an acquired possession. This huge salon
+with its blackened pictures, cold marbles, and large, severe-looking
+bookcases, presented a sober bourgeois harmony that pleased him. It was
+like the salon of a well-to-do notary, with its tall windows overlooking
+the courtyard, already full of the shadows of importunate callers and
+favor seekers whom the secretary-general received in a room adjoining
+the ministerial cabinet. The minister inhaled once more the atmosphere
+of his new domicile before settling down to work. Every morning it was
+his custom to read the reports of the Director of the Press and of the
+Prefect of Police before all else.
+
+He took up the report of the Prefect. Nothing serious. A slight accident
+on the Vincennes line near the fortifications of Paris. A train
+derailed. A few injured. In the Passage de l'Opera, the previous
+evening, the early speech of the Minister of the Interior upon general
+policy, and that of the Finance Minister, who was to reply to the rumor,
+falsely or prematurely announcing the conversion of the five per cents,
+had caused an upward movement in value. All was satisfactory, all was
+quiet. The new minister enjoyed public confidence. Perfect.
+
+Sulpice was delighted and passed on to the report of the Director of the
+Press. Except a small number of disgruntled and irreconcilable party
+journals, all the French and foreign papers warmly praised and supported
+the newly-created ministry. The _Times_ declared that the coalition
+perfectly met the requirements of the existing situation. The Berlin
+papers did not take umbrage at it, although Monsieur Vaudrey had more
+than once declared his militant patriotism from the tribune. "In short,"
+the daily report concluded, "there is a concert of praise, and public
+opinion is delighted to have finally secured a legitimate satisfaction
+through the choice of a homogeneous ministry, such as has long been
+desired."
+
+"What strange literature," muttered Sulpice, almost audibly, as he threw
+the report with the other documents.
+
+He recalled how, on that morning when Sulpice Vaudrey sat there for the
+first time, the morning following Pichereau's sudden dismissal from
+office, the editor of this daily press bulletin, like an automaton,
+mechanically and indifferently laid on the table of the minister a
+report wherein he said in full:
+
+"Public opinion, by the mouth of the accepted journals, has for too long
+a time reposed confidence in the Pichereau administration, for the
+ministry to be troubled about the approaching and useless interpellation
+announced some days ago by Monsieur Vaudrey--of Isere--."
+
+And it was to Vaudrey, the elected successor of Pichereau, that the
+report was handed naturally and as was due.
+
+"The compilers of these little chronicles are very optimistic," thought
+Sulpice. "After all, probably, it is the office that is responsible for
+this, as, doubtless, ministers do not like to know the truth. I will
+see, however, that I get it."
+
+He had, this time, a burdensome morning. Prefects were arriving by the
+main entrance to the ministry, the vast antechambers on the left; and
+friends, more intimate suitors, waited on the right, elbowing the
+ushers, in order to have their cards handed to the secretary-general or
+to the minister. There were some who, in an airy sort of way, said:
+"Monsieur Vaudrey," in order to appear to be on familiar terms.
+
+Sulpice felt himself attacked on both sides at once; blockaded in his
+office; and he despatched the petitioners with all haste, extending his
+hand to them, smiling, cheerfully making them promises, happy to promise
+them, but grieved in principle to see humbug depicted on the human face.
+From time to time, in the midst of his ministerial preoccupations and
+conversations, the disturbing smile of Marianne suddenly appeared like a
+flash of lightning in a storm; and though shaking his head, to give the
+appearance of listening and understanding, the minister was in reality
+far away, near a brilliant buffet and watching a silver spoon glide
+between two rosy lips.
+
+In that procession, which was to be a daily one, of petitioners, of
+deputies urging appointments in favor of their constituents, asking the
+removal of mayors, the decoration of election agents, harassing the
+minister with recommendations and petitions which, although couched in
+a humble tone, always veiled a threat, Vaudrey did not often have to do
+with his friends. It was a wearisome succession of lukewarm friends or
+recognized enemies, who rallied around a successful man. This man,
+although a minister for so short a time, had already a vague,
+disquieting impression that the administration was the property of a
+great number of clients, always the same, frequenters of these
+corridors, guests in these antechambers, well known to the ushers, and
+who, whoever the minister might be, had the same access and the same
+influence with the ministry.
+
+There were some whom the clerks saluted in a familiar way, as if they
+were old acquaintances: intrepid office-seekers, unmoved by any changes
+in ministerial combinations. Such entered Vaudrey's cabinet in a
+deliberate, familiar manner, and as if feeling at home. Sulpice had once
+heard one of them greet an usher by his first name: "Good-morning,
+Gustave."
+
+The minister asked Gustave: "Who is that gentleman?" The usher replied,
+with a tinge of respect in his tone: "It is one of our visitors,
+Monsieur le Ministre, Monsieur Eugene Renaudin. We call him only
+Monsieur _Eugene_. We have known him a long time."
+
+This "Monsieur Eugene" had already petitioned for a prefecture, or a
+sub-prefecture, or--it mattered little--whatever place the minister
+might choose to give him.
+
+His claims? None: he was an office-seeker.
+
+The minister was already overwhelmed by this vulgar procession of
+petitioners and intermediaries, when an usher brought him a card bearing
+this name: _Lucien Granet_.
+
+In the Chamber it was thought that Granet did not like Vaudrey too well,
+and Sulpice vaguely scented in him a candidate for his office. The more
+reason, then, that he should make himself agreeable.
+
+"What does he want?" the minister thought.
+
+This Granet was, moreover, a typical politician; by the side of the
+minister of to-day, he was the inevitable minister of to-morrow, the
+positive reformer, the man appointed to cleanse the Augean stables,
+whose coming, it was said, would immediately mark the end of all abuses,
+great and small.
+
+"Ah! when Granet is minister!"
+
+The artist without a commission consoled himself with the prospect of
+the Granet ministry. He would decorate the monuments when Granet became
+minister. The actress who looked with longing eyes toward the Comedie
+Francaise, and dreamed of playing in Moliere, had her hopes centered in
+Granet. Granet promised to every actress an engagement at the Rue de
+Richelieu. _I am waiting for the Granet ministry!_ was the consolatory
+reflection, interrupted by sighs, of the licentiates in law. Meanwhile
+those office-seekers danced attendance on Granet, and their smile was
+worth to the future Excellency all the sweets of office.
+
+Granet had thus everywhere a host of clients, women and men, sighing for
+his success, working to bring about his ministry, intriguing in advance
+for his advent, and working together for his glory.
+
+"Ah! if Granet were in power!"
+
+"Such abuses would not exist under a Granet ministry!"
+
+"All will be changed when Granet becomes minister!"
+
+"That dear Granet! that good Granet! Long live Granet!"
+
+Vaudrey was not ignorant of the fact that for some time past, Lucien
+Granet had been manoeuvring for his appointment to any office whatever,
+the most important obtainable. He was within an ace of becoming a member
+of the last Ministerial Coalition. He might have been Vaudrey's
+colleague instead of his rival. Sulpice was as glad to have him as an
+opponent in the Chamber as a colleague in the ministerial council. He
+was, however, not an adversary to be trifled with. Granet was a power in
+himself.
+
+"Well!" said the minister to Granet, who entered smiling, and with a
+very polite greeting, "you come then to inspect your future office?
+Already!--"
+
+"I?" said Granet, who did his best to be agreeable, "God prevent me from
+thinking of this department. It is too well filled."
+
+"That is very gallant, my dear Granet."
+
+"Far from disputing your portfolio, I come, on the contrary, to give
+you some advice as to strengthening your already excellent position."
+
+"Advice from you, my dear colleague, should be excellent. Let us hear
+it."
+
+"My dear minister, it is about the appointment of an Under Secretary of
+State for the Interior. Well! I have come to urge the claims of my
+friend, our colleague Warcolier."
+
+While speaking, Granet, who was seated near the bureau of the minister,
+with his hat on his knee, was watching Vaudrey through his eyeglass; he
+saw that his lips twitched slightly as he hesitated before replying.
+
+"But I am bound to Jacquier--of l'Oise," Vaudrey said abruptly.
+
+Granet smiled. Certainly Jacquier would be a most excellent choice. He
+was a cool, solid and remarkable man. But he had little influence with
+the Chamber, frequented society rarely, was morose and exclusive, while
+Warcolier was a most amiable man, an excellent speaker and one who was
+well-known in the Chamber. He was a fine orator. He was highly esteemed
+by the Granet group.
+
+"My personal friend, too, my dear minister. You would, I assure you,
+displease me if you did not support Warcolier this morning at the
+Ministerial Council, at which the nomination of under secretaries should
+take place. It is this morning, isn't it?"
+
+"Certainly, in an hour's time."
+
+Granet left the minister, repeating with considerable emphasis, which
+Vaudrey could not fail to remark, that the nomination of Warcolier would
+be favorably viewed by the majority of the deputies. A hundred times
+more so than that of Jacquier--of l'Oise.
+
+"Jacquier is a bear. They don't like bears," said Granet, tapping his
+thumb lightly with his eyeglass.
+
+He left Vaudrey out of humor, and very much disgusted at finding that
+Warcolier had already exploited the field.
+
+In truth, Vaudrey liked Warcolier as little as he did Granet. Warcolier
+took life easily. He was naturally of a contented disposition. He liked
+people who were easily pleased. An Imperialist under the Empire, he was
+now a Republican under the Republic. Epicurean in his tastes, he was
+agreeable, clever and fond of enjoyment, and he approved of everything
+that went the way he desired. He sniffed the breeze light-heartedly and
+allowed it to swell his sail and his self-love. He did not like
+ill-tempered people, people who frowned or were discontented or gloomy.
+Having a good digestion, he could not understand the possibility of
+disordered stomachs. A free-liver, he could not realize that hungry
+people should ever think of better food. Everything was good; everything
+was right; everything was beautiful. Of an admirably tranquil
+disposition, he felt neither anger nor envy. Thinking himself superior
+to every one else, Warcolier never made comparisons, he did not even
+prefer himself: he worshipped himself. The world belonged to him, he
+trod the ground with a firm step, swinging his arms, his paunch smooth,
+his head erect and his shoulders thrown forward. He seemed to inhale, at
+every step, the odor of triumph. He was not the man to compromise with a
+defeated adversary.
+
+Of Warcolier's literary efforts, people were familiar with his _History
+of Work and Workers_ that he had formerly dedicated to His Majesty
+Napoleon III. in these flattering terms: "To you, sire, who have
+substituted for the nobility of birth, that of work, and for the pride
+of ancestry, that of shedding blood for one's country."
+
+Later, in 1875, Warcolier had re-issued his _History of Work_ and his
+dedication was anxiously awaited. It did not take him long to get over
+the difficulty. He dedicated his work to another sovereign: "To the
+People, who have substituted the nobility of work for that of birth, and
+that of blood shed for the country for that of blood shed by ancestors."
+
+And that very name which was formerly read at the foot of professions of
+faith:--_Appeal to Honest People. The Revolution overwhelms us!_ is now
+found at the foot of proclamations wherein this devil of a Warcolier
+exclaims:--_Appeal to Good Citizens. Reaction now threatens us!_
+
+This was the man whom Granet and his friends had worked so hard to
+thrust into the position of Undersecretary of State of the Interior.
+Vaudrey reserved his opinion on this subject to be communicated to the
+President by and by.
+
+The hour for the meeting of the Council drew near. Sulpice saw, through
+the white curtains of the window, his horses harnessed to his coupe and
+prancing in the courtyard, although it was but a short distance from
+Place Beauvau to the Elysee. He slipped the reports of the Prefect of
+Police and the Director of the Press into his portfolio and was about to
+leave, when the usher brought him another card.
+
+"It is useless, I cannot see any one else."
+
+"But the gentleman said that if the minister saw his name, he would most
+assuredly see him."
+
+Vaudrey took the card that was extended to him on the tray:
+
+"Jeliotte! He is right. Show him in."
+
+He removed his hat and went straight toward the door, that was then
+opened to admit a pale-faced, lean man with long black whiskers that
+formed a sort of horsetail fringe to his face. Jeliotte was a former
+comrade in the law courts, an advocate in the Court of Appeal, and he
+entered, bowing ceremoniously to Sulpice, who with a pleased face and
+outstretched hands, went to welcome the old companion of his youth.
+
+Jeliotte bowed with a certain affectation of respect, and smiled
+nervously.
+
+"How happy I am to see you," Vaudrey said.
+
+"You still address me in the old familiar way," Jeliotte answered,
+showing his slightly broken and yellow teeth.
+
+"What an idea! Have I forfeited your good opinion, that I should abandon
+our familiar form of address?"
+
+"Honors, then, have not changed you; well! so much the better," said
+Jeliotte. "You ask me how I am? Oh! always the same!--I work hard--I am
+out of your sight--but I applaud all your successes."
+
+While Jeliotte was speaking of Vaudrey's successes, he sat on the edge
+of a chair, staring at his hat, and wagging his jaw as if he were
+cracking a nut between his frail teeth.
+
+"I have been delighted at your getting into the cabinet. Delighted for
+your sake--"
+
+"You ought also to be delighted on your own account, my good Jeliotte.
+Whatever I may hereafter be able to do--"
+
+Jeliotte cut the minister short and said in a tone as dry as tinder:
+
+"Oh! my dear Sulpice, believe one thing,--that I ask you nothing."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--no, nothing. And I repeat, nothing."
+
+"And you would be wrong if I could be friendly to you or useful."
+
+"I have said _nothing_, and I stick to _nothing_. You will meet quite
+enough office-seekers in your career--"
+
+"Evidently!"
+
+"Petitioners also!"
+
+"Most assuredly!"
+
+"Well! I am neither a petitioner nor an office-seeker nor a sycophant. I
+am your friend."
+
+"And you are right, for I have great affection for you."
+
+"I am your friend and your devoted friend. I should consider it a
+rascally thing to ask you for anything. A rascally thing, I say! You are
+in office, you are a minister, so much the better, yes, so much the
+better! But, at least, don't let your friends pester you, like vermin
+crawling before you, because you are all-powerful. I will never crawl
+before you, I warn you. I shall remain just what I am. You will take me
+just as I am or not at all. That will depend altogether upon the change
+of humor that the acquisition of honors may produce in you--"
+
+"Jeliotte! we shall see, Jeliotte!"
+
+"Well! You can take me or leave me. And as I do not wish to be
+confounded with the cringing valets who crowd your antechambers--"
+
+"You crowd nothing, you will not dance attendance. Have I asked you to
+dance attendance?"
+
+"No, not yet--I called simply to see if I should be received. Yes, it is
+merely in the nature of an experiment--it is made. It is to your honor,
+I admit, but I will not repeat it--I shall disappear. It is more simple.
+Yes, I have told you and I was determined to tell you that you will
+never see me, so long as you are a minister."
+
+"Ah! Jeliotte! Jeliotte!"
+
+"Never--not until you have fallen--For one always falls--"
+
+"Fortunately," said Sulpice, with a laugh.
+
+"Fortunately or unfortunately, that depends. I say: when you have
+fallen--then, oh! then, don't fear, I will not be the one to turn my
+back on you--"
+
+"You are very kind."
+
+"Whatever you may have said or done, you understand, while you are in
+power--and power intoxicates men!--I will always offer you my hand. Yes,
+this hand shall always be extended to you. You will find plenty of
+people who will turn their backs on you at that moment. Not I! I am a
+friend in dark days--"
+
+"That is understood."
+
+"I will leave you to your glory, Vaudrey. I crave pardon for not styling
+you: Monsieur le Ministre; I could not. It is not familiar to me. I
+cannot help it. I am not the friend for the hour of success, but for
+that of misfortune."
+
+"And you will return?"
+
+"When you are overthrown!--"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"That is like me! I love my friends."
+
+"When they are down!" said Sulpice.
+
+"That is so!" exclaimed Jeliotte.
+
+"And is that all you had to say to me?" the minister asked.
+
+"Is not that enough?"
+
+"Yes! yes! _Au revoir_, Jeliotte."
+
+"_Au revoir!_ Till--you know when."
+
+"Yes. When I feel my position threatened, I will call upon you. Don't be
+afraid. That time will come."
+
+"The idiot!" said Sulpice, angrily shrugging his shoulders, when the
+advocate was gone.
+
+He snatched his hat and went out hurriedly to his carriage, the
+messengers rising to bow to him as he passed through the antechamber.
+
+It was hardly necessary for him to order his coachman to drive to the
+Elysee. The duties of each day were so well ordered in advance, and
+besides, the attendants at the department knew quite as well as the
+minister if a Council was to be held at the Elysee.
+
+Sulpice was somewhat upset. Jeliotte's visit, following that of Granet,
+presented the human species in an evil aspect. He had never felt envious
+of any one, and it seemed to him that the whole world should be
+gratified at his modest bearing under success.
+
+"For, after all, I triumph, that is certain!--That animal of a Jeliotte
+is not such a simpleton!--There are many who, if they were in my place,
+would swagger!"
+
+So he complacently awarded himself a patent of modesty.
+
+The carriage stopped at the foot of the steps of the Elysee. Sulpice
+always felt an exquisite joy in alighting from his carriage, his
+portfolio pressed to his side, and leaping over the carpet-covered steps
+of the stone staircase leading to the Council Chambers. He passed
+through them, as he did everywhere, between rows of spectators who
+respectfully bowed to him. Devoted friends extended their hands
+respectfully toward his overcoat. Certainly, he only knew the men by
+their heads, bald or crowned with locks, as the case might be. His
+colleagues were gathered together, awaiting him, and chatting in the
+salon, decorated in white and gold, the invariable salon of official
+apartments with the inevitable Sevres vases with deep-blue, light-green
+or buff color grounds, placed upon consoles or pedestals. The portfolios
+appeared stuffed or empty, limp or bursting with paper bundles, under
+the arms of their Excellencies. Suddenly a door was opened, the ushers
+fell back and the President approached, looking very serious and taking
+his accustomed place opposite to the President of the Council with the
+formality of an orderly, the Minister of the Interior on the left of the
+President of the Republic, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the
+right.
+
+Then, in turn, each minister, beginning at the right, reported the
+business of his department, sometimes debated in private council. Each
+having completed his information, bowed to his neighbor on the right,
+and said:
+
+"I have finished. It is your turn, my dear colleague."
+
+The President listened. Sulpice sometimes allowed himself to muse while
+seated at this green-covered table, forgetting altogether the affairs
+under consideration. Sometimes he recalled those green-covered tables of
+the Council Chambers of the Grenoble Prefecture, finding that this
+Ministerial Council recalled the mean impression invoked by his
+provincial recollections, at other times, a vein of poesy would flit
+across his mind, or an eloquent word would reach his ear, suggesting to
+him the thought that, after all, these men seated there before their
+open portfolios, turning over or scattering about the papers,
+nevertheless represented cherished France and held in their leather
+pouches the secrets, the destinies, aye, even the very fate of the
+fatherland.
+
+And this Sulpice, overjoyed to expand at his ease in the delights of
+power, sitting there in his accustomed chair,--a chair which now seemed
+to be really his own--enjoying a sort of physical satisfaction ever new,
+inhaling power like the fumes of a nargileh, forgot himself, however,
+and suddenly felt himself recalled to the urgent reality when his
+colleague, the Minister of War, a spare man with a grizzled moustache,
+dropped an infrequent remark in which, in the laconic speech of a
+soldier, could be comprehended some cause of anxiety or of hope. Sulpice
+listened then, more moved than he was willing to have it appear,
+trying, in his turn, to hide all his artistic and patriotic anxieties
+under that firm exterior which his colleague of the Department of
+Foreign Affairs wore, a dull-eyed, listless face, and cheeks that might
+be made of pasteboard.
+
+The business of the Council was of little importance that morning. The
+Keeper of the Seals, Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--a fat, puffing,
+apoplectic man with somewhat glassy, round eyes, proposed to the
+President, who listened attentively but without replying, some reform to
+which Vaudrey was perfectly indifferent. He did not even hear his
+colleague's dull speech, the latter lost himself in useless
+considerations, while the Minister of War looked at him, as if his eyes,
+loaded with grapeshot said, in military fashion: "_Sacrebleu!_ get
+done!"
+
+Vaudrey looked out of the window at the dark horizon of the winter sky
+and the gray tints of the leafless trees, and watched the little birds
+that chased one another among the branches. His thoughts were far, very
+far away from the table where the sober silence was broken by the
+interminable phrases of the Minister of Justice, whose words suggested
+the constant flow of an open spigot.
+
+The vision of a female form at the end of the garden appeared to him, a
+form that, notwithstanding the cold, was clothed in the soft blue gown
+that Marianne wore yesterday at Sabine's. He seemed to catch that
+fleeting smile, the exact expression of which he sought to recall, that
+peculiar glance, cunning and enticing, that exquisite outline of a
+perfect Parisian woman. How charming she was! And how sweet that name,
+Marianne!
+
+Let us see indeed, what in reality could such a woman be! Terrible,
+perhaps, but certainly irresistible!
+
+Not for years had Vaudrey felt such an anxiety or allowed himself to be,
+as it were, carried away by such a dominating influence. Waking, he
+found Marianne the basis of all his thoughts, as she was during his
+slumber.
+
+And so charming!
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur is the next to address the
+Council."
+
+Vaudrey had not noticed that Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--had finished
+his harangue, and that after the Minister of Justice, the Minister of
+Foreign Affairs had just concluded his remarks. Vaudrey, therefore,
+needed a moment's reflection, a hasty self-examination to recognize his
+own personality: _Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur!_ This title only
+called up his _ego_ after a momentary reflection, a sort of simulated
+astonishment under the cloak of a pensive attitude. Vaudrey's colleagues
+did not perceive that this man seated beside them was, as it were, lost
+in meditation.
+
+Sulpice, moreover, had little to say. Nothing serious. The confirmation
+of the favorable reports that had been made to him. Within a week he
+would finish his plan of prefectorial changes. He simply required the
+Council to deal at once with the nomination of the Undersecretaries of
+State.
+
+It was then that Vaudrey realized the extraordinary influence that
+Lucien Granet must possess. From the very opening of the discussion, the
+minister felt that his candidate, Jacquier--of l'Oise--was defeated in
+advance by Warcolier. Granet must have laid siege to the ministers one
+by one. The President was entirely in Warcolier's favor. Warcolier's
+amiability, tact, the extraordinary facility with which he threw
+overboard previous opinions, were so many claims in his favor. It was
+necessary to give pledges to new converts, to prove that the government
+was not closed against penitents.
+
+"That is a very Christian theory," said Vaudrey, "and truly, I am
+neither in favor of jacobinism nor suspicion, but there is something
+ironical in granting this amnesty to turncoats."
+
+"But it is decidedly politic," said Monsieur Collard--of Nantes.
+
+"It is a premium offered to the new converts."
+
+"Eh! eh! that is not so badly done!"
+
+Vaudrey knew perfectly well that it was useless to insist, he must put
+up with Warcolier. It was his task to manage matters so that this man
+should not have unlimited power in the ministry.
+
+Warcolier was elected and the President signed his appointment at the
+earliest possible moment.
+
+"A nomination discounted in advance," thought Vaudrey, who again
+recalled Granet's polite but threatening smile.
+
+He felt somewhat nervous and annoyed at this result. But what could be
+done? To divert his thoughts, he listened to his colleagues'
+communications. The Minister of War commenced to speak, and in a tone of
+irritated surprise, instead of the lofty, patriotic considerations that
+Vaudrey expected of him, Vaudrey heard him muttering behind his
+moustache about soldiers' cap-straps, shakos, gaiter-buttons,
+shoulder-straps, cloth and overcoats. That was all. It was the vulgar
+report of a shoemaker or a tailor, or of a contractor detailing the
+items of his account.
+
+Sulpice was anxious for the Council to be over. The President, before
+the close of the session, repeated, with all the seriousness of a judge
+of the Court of Appeal: "Above all, messieurs, no innovations, don't try
+to do too well, let things alone. Don't let us trouble about business!
+Let us be content to live! The session is ended."
+
+"Not about business?" said Vaudrey to himself.
+
+He understood power in quite a different way. Longing for improvements,
+he did not understand how to let himself be dragged on like a cork upon
+a stream, by the wave of daily events. He was determined to put his
+ideas into force, to give life and durability to his ministry. There was
+no use in being a minister if he must continue the habitual
+go-as-you-please of current politics. In that case, the first chief of
+bureau one might meet would make as good a minister as he.
+
+At the moment of leaving the Council Chamber, the Minister of War said
+to him, in a jocose, brusque way: "Well! my dear colleague, Warcolier's
+election does not seem to have pleased you? Bah! if he has changed
+shoulders with his gun, that only proves that he knows how to drill."
+
+And the soldier laughed heartily behind his closely buttoned frock coat.
+
+Vaudrey got into his carriage and returned to the ministry to breakfast.
+
+Formerly the breakfast hour was generally the time of joyous freedom for
+Sulpice. He felt soothed beside Adrienne and forgot his daily struggles.
+
+In their home on Chaussee d'Antin, he usually abandoned himself freely
+to lively and cheerful conversation, to allow his wife to find in him,
+the man of forty years, the fiance, the young husband of former days.
+But here, before these exclusive domestics, the familiars of the
+ministry, planted around the table like so many inspectors, rather than
+servants, he dared not manifest himself. He scarcely spoke. He felt that
+he was watched and listened to. The valet who passed him the dishes
+watched over Monsieur le Ministre. He imagined that _his attendants_ in
+their silent reflections compared the present minister with those that
+had gone before him. On one occasion, one of the domestics replied to a
+remark made by Adrienne: "Monsieur Pichereau, who preceded Monsieur le
+Ministre, and Monsieur le Comte d'Harville, who preceded Monsieur
+Pichereau, considered my service very proper, madame."
+
+Adrienne accepted as well as she could the necessities of her new
+position. Since that was power, let power rule! She was resigned to
+those wastes whose luxury was apparent, since the political fortunes of
+her husband cast her there, like a prisoner, in that huge, commonplace,
+ministerial mansion, wherein none of the joys of home or of that
+Parisian apartment that she had furnished with such refined taste were
+left her. She felt half lost in those vast, cold salons of that ancient
+Hotel Beauvau,--cold in spite of their stoves, and which partook at one
+and the same time of the provisional domicile and the furnished
+apartment,--with its defaced gilded panels, and here and there a crack
+in the ceiling, and those vulgar ornaments, those wearisome imitation
+Chardins with their cracked colors and those old-fashioned pictures of
+Roqueplan, giving to everything at once _one date_, a bygone style. With
+what a truly melancholy smile Adrienne greeted the friends who came to
+see her on her reception day, when they remarked to her: "Why, you are
+in a palace!"
+
+"Yes, but I much prefer my accustomed furniture and my own house."
+
+Sulpice, free at last from that Council and the morning receptions, as
+he alighted from his carriage, caused _Madame_ to be informed that he
+had returned.
+
+Adrienne, who was looking pretty in a tight-fitting, black velvet gown,
+approached him with a smile and was suddenly overcome with sadness on
+seeing him absorbed in thought. She dared not question him, but being
+somewhat anxious, she, nevertheless, inquired the cause of his frowning
+expression.
+
+"You have your bad look, my good Sulpice," she smilingly said.
+
+He then quickly explained the Warcolier business.
+
+"Is that all? Bah!" she said, "you will have many other such
+annoyances."
+
+She was smiling graciously.
+
+"That is politics!--And then you like it--At least, confine your likes
+to that, Sulpice," she said, drawing near to Vaudrey.
+
+She was about to present her forehead for his kiss, as formerly, but she
+drew back abruptly. A valet entered with a dignified air and
+ceremoniously announced that breakfast was served.
+
+Vaudrey ate without appetite. Adrienne watched him tenderly, her eyes
+were kind and gentle. How nervous he was and quickly disturbed! Truly,
+Warcolier's appointment was not worth his giving himself the least
+anxiety about.
+
+She was going to speak to him about it. Vaudrey imposed silence by a
+sign. The motionless domestics were listening.
+
+Like Sulpice, Adrienne suffered the annoyance of a constant
+surveillance. She was hungry when she sat down to table, but her
+appetite had vanished. The viands were served cold, brought on plates
+decorated with various designs and marked with the initials of Louis
+Philippe, L.P., intertwined, or with the monogram of the Empire, N.; the
+gilt was worn off, the fillets of gold half obliterated: a service of
+Sevres that had been used everywhere, in imperial dwellings, national
+palaces, and was at last sent to the various ministries as the remnant
+of the tables of banished sovereigns.
+
+Instead of eating, Adrienne musingly looked at the decorations. It
+seemed to her that she was in a gloomy restaurant where the badly served
+dishes banished her appetite. Sulpice, sad himself, scarcely spoke and
+in mute preoccupation, in turn confused the shrewd, sly Granet, the
+intriguing Warcolier, and Marianne Kayser, whose image never left him.
+He was discontented with himself and excited by the persistency with
+which the image of this woman haunted him.
+
+In vain did Adrienne smile and seek to divert him from the thoughts that
+besieged him--she was herself in a melancholy mood, without knowing why,
+and her endeavors were but wasted; if he abandoned the train of his
+reflections, it was merely to express a thought in rapid tones, and he
+seemed momentarily to shake off his torpor; he replied to his wife's
+forced smile by a mechanical grimace, and immediately relapsed into his
+nervously silent state.
+
+In the hours of anxious struggle, she had often seen him thus, hence she
+was not alarmed. If she had been in her own home, instead of occupying
+this strange mansion, she would have rushed to him, and seated on his
+knees, taken his burning head between her little hands and said: "Come
+now! what ails you? what is the matter? Tell me everything so that,
+child as I may be, I may comfort my big boy."
+
+But there, still in the presence of those people, always in full view,
+she dared not. She carefully and anxiously watched Sulpice's mortified
+countenance. Since his entry on his ministerial functions, this was the
+first occasion, probably, that he had been so preoccupied.
+
+"There is something the matter with you, is there not, my dear?"
+
+"No--nothing--Besides--"
+
+The minister's glance was a sufficient conclusion to his remark.
+Moreover, how could he, even if he had some trouble to confide, make it
+known before the ever watchful lackeys? Before these impassive
+attendants, who, though apparently obsequious, might in reality be
+hostile, and who looked at them with cold glances? What a distance
+separated them from the old-time intimacies, the cherished interchange
+of thought interrupted by piquant kisses and laughter, just like a
+young husband and wife!
+
+In truth, Adrienne had not thought of it: Sulpice could not talk.
+
+"You will serve the coffee at once," she said.
+
+She made haste in order that she might take refuge in her own apartment
+to be alone with her husband. He, however, as if he shunned this
+tete-a-tete, eager as he was for solitude, quickly attributed his
+unpleasant humor to neuralgia or headache. Too much work or too close
+application of mind.
+
+"At the Ministerial Council perhaps?" remarked Adrienne inquiringly.
+
+"Yes, at the Council,--I must take a little fresh air--I will take a
+round in the Bois--The day is dry--That will do me good!"
+
+"Will you take me?" she said gayly.
+
+"If you wish," he replied. Then, in an almost embarrassed tone, he
+added:
+
+"Perhaps it will be better for me to go alone--I have to think--to
+work--There is no sitting at the Chamber to-day; and the day is entirely
+at my own disposal."
+
+"Just as you please," Adrienne replied, looking at Sulpice with a tender
+and submissive glance. "It would, however, have been so delightful and
+beneficial to have gone to the Bois together on such a bright day! But
+you and your affairs before everything, you are right; take an airing,
+be off, come, breathe--I shall be glad to see you return smiling
+cheerfully as in the sweet days."
+
+Sulpice looked at his young wife with a fondness that almost inspired
+him with remorse. In her look there was so complete an expression of her
+love. Then her affection was so deep, and her calm like the face of a
+motionless lake was so manifest, and she loved him so deeply, so
+intelligently. And how trustful, too!
+
+He was impelled now to beg her don her cloak and to have a fur robe put
+into the coupe and set out now, when the sun was gradually showing
+itself, like two lovers bound for a country party. At the same time he
+felt a desperate longing to be alone, to abandon himself to his new idea
+and to the image that beset him. He felt that he was leaving Adrienne
+for Marianne.
+
+He did not hold to the suggestion, in fact, he repeated that it would be
+better if he were alone. As there would be no session of the Chamber for
+a whole week, he would go out with Adrienne the next day. The coachman
+could drive them a long distance, even to Saint-Cloud or Ville-d'Avray.
+They would breakfast together all alone, unknown, in the woods.
+
+"Truly?" said Adrienne.
+
+"Truly! I feel the necessity of avoiding so many demonstrations in my
+honor."
+
+Sulpice laughed.
+
+"I am stifled by them," he said, as he kissed Adrienne, whose face was
+pink with delight at the thought of that unrestrained escapade.
+
+"How you blush!" said Sulpice, ingenuously. "What is the matter with
+you?"
+
+"With me? Nothing."
+
+She looked at him anxiously.
+
+"You think my complexion too ruddy! I have not the Parisian tint. Only
+remain a minister for some time, and that will vanish. There is no
+dispraise in that."
+
+She again offered her brow to him.
+
+He left her, happy to feel himself free.
+
+At last! For an entire day he was released from the ordinary routine of
+his life; from the wrangling of the assembly, the hubbub of the
+corridors, the gossip of the lobbies, interruptions, interrupted
+conversations, from all that excitement that he delighted in, but which
+at times left him crushed and feverish at the close of the day. He
+became once more master of his thoughts, of his meditation. He belonged
+to himself. It was almost impossible to recover his self-mastery in the
+stormy arena into which he was thrust, happy to be there, and where his
+distended nostrils inhaled, as it were, the fumes of sulphur.
+
+At times, amid the whirlwind of politics, he suffered from a yearning
+for rest, a sick longing for home quiet, a desire to be free, to go
+between the acts, as it were, to vegetate in some corner of the earth
+and to resume in very truth an altogether different life from the
+exasperating, irritating life that he led in Paris, always, so to speak,
+under the lash; or, still better, to change the form of his activity, to
+travel, to feed his eyes on new images, the fresh verdure, or the varied
+scenes of unknown cities.
+
+But the years had rolled by amid the excitement and nervous strain of
+political life. He lived with Adrienne in an artificial and overheated
+atmosphere. Happy because he was loved, that his ambitions were
+realized, that he charmed an assembly of men by the same power that had
+obtained him the adoration of this woman, yes, he was happy, very happy:
+to bless life, to excite envy, to arouse jealousy, to appear simply
+ridiculous if he complained of destiny; and nevertheless, at the bottom
+of his soul, discontented without knowing why, consumed by intangible,
+feverish instincts, ill-defined desires for Parisian curiosities, having
+dreamed in his youth of results very inferior to those he had realized,
+yet finding when he analyzed the realities that he enjoyed, that the
+promises of his dreams were more intoxicating than the best
+realizations.
+
+Vaudrey was an ambitious man, but he was ambitious to perform valiant
+feats. Life had formerly seemed to him to be made up of glory, triumphal
+entries into cities, accompanied by the fluttering of flags and the
+flourish of trumpets. He pictured conquests, victories, exaltations!
+Theatrical magnificence! But now, more ironical, he was contented with
+quasi-triumphs, if his restless, anxious nature could be satisfied with
+what he obtained.
+
+Adrienne loved him. He loved her profoundly.
+
+Why had the meeting with Marianne troubled him so profoundly, then?
+Manifestly, Mademoiselle Kayser realized the picture of his vanished
+dreams, and the desires of a particular love that the passion for
+Adrienne, although absolute, could not satisfy. This man had a nature of
+peculiar ardor--or rather, curious desires, a greedy desire to know, an
+itching need to approach and peep into abysses.
+
+Sometimes it seemed to Vaudrey that he had not lived at all, and this
+was the fear and desire of his life: to live that Parisian life which
+flattered all his instincts and awoke and reanimated all his dreams. But
+yesterday it had appeared to him when he met this young woman who raised
+her eyes to him, half-veiled by her long eyelashes, that a stage-curtain
+had been raised, disclosing dazzling fairy scenery, and since then that
+scenery had been always before him. It banished, during his drive, all
+peace, and while the coupe threaded its way along the Faubourg
+Saint-Honore toward the Arc-de-Triomphe, the minister who, but two hours
+before, had been plunged in state affairs, settled himself down in a
+corner of the carriage, his legs swaddled in a robe and his feet resting
+on a foot-warmer, looking at, but without observing the cold figures
+that walked rapidly past him, the houses lighted up by the sun's rays,
+and the dry pavements, and he thought of those strange eyes and those
+black butterflies, which seemed to him to flutter over that fair hair
+like swallows over a field of ripe wheat.
+
+It pleased him to think of that woman. It was an entirely changed
+preoccupation, a relaxation. A curious, strangely agreeable sensation:
+his imagination thus playing truant, and wandering toward that vision,
+renewed his youth. He experienced therein the perplexities that troubled
+him at twenty. Love in the heart means fewer white hairs on the brow.
+And then, indeed, he would never, perhaps, see Mademoiselle Kayser
+again! He would, however, do everything to see her again at the coming
+soiree at the ministry, an invitation--Suddenly his thoughts abruptly
+turned to Ramel, whom he also wished to invite and meet again. He loved
+him so dearly. It was he who formerly, in the journalistic days, and at
+the time of the battles fought in the _Nation Francaise_, had called
+Denis "a conscience in a dress-coat."
+
+Therefore, since he had an afternoon to spare, he would call on Ramel.
+He was determined to show him that he would never preserve the dignity
+of a minister with him.
+
+"Rue Boursault, Batignolles," he said to the coachman, lowering one of
+the windows; "after that, only to the Bois!"
+
+The coachman drove the coupe toward the right, reaching the outer
+boulevards by way of Monceau Park.
+
+Vaudrey was delighted. He was going to talk open-heartedly to an old
+friend. Ah, Ramel! he was bent on remaining in the background, on being
+nothing and loving his friends only when they were in defeat, as
+Jeliotte had said. Well, Vaudrey would take him as his adviser. This
+devil of a Ramel, this savage fellow should govern the state in spite of
+himself.
+
+The minister did not know Ramel's present lodging which he had occupied
+only a short time. He expected to find dignified poverty and a cold
+apartment. As soon as Denis opened the door to him, he found himself in
+a workman's dwelling that had been transformed by artistic taste into
+the small museum of a virtuoso. After having passed through a narrow
+corridor, and climbed a small, winding staircase, Vaudrey rang at the
+third floor of a little house in Rue Boursault and entered a well-kept
+apartment full of sunlight.
+
+Hanging on the walls were engravings and crayons in old-fashioned
+frames. A very plain mahogany bookcase contained some select volumes,
+which, though few, were frequently perused and were swollen with markers
+covered with notes. The apartment was small and humble: a narrow bedroom
+with an iron bedstead, a dressing room, a tiny dining-room furnished
+with cane-seated chairs, and the well-lighted study with his portraits
+and his frames of the old days. But with this simplicity, as neat as a
+newly-shaved old man, all was orderly, and arranged and cared for with
+scrupulous attention.
+
+This modest establishment, the few books, the deep peace, the oblivion
+found in this Batignolles lodging, in this home of clerks, poor, petty
+tradesmen and workmen, sufficed for Ramel. He rarely went out and then
+only to take a walk from which he soon returned exhausted. He had
+formerly worked so assiduously and had given, in and out of season, all
+his energy, his nerves and his body, improvising and scattering to the
+winds his appeals, his protests, his heart, his life, through the
+columns of the press. What an accumulation of pages, now destroyed or
+buried beneath the dust of neglected collections! How much ink spilled!
+And how much life-blood had been mingled with that ink!
+
+Ramel willingly passed long hours every day at his study window, looking
+out on the green trees or at the high walls of a School of Design
+opposite, or at the end of a tricolored flag that waved from the frontal
+of a Primary Normal School that he took delight in watching; then at the
+right, in the distance, throbbing like an incessant fever, he saw the
+bustling life of the Saint-Lazare Station, where with every shrill
+whistle of the engines, he saw white columns of smoke mount skyward and
+vanish like breaths.
+
+"Smoke against smoke," thought Ramel, with his pipe between his teeth.
+"And it would be just as well for one to struggle--a lost unity--against
+folly, as for a single person to desire to create as much smoke as all
+these locomotives together!"
+
+Ramel appeared to be delighted to see Vaudrey, whose name the
+housekeeper murdered by announcing him as _Monsieur Vaugrey_. He placed
+a chair for him, and asked him smilingly, what he wanted "with an
+antediluvian journalist."
+
+"A mastodon of the press," he said.
+
+What had Vaudrey come for?
+
+His visit had no other object than to enjoy again a former faithful
+affection, the advice he used to obtain, and also to try to drag the
+headstrong Ramel into the ministry. Would not the directorship of the
+press tempt him?
+
+"With it, the directing of the press!" said Denis. "It is much better to
+have an opposition press than one that you have under your thumb.
+Friendly sheets advise only foolishly."
+
+"Why, Vaudrey, do you know," suddenly exclaimed the veteran journalist,
+"that you are the first among my friends who have come into power--I say
+the first--who has ever thought of me?"
+
+"You cannot do me a greater pleasure than tell me so, my dear Ramel. I
+know nothing more contemptible than ingrates. In my opinion, to remember
+what one owes to people, is to be scrupulously exact; it is simply
+knowing orthography."
+
+"Well! mercy! there are a devilish lot of people who don't know if the
+word gratitude is spelled with an _e_ or an _a_. No, people are not so
+well skilled as that in orthography. There are not a few good little
+creatures to be sent back to school. All the more reason to be thankful
+for having learned by heart--by heart, that is the way to put it, my
+dear Vaudrey--your participles."
+
+Sulpice was well acquainted with Ramel's singular wit, a little sly, but
+tinged with humor, like pure water into which a drop of gin has been
+poured, more perfumed than bitter. He knew no man more indulgent and
+keen-sighted than him.
+
+"For what should I bear a grudge against people?" said the veteran. "For
+their stupidity? I pity them, I haven't time to dislike them; one can't
+do everything."
+
+Besides, the minister felt altogether happy to be with this man no
+longer in vogue, but who might be likened to coins that have ceased to
+be current and have acquired a higher value as commemorative medals. He
+could unbosom himself to him: treachery was impossible. He longed to
+have such a stay beside him, and still urged him, but Ramel was
+inflexible.
+
+"But as I have already said--if I have need of you?"
+
+"Of me? I am too old."
+
+"Of your advice?"
+
+"Well! it is not necessary for me to give you my address, since you find
+yourself here now, or to tell you that you can depend on me, seeing you
+know me."
+
+Vaudrey felt that it was useless to pursue the matter further. He was
+not talking with a misanthrope or a scorner, but with a learned man. He
+would find at hand whenever he needed it, the old, ever faithful
+devotedness of this white-haired man, who, with skull-cap on his head,
+was smoking his pipe near the window when the minister entered.
+
+"Then, you are happy, Ramel?" said Sulpice, a little astonished,
+perhaps.
+
+"Perfectly so."
+
+"You have no ambition for anything whatever?"
+
+"Nothing, I await philosophically the hour for the monument."
+
+He smiled when he saw that his own familiar remark was puzzling Vaudrey.
+
+"The monument, there, on one side: Villa Montmartre!--Oh! I am not
+anxious to have done with life. It is amusing enough at times. But,
+after all, it is necessary to admit that the comedy ends when it is
+finished. One fine day, I shall be found sleeping somewhere, here in my
+armchair, or in my bed, suddenly, or perhaps after a long illness--this
+would weary me, as a lingering illness is repugnant to me--and you will
+read in one or two journals a short paragraph announcing that the
+obsequies of Monsieur Denis Ramel, one-time editor of a host of
+democratic newspapers, a celebrated man in his day, but little known
+recently, will take place on such a day at such an hour. Few will
+attend, but I ask you to be present--that is, if there is no important
+sitting at the Chamber."
+
+Old Ramel twirled his moustache with his long, lean fingers as he spoke
+these last words into which he infused a dash of irony. He nullified it,
+however, as he extended his frankly opened hand and said to Sulpice
+Vaudrey:
+
+"What I have said to you is very cheerful! A thousand pardons. The more
+so that I do not think of doubting you for a single moment--You have
+always been credulous. That is your defect, and it is a capital one. In
+the world of business men and politicians, who are for the most part
+egotists, of mediocrities, or to speak plainly--I know no more
+picturesque term--of _dodgers_,--you move about with all the illusions
+and tastes of an artist. You are like the brave fellows of our army,
+poets of war, as it were, who hurled themselves to their destruction
+against regiments of engineers. Certainly, my dear minister, I shall
+always be delighted to give you my counsel, you whom I used to call my
+dear child, and if the observations of a living waif can serve you in
+anything, count on me. Dispose of me, and if by chance I can be useful
+to you, I shall feel myself amply repaid."
+
+"Ah!" cried Sulpice, "if you only knew how much good it does me to hear
+the sincere thoughts of a man one can rely on! How different is their
+ring from that of others!"
+
+He then allowed himself to pass by an easy transition to the confessions
+of his first deceptions or annoyances.
+
+The selection that very morning, of Warcolier as Under Secretary of
+State in a Republican administration, a man who had played charades at
+Compiegne, had thrown him into a state of angry excitement.
+
+Ramel, however, burst into laughter.
+
+"Ah, nonsense! You will see many other such! Why, governments always do
+favors to their enemies when their opponents pretend to lower their
+colors! What good is it to serve friends? They love you."
+
+"This does not vex you, then, old Republican?"
+
+"I, an old soldier grown white in harness," said Ramel, whose moustache
+still played under his smile, "that doesn't disturb my peace in the
+least. I comfort myself with the thought that my dream, my _ideal_, to
+use a trite expression, is not touched by such absurdities, and I am
+persuaded that progress does not lag and that the cause of liberty gains
+ground, in spite of so much injustice and folly. I confess, however,
+that I sometimes feel the strange emotion that a man might experience on
+seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman whom he loved to
+distraction at twenty, in the arms of a person whom he did not
+particularly respect."
+
+Ramel had lighted his pipe, and half-hidden by the bluish wreaths of
+smoke, chatted away, quite happy on his side to give himself up to the
+revelation of the secret of his heart without the least bitterness, and
+like an elder brother, advised this man, who was still young and whom
+he had compared formerly to one of those too fine pieces of porcelain
+that the least shock would crack.
+
+"Ah!" he said abruptly, "above all, my dear Vaudrey, do not fear to
+appear in the tribune more uncouth and assertive than you really are. In
+times when the word _sympathetic_ becomes an insult, it is wiser to have
+the manners of a boor. Tact is a good thing."
+
+"I shall never succeed in that," said Sulpice, smiling as usual.
+
+"So much the worse! What has been wanting in my case is not to have been
+able to secure the title of _our antipathetic confrere_. The modest and
+refined people are dupes. By virtue of swelling their necks, turkeys
+succeed in resembling peacocks. Believe me, my dear friend, it is
+dangerous to have too refined a taste, even in office, even in the rank
+in which you are placed. One hesitates to proclaim the excessively
+stupid things that stir the crowd, and the blockhead who is bold enough
+to declare his folly creates a hellish noise with his nonsense, while a
+man of refinement, who is not always a squeamish man, remains in his
+corner unseen. Remember that more moths are caught at night with a
+greasy candle than with a diamond of the first water."
+
+"You speak in paradox--" Sulpice began.
+
+"And you think I am making paradoxes? Not in the least, I will give
+you--not at cost, for it has cost me dearly, but in block,--my stock of
+experience. Do with it what you please, and, above all, beware of _alle
+donne!_"
+
+"Women?" asked the minister, with involuntary disquiet.
+
+"Women, exactly. Encircling every minister there is a squadron of
+seductive women, who though perhaps more fully clothed than the flying
+squadron of the Medicis, is certainly not less dangerous. Women who
+complain that they are denied political rights, have in reality all,
+since they are able to rule administrations and knock ministers off, as
+the Du Barry did her oranges! When I speak of women, you will observe
+well that I do not speak of your admirable wife," said Ramel, with a
+respect that was most touching, coming from this honest veteran.
+
+"While we are gossiping," he resumed, "I am going to tell you frankly
+what strikes me most clearly in the present conjuncture. You will gather
+from it what you choose. In these days, my dear Vaudrey, what is most
+remarkable is the facility men have for destroying their credit and
+wearing themselves out. Politics, especially, entails a formidable
+consumption. It seems that the modern being is not cut out to wear long.
+This, perhaps, is due to the fact that public business, whichever party
+wins, is always committed to men who are ill-prepared for their good
+fortune. I do not say this of you, who, intellectually speaking, are an
+exception. But men are no longer bathed in the Styx, or perhaps they
+show the heel too quickly. For some years, moreover, the strange
+phenomenon has presented itself of the provincial towns being the prey
+of Parisian manufacturers, who reconstruct them and demolish their
+picturesque antiquity, in order to garnish their boulevards and fine
+mansions, while Paris, on the contrary, is directed and governed by
+provincials, who provincialize it just as the Parisian companies
+parisianize the provinces. Our provincials, astonished to find
+themselves at the head of Parisian movement, lose their heads somewhat
+and rush with immoderate appetites at the delicate feast. They have the
+gluttony of famished children, and on the most perilous question they
+are simply gourmands. It is _woman_ again to whom I refer. The country
+squires and gentlemen riders, who have grown old in their province with
+the love of farm-wenches, or small tradesmen professing medicine or law
+within their sub-prefectures, after having made verses for the female
+tax-gatherer, all, you understand, all are hungry to know that unknown
+creature: _woman_. And speedily enough the woman has drained their
+Excellencies. Oh! yes, even to the marrow! She robs the Opposition of
+its energy; the faithful to liberty, of the virility of their faith.
+Energetic ministers or ministers with ideas are not long before woman
+destroys both their strength and their ideas. Eh! _parbleu!_ it is just
+because they do not rule Paris as one pleads a civil suit in a
+provincial court."
+
+The minister listened with a somewhat anxious, sober air to these
+truisms, clear-cut as with a knife, expressed by the old journalist
+without passion, without exasperation, without anger. He was, in fact,
+pleased that Ramel should speak to him so candidly.
+
+Yes, indeed, what the old "veteran,"--as Denis sometimes called
+himself--said, were Vaudrey's own sentiments. These sufficiently
+saddening observations he had himself made more than once. It was
+precisely to put an end to such abuses, folly, and provincialism, this
+hobbling spirit inculcated in a great nation, that he had assumed power,
+and was about to increase his efforts.
+
+He thanked Ramel profusely and sincerely. This visit would not be his
+last, he would often return to this Rue Boursault where he knew that a
+true friend would be waiting.
+
+"And you will be right," said Denis. "Nowhere will you find a love more
+profound, or hear truths more frankly spoken. You see, Vaudrey, the
+walls of the ministerial apartments are too thick. There, neither the
+noise of carriages nor the sound of street-cries is heard. I have passed
+a few days in a palace--in '48,--at the Tuileries, as a national guard:
+at the end of two hours, I heard nothing. The carpets, the curtains,
+stifled everything, and, believe me, a cannon might have been fired
+without my hearing anything more than an echo, much less could I hear
+the truth! Besides, people do not like to pronounce truth too loudly.
+They are afraid."
+
+"I swear to you that I will listen to everything," replied Sulpice, "and
+I will strive to understand everything. And since I have the power--"
+
+Denis Ramel shook his head:
+
+"Power? Ah! you will see if that is ever taken in any but homoeopathic
+doses! Why, you will have against you the _bureaux_, those sacrosanct
+_bureaux_ that have governed this country since bureaucracy has existed,
+and they will cram more than one Warcolier down your throat, I warn
+you."
+
+"Yes, if I allow it," said Vaudrey haughtily.
+
+"Eh! my poor friend, you have already allowed it," said the veteran.
+
+He had risen, Vaudrey had taken his hat, and he said to the minister,
+leaning on his arm, with gentle familiarity, as he led him to the door:
+
+"Power is like a kite, but there is always some rascal who holds the
+thread."
+
+"Come, come," said Vaudrey, "you are a pessimist!"
+
+"I confess that Schopenhauer is not unpleasant to me--sometimes."
+
+Thereupon they separated, after a cordial grasp of the hand, and Denis
+Ramel resumed his pipe and his seat at the window corner, while the
+minister carried away from this interview, as if he had not already been
+in the habit of a frank interchange of opinions, an agreeable though
+perhaps anxious impression.
+
+He felt the need of _mentally digesting_ this conversation: the idea of
+going back, on this beautiful February day, to his official apartments
+did not enter his mind. He was overcome by a springtime hunger.
+
+"To the Bois! Around the Lake!" he said to the coachman, as he
+re-entered his carriage.
+
+The air was as balmy as on an afternoon in May. Vaudrey lowered the
+carriage window to breathe freely. This exterior boulevard that he
+rolled along was full of merry pedestrians. One would have thought it
+was a Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were enjoying
+the early sun.
+
+Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel's warnings. He had
+just called him a pessimist, but inwardly he acknowledged that the old
+stager, who had remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman! Why had
+Ramel spoken to him of woman?
+
+This half-disquieting thought speedily left Sulpice, attracted as he was
+by the joyous movement, the delight of the eyes which presented itself
+to his view.
+
+In thus journeying to the Bois, he felt a delightful emotion of solitude
+and forgetfulness. He gradually recovered his self-possession and became
+himself once more. He drew his breath more freely in that long avenue
+where, at this hour of the day, few persons passed. There was no
+petition to listen to, no salutation to acknowledge.
+
+Ah! how easy it would be to be happy, to sweetly enjoy the Paris that
+fascinated him instead of burning away his life! Just now, at the foot
+of the Arc de Triomphe, he had seen people dressed in blouses, sleeping
+like Andalusian beggars before the walls of the Alhambra. Little they
+cared for the fever of success! Perhaps they were wise.
+
+An almost complete solitude reigned over the Bois. Vaudrey saw, as he
+glanced between the copsewood, now growing green, only a few isolated
+pedestrians, some English governesses in charge of scampering children,
+the dark green uniform of a guard or the blue blouse of a man who
+trimmed the trees.
+
+The coachman drove slowly and Sulpice, enjoying the intoxication of this
+early sun, lowered the shade and breathed the keen air while he repeated
+to himself that peaceful joy was within the reach of everybody at Paris.
+
+"But why is this wood so deserted? It is so pleasant here."
+
+He almost reproached himself for not having brought Adrienne. She would
+have been so happy for this advanced spring day. She required so little
+to make her smile: mere crumbs of joy. She was better than he.
+
+He excused himself by reflecting that he would not have been able to
+talk to Ramel.
+
+And then it would have been necessary to talk to Adrienne, whereas the
+joy of the present moment was this solitary silence, the bath of warm
+air taken in the complete forgetfulness of the habitual existence.
+
+The sight of the blue, gleaming lake before him, encircled with pines,
+like an artificial Swiss lake, compelled him to look out of the window.
+
+The coachman slowly drove the carriage to the left in order to make the
+tour of the Lake.
+
+Vaudrey looked at the sheet of water upon which the light played, and on
+which two or three skiffs glided noiselessly, even the sound of their
+oars not reaching his ears.
+
+At the extremity of the alley, a carriage was standing, a hackney coach
+whose driver was peacefully sleeping in the sunshine, with his head
+leaning on his right shoulder, his broad-brimmed hat, bathed in the
+sunshine, serving him as a shade.
+
+It was the only carriage there, and a few paces from the border of the
+water, standing out in dark relief against the violet-blue of the lake,
+a woman stood surrounded by a group of ducks of all shades, running
+after morsels of brown bread while uttering their hoarse cries.
+
+Two white swans had remained in the water and looked at her with a
+dignified air, at a distance.
+
+At the first glance at this woman, Sulpice felt a strange emotion. His
+legs trembled and his heart was agitated.
+
+He could not be mistaken, he certainly recognized her. Either there was
+an extraordinary resemblance between them, or it was Mademoiselle Kayser
+herself.
+
+Marianne? Marianne on the edge of this Lake at an hour when there was
+no one at the Bois? Vaudrey believed neither in superstitions nor in
+predestination. Nevertheless, he considered the meeting extraordinary,
+but there is in this fantastic life a reality that brings in our path
+the being about whom one has just been thinking. He had frequently
+observed this fact. He had already descended from his carriage to go to
+her, taking a little pathway under the furze in order to reach the
+water's edge. There was no longer any doubt, it was she. Evidently he
+was to meet Mademoiselle Kayser some day. But how could chance will that
+he should desire to take that promenade to the Lake at the very hour
+that the young woman had driven there?
+
+As he advanced, he thought how surprised Marianne would be. As he walked
+along, he looked at her.
+
+She stood near a kind of wooden landing jutting out over the water. Over
+her black dress she had flung a short cloak of satin, embroidered with
+jet which sparkled in the sunlight. The light wind gently waved a black
+feather that hung from her hat, in which other feathers were entwined
+with a fringe of old gold bullion. Vaudrey noted every detail of this
+living statuette of a Parisian woman: between a little veil knotted
+behind her head and the lace ruching of her cloak, light, golden curls
+fell on her neck, and in that frame of light, this elegant woman, this
+silhouette standing out in full relief against the sky and the horizon
+line of the water, with a pencil of rays gilding her fair locks, seemed
+more exquisite and more the "woman" to Sulpice than in the decollete
+of a ball costume.
+
+When she heard the crushing of the sand by Sulpice's footsteps as he
+approached her with timid haste, she turned abruptly. Under her small
+black veil, drawn tightly over her face, and whose dots looked like so
+many patches on her face, Vaudrey at first observed Marianne's almost
+sickly paleness, then her suddenly joyous glance. A furtive blush
+mounted even to the young girl's cheek.
+
+"You here?" she said--"you, Monsieur le Ministre?"
+
+She had already imparted an entirely different tone to these questions.
+There was more abandon in the first, which seemed more like a cry, but
+the second betrayed a sudden politeness, perhaps a little affected.
+
+Vaudrey replied by some commonplace remark. It was a fine day; he was
+tired; he wished to warm himself in this early sunshine. But she?--
+
+"Oh! I--really I don't know why I am here. Ask the--my coachman. He has
+driven me where he pleased."
+
+She spoke in a curt, irritated tone, under which either deception or
+grief was hidden.
+
+She was still mechanically throwing crumbs of bread around her, which
+were eagerly snatched at by the many-colored ducks, white or gray,
+black, spotted, striped like tulips, marbled like Cordovan leather, with
+iridescent green or blue necks, whose tone suggested Venetian
+glassware, all of them hurrying, stretching their necks, opening their
+bills, or casting themselves at Marianne's feet, fighting, then almost
+choking themselves to swallow the enormous pieces of bread that were
+sold by a dealer close at hand.
+
+"Ah! bless me! I did not think I should have the honor of meeting you
+here," she said.
+
+"The honor?" said Vaudrey. "I, I should say the joy."
+
+She looked straight into his eyes, frankly.
+
+"I do not know what joy is, to-day," she said. "I come from the
+Continental Hotel, where I hoped to see--"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Nothing--"
+
+"If it were nothing, you would not have frowned so."
+
+"Oh! well! a friend--a friend whom I have again found--and who has
+disappeared. Just so,--abruptly--No matter, perhaps, after all! What
+happens, must happen. In short--and to continue my riddle, behold me
+feeding these ducks. God knows why! I detest the creatures. The state
+feeds them badly, Monsieur le Ministre, I tell you: they are famished.
+Well? well?" she said to a species of Indian duck, bolder than the
+others, who snapped at the hem of her skirt to attract attention and to
+demand fresh mouthfuls.
+
+She commenced to laugh nervously, and said:
+
+"That one isn't afraid."
+
+She threw him a morsel that he swallowed with a greedy gulp.
+
+"Do you know, Monsieur le Ministre, that the story of these ducks is
+that of the human species? There are some that have got nothing of all
+the bread that I have thrown them, and there are others who have gorged
+enough to kill them with indigestion. How would you classify that? Poor
+political economy."
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Vaudrey. "You are wandering into the realms of lofty
+philosophy!--"
+
+"Apropos of that, yes," said Marianne, as she pointed to the line of
+birds that hurried on all sides, left the water, waddled about, uttering
+their noisy cries. "You know that when one is sad, one philosophizes
+anent everything."
+
+"And you are sad?" asked Sulpice, in a voice that certainly quivered
+slightly.
+
+She threw away, without breaking it, the piece of bread that was left,
+brushed her gloved fingers, and, turning toward the minister, said with
+a smile that would make the flesh creep:
+
+"Very sad. Oh! what would you have? The black butterflies, you know, the
+blue devils."
+
+He saw her again, just as she had appeared before him yesterday, with
+arms and shoulders bare, lovely and seductive, and now, with her
+shoulders hidden under her cloak, her face half-veiled and quite pale,
+he thought her still more disquietingly charming. Moreover, the
+strangeness of the situation, the chance meeting, imparted something of
+mystery to their conversation and the attraction of an assignation.
+
+Ah! how happy he felt at having desired to breathe the air of the Bois!
+It now seemed to him that he had only come there for her sake. Once more
+it appeared to him that some magnetic thought led to this deserted spot
+these two beings, who but yesterday had only exchanged commonplace
+remarks and who, in this sunbathed solitude, under these trees, in the
+fresh breeze of the departing winter, met again, impelled toward each
+other, drawn on by the same sympathy.
+
+"Do you know what I was thinking of?" she said, smiling graciously.
+"Yes, of what I was thinking as I cast the brown bread to those ducks?
+An idyll, is it not? Well! I was thinking that if one dared--a quick
+plunge into such a sheet of water--very pure--quite tempting--Eh! well!
+it would end all."
+
+Vaudrey did not reply. He looked at her stupidly, his glance betraying
+the utmost anxiety.
+
+"Oh! fear nothing," she said. "A whim! and besides, I can swim better
+than the swans, there is no danger."
+
+He had seized her hands instinctively and he experienced a singular
+delight in feeling the flesh of Marianne's wrists under his fingers.
+
+"You are feverish," he said.
+
+"I should be, at any rate."
+
+Her voice was still harsh, as if she were distressed.
+
+"The departure of--of that friend--has, then, caused you much
+suffering?"
+
+"Suffering? No. Vexation, yes--You have built many castles of cards in
+your life--Come! how stupid I am!" she said bitterly. "You still build
+many of them. Well! there it is, you see!"
+
+She had withdrawn her hands from Sulpice, and walked away slowly from
+the border of the lake, going toward the end of the path where her
+coachman awaited her, his eyes closed and his mouth open.
+
+"Where are you going on leaving the Bois?" asked Vaudrey.
+
+"I? I don't know."
+
+He had made a movement.
+
+"Oh! once more I tell you, don't be afraid," she said. "I want to live.
+Fear nothing, I will go home, _parbleu_."
+
+"Home?"
+
+"Or to my uncle's."
+
+"But, really, Monsieur le Ministre," she said, "you are taking upon
+yourself the affairs of Monsieur Jouvenet, your Prefect of Police. I
+know him well, and certainly he asks fewer questions than Your
+Excellency."
+
+"That, perhaps," said Vaudrey, with a smile, "is because he has less
+anxiety about you than I have."
+
+"Ah! bah!" said Marianne.
+
+She had by this time got close to her hackney coach and looked at the
+coachman for a moment. "Don't you think it would be very wrong to waken
+him?" she said. "Will you accompany me for a moment, Monsieur le
+Ministre?"
+
+Vaudrey paled slightly, divining under this question a seductive
+prospect.
+
+Marianne's gray eyes were never turned from him.
+
+They walked along slowly, followed by the coupe whose lengthened shadow
+was projected in front of them along the yellow pathway, moving beside
+the lake where the swans floated with their pure white wings extended
+and striking the water with their feet, raising all around them a white
+foam, like snow falling in flakes. The blue heavens were reflected in
+the water. The grass, of a burnt-green, almost gray color, looked like
+worn velvet here and there, showing the weft and spotted with earth.
+
+Side by side they walked, Vaudrey earnestly watching Marianne, while she
+gazed about her and pointed out to him the gray, winter-worn rocks, the
+smooth ivy, and on the horizon some hinds browsing, in the far distance,
+as in a desert, the bare grass as yellow as ripe wheat, around a pond,
+in a gloomy landscape, russet horizons against a pale sky, presenting a
+forlorn, mysterious and fleeting aspect.
+
+"One would think one's self at the end of the world," said Sulpice, with
+lowered voice and troubled heart.
+
+A slight laugh from Marianne was her only reply, as she pointed with the
+tip of her finger to an inscription on a sign:
+
+"_To Croix-Catelan!_" she said. "That end of the world is decidedly
+Parisian!"
+
+"Nevertheless, see how isolated we are to-day."
+
+It seemed as if she had divined his thought, for she took a path that
+skirted a road and there, in the narrowest strip of soft, fresh soil, on
+which the tiny heels of her boots made imprints like kisses upon a
+cheek, she walked in front of him, the shadows of the small branches
+dappling her black dress, while Vaudrey, deeply moved, still looked at
+her, framed as she was by trees with moss-covered trunks and surrounded
+with brambles, a medley of twisted branches.
+
+And Sulpice felt, at each step that he took, a more profound emotion.
+Along this russet-tinted wood, stood out here and there the bright
+trunks of birch-trees, and far above it, the pale blue sky; the abyss of
+heaven, strewn with milky clouds and throughout the course of this
+pathway arose like a Cybelean incense, a healthful and fresh odor that
+filled the lungs and infused a desire to live.
+
+To live! and, thought Sulpice, but a moment ago this lovely, slender
+girl spoke of dying. He approached her gently, walking by her side, at
+first not speaking, then little by little returning to that thought and
+almost whispering in her ear--that rosy ear that stood out against the
+paleness of her cheek:
+
+"Is it possible to think of anything besides the opening spring, in this
+wood where everything is awakening to life? Is it really true,
+Marianne, that you really wished to die?"
+
+He did not feel astonished at having dared to call her by name. It
+seemed as if he had known her for years. He forgot everything, as if the
+world was nothing but a dream and that this dream presented this woman's
+face.
+
+"Yes," she replied. "Upon my honor, I was weary of life, but I see that
+most frequently at the very moment when one despairs--"
+
+She stopped suddenly.
+
+"Well?" he asked, as he waited for her to continue.
+
+"Nothing. No, nothing!"
+
+She commenced to laugh, calling his attention to the end of the path, to
+a broader alley which brought them back to the edge of the lake, whose
+blue line they saw in the distance.
+
+"Blue on blue," she said, pointing to the sky and the water. "You
+reproach me for not liking blue, Monsieur le Ministre, see! I am taking
+an azure bath. This horizon is superb, is it not?"
+
+Vaudrey debated with himself if she were jesting. Why should she give
+him that title which here and at such a moment, had such an out-of-place
+ring?
+
+She glanced at him sidelong with a little droll expression, her pretty
+mouth yielding to a smile that enticed a kiss.
+
+"We shall soon have returned to my carriage," she said. "Already!"
+
+"That _already_ pleases me," said Sulpice.
+
+"It is true. This short promenade is nothing, but it suffices to make
+one forget many things."
+
+"Does it not?" exclaimed Vaudrey.
+
+The shadow of his coupe was still projected between them along the
+ochre-colored road.
+
+"Do you come to the Bois often?" asked the minister.
+
+"No. Why?"
+
+"Because I shall frequently return here," he said in a trembling voice.
+
+"Really!--Then, oh! why then, it would be love-making?" said Marianne,
+who pierced him with her warm, tender glances.
+
+He wished to seize this woman's hand and print a kiss thereon, or to
+press his lips upon her bare neck upon which the golden honey-colored
+ringlets danced in the bright sunlight.
+
+"On these clear, fine days," she said in an odd tone, emphasizing every
+word, "it is very likely that I shall return frequently to visit this
+pathway. Eh! what is that?" she said, turning around.
+
+She was dragging a dry bramble that had fastened its thorns to the folds
+of her satin skirt and she stopped to shake it off.
+
+"Stop," said Sulpice.
+
+He desired to tread on the russet-colored bramble.
+
+"You will tear my gown," said Marianne. "The bramble clings too
+tightly."
+
+Then he stooped, gently removed the thorn, and Marianne, her bosom
+turned toward him and half-stooping, looked at that man--a
+minister--almost kneeling before her in this wood.
+
+He cast the bramble away from him.
+
+"There," he said.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+As he rose, he felt Marianne's fresh breath on his forehead. It fell on
+his face, as sweet as new-mown hay. He became very pale and looked at
+her with so penetrating an expression that she blushed slightly--from
+pleasure, perhaps,--and until they reached the carriage where her
+coachman was still sleeping, they said nothing further, fearing that
+they had both said too much.
+
+At the moment when she entered her carriage, Sulpice, suddenly, with an
+effort at boldness, said to her, as he leaned over the door:
+
+"I must see you again, Marianne."
+
+"What is the use?" she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his.
+
+"Where shall I see you?" he asked, without replying to her question.
+
+"I do not know--at my house--"
+
+"At your house?"
+
+"Wait," she added abruptly, "I will write to you."
+
+"You promise me?"
+
+"On my word of honor. At the ministry, _Personal_, isn't that so?"
+
+"Yes!--Ah! you are very good!" he cried, without knowing what he was
+saying, while Marianne's coachman whipped his horses and the carriage
+disappeared in the direction of Paris.
+
+It seemed to Vaudrey, who remained standing, that little gloved fingers
+appeared behind the window and that he caught glimpses of a face hidden
+under a black, dotted veil.
+
+The carriage disappeared in the distance.
+
+"To the ministry!" said the minister, as he got into his carriage.
+
+He stretched himself out as if intoxicated. He looked at all the
+carriages along the drive of the Bois de Boulogne, the high life was
+already moving toward the Lake. In caleches, old ladies in mourning
+appeared with pale nuns, and old men with red decorations stretched out
+under lap-robes. Pretty girls with pale countenances pierced with bright
+eyes, like fragments of coal in flour, showed themselves at the doors of
+the coupes, close to the muzzles of pink-nosed, well-combed,
+white-haired little dogs. Vaudrey strove to find Marianne amid that
+throng, to see her again. She was far away.
+
+He thought only of her, while his coupe went down the Avenue des
+Champs-Elysees, bustling with noise and movement and flooded with light.
+The coachman took a side street and the carriage disappeared through an
+open gateway between two high posts surmounted by two lamps, in a
+passage leading to a huge white mansion whose slate roof was ablaze
+with sunlight. An infantry soldier in red trousers, with a shako on his
+head, mounted guard and stood motionless beside a brown-painted
+sentry-box that stood at the right. Above the gateways a new tricolor
+flag, in honor of the new ministry, waved in the sunshine.
+
+Against the ministerial edifice were two gas fixtures bearing two huge
+capital letters: R.F., ready to be illuminated on important reception
+nights.
+
+Two lackeys hastily opening the door, rushed up to the halted carriage
+and stood at its door.
+
+"Adieu! Marianne," thought Sulpice, as he placed his foot in the
+antechamber of this vast mansion as cold as a tomb.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_She was still mechanically throwing crumbs of bread around her,
+which were eagerly snatched at by the many-colored ducks_ ...
+
+[Illustration: VAUDREY MEETS MARIANNE IN THE BOIS]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Marianne Kayser was superstitious. She believed that in the case of
+compromised affairs, salvation appeared at the supreme moment of playing
+the very last stake. She had always rebounded, for her part,--like a
+rubber-ball, she said--at the moment that she found herself overthrown,
+and more than half conquered. Fate had given some cause for her
+superstitious ideas. She thought herself lost, and was weary of
+searching, of living, in fact, when suddenly Monsieur de Rosas reached
+Paris from the other end of the world. That was salvation.
+
+The duke did not prove very difficult to ensnare. He had yielded like a
+child in Sabine's boudoir. Marianne left that soiree with unbounded
+delight. She had recovered all her hopes and regained her _luck_. The
+next day she would again see Rosas. She passed the night in dreams.
+Light and gold reigned upon her life. She was radiant on awaking.
+
+Her uncle, on seeing her, found her looking younger and superb.
+
+"You are as beautiful as a Correggio, who though a voluptuous painter,
+must have been talented. You ought to pose to me for a Saint Cecilia. It
+would be magnificent, with a nimbus--"
+
+"Oh! let your saint come later," said Marianne, "I haven't time."
+
+Simon Kayser did not ask the young woman, moreover, why "she had not
+time." Marianne was perfectly free. Each managed his affairs in his own
+way. Such, in fact, was one of the favorite axioms of this painter, a
+man of principle.
+
+Marianne breakfasted quickly and early, and after dressing herself,
+during which she studied coquettish effects while standing before her
+mirror, she left the house, jumped into a cab and drove to the Hotel
+Continental. With proud mien and tossing her head, she asked for the
+duke as if he belonged to her. She was almost inclined to exclaim before
+all the people: "I am his mistress!"
+
+But she suddenly turned pale upon hearing that Monsieur de Rosas had
+left.
+
+"What! gone?"
+
+Gone thus, suddenly, unceremoniously, without notice, without a word? It
+was not possible.
+
+They were obliged to confirm this news to her several times at the hotel
+office. Monsieur le duc had that very morning ordered a coupe to take
+him to catch a train for Calais. It was true that he had left some
+baggage behind, but at the same time he notified them that they would
+perhaps have to forward it to him in England later.
+
+Marianne listened in stupid astonishment. She became livid under her
+little veil.
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas did not receive a telegram?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Something serious had, perhaps, suddenly intervened in the duke's life.
+Nevertheless, this abrupt departure without notification, following the
+exciting soiree of the previous day, greatly astonished this woman who
+but now believed herself securely possessed of Jose.
+
+"Nonsense!" she thought. "He was afraid of me--Yes, that's it!--Of
+course, he was afraid of me. He loves me much, too much, and distrusts
+himself. He has gone away."
+
+She commenced to laugh uneasily as she got into her carriage again.
+
+"Assuredly, that is part of my fate. That stupid Guy leaves for Italy.
+Rosas leaves for England. Steam was invented to admit of escape from
+dangerous women. I did not follow Lissac. What if I followed the duke?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and gnawed her cambric handkerchief under
+her veil, her head resting on the back of the coach, while the driver
+waited, standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, ignorant of the
+direction in which the young woman wished to go.
+
+Marianne felt herself beaten. She was like a gambler who loses a
+decisive game. Evidently, Rosas only showed more clearly by the action
+he had taken, how much he was smitten; she measured his love by her own
+dismay; but what was the good of that love, if the duke escaped in a
+cowardly fashion?--But where could she find him? Where follow him? Where
+write to him?--A man who runs about as he does! A madman! Perhaps on
+arriving at Dover he had already re-embarked for Japan or Australia.
+
+"Ah! the unexpected happens, it seems," thought Marianne, laughing
+maliciously, as she considered the ludicrousness of her failure.
+
+"Madame, we are going--?" indifferently asked the coachman, who was
+tired of waiting.
+
+"Where you please--to the Bois!"
+
+"Very good, madame."
+
+He looked at his huge aluminum watch, coolly remarking:
+
+"It was a quarter of twelve when I took Madame--"
+
+"Good! good!--to the Bois!"
+
+The movement of the carriage, the sight of the passers-by, the sunlight
+playing on the fountains and the paving-stones of the Place de la
+Concorde fully occupied Marianne's mind, although irritating her at the
+same time. All the cheerfulness attending the awakening spring,
+delightful as it is in Paris, seemed irony to her. She felt again, but
+with increased bitterness, all the sentiments she experienced a few
+mornings previously when she called on Guy and told him of her
+burdensome weariness and distaste of life. Of what use was she now? She
+had just built so many fond dreams on hope! And all her edifices had
+crumbled.
+
+"All has to be recommenced. To lead the stupid life of a needy, lost,
+harassed woman; no, that is too ridiculous, too sad! What then--" she
+said to herself, as with fixed eyes she gazed into the infinite and
+discovered no solution.
+
+She was savagely annoyed at Rosas. She would have liked to tear him in
+pieces like the handkerchief that she shredded. Ah! if he should ever
+return to her after this flight!
+
+But perhaps it was not a flight--who knows? The duke would write, would
+perhaps reappear.
+
+"No," a secret voice whispered to Marianne. "The truth is that he is
+afraid of you! It is you, you, whom he flees from."
+
+To renounce everything was enough to banish all patience. Yesterday, on
+leaving Rosas, she believed herself to be withdrawn forever from the
+wretched Bohemian life she had so painfully endured. To-day, she felt
+herself sunk deeper in its mire. Too much mire and misery at last!
+However, if she only had courage!
+
+It was while looking at the great blue lake, the snowy swans, the
+gleaming barks, that she dreamed, as she had just told Vaudrey, of
+making an end of all. Madness, worse than that, stupidity! One does not
+kill one's self at her age; one does not make of beauty a valueless
+draft. In order to occupy herself, she had bought some brown bread,
+which she mechanically threw to the ducks, in order to draw her out of
+herself. It was then that Sulpice saw her.
+
+"Assuredly," she thought, as she left the minister, "those who despair
+are idiots!"
+
+In fact, it seemed that chance, as her fingers had cast mouthfuls of
+bread to the hungry bills, had thrown Vaudrey to her in place of Rosas.
+
+A minister! that young man who smiled on her just now in the alleys of
+the Bois and drew near her with trembling breath was a minister. A
+minister as popular as Vaudrey was a power, and since Marianne, weary of
+seeking love, was pursuing an actuality quite as difficult to
+obtain--riches, Sulpice unquestionably was not to be despised.
+
+"As a last resource, one might find worse," thought Marianne, as she
+entered her home.
+
+She had not, moreover, hesitated long. She was not in the mood for
+prolonged anger. She was at an age when prompt decisions must be made on
+every occasion that life, with its harsh spurs, proposed a problem or
+furnished an opportunity. On the way between the Lake and Rue de
+Navarin, Marianne had formed her plan. Since she had to reply to
+Vaudrey, she would write him. She felt an ardent desire to avenge
+herself for Rosas's treatment, as if he ought to suffer therefor, as if
+he were about to know that Sulpice loved her.
+
+Had she found the duke awaiting her, as she entered the house, she would
+have been quite capable of lashing his face with a whip, while making
+the lying confession:
+
+"Ah! you here? It is too late! I love Monsieur Vaudrey."
+
+She would, moreover, never know any but gloomy feelings arising from her
+poverty in that house. The thought suggested itself to her of at once
+inviting Vaudrey to call on her. But surrounded by the vulgar
+appointments of that poor, almost bare, studio, concealing her poverty
+under worn-out hangings, indifferent studies, old, yellowed casts
+covered with dust--to receive Vaudrey there would be to confess her
+terribly straitened condition, her necessities, her eagerness, all that
+repels and freezes love. In glancing around her uncle's studio, she
+scrutinized everything with an expression of hatred.
+
+It smacked of dirty poverty, bourgeois ugliness. She would never dare to
+ask Vaudrey to sit upon that divan, which was littered with old, torn
+books and tobacco grains, and which, when one sat upon it, discharged a
+cloud of dust whose atoms danced in the sunlight.
+
+"What are you looking at?" asked Kayser, as he followed his niece's
+glances about the room. "You seem to be making an inspection."
+
+"Precisely. And I am thinking that your studio would not fetch a very
+high figure at Drouot's auction mart."
+
+"Lofty and moral creations don't sell in times like these," gravely
+replied the old dauber. "For myself, I am not a painter of obscene
+subjects and lewd photography."
+
+Marianne shrugged her shoulders and went out, coughing involuntarily.
+Old Kayser passed his time steeped in the odors of nicotine.
+
+"I am lost, if Vaudrey comes here," she said to herself.
+
+She knew well enough that caprice, the love of those who do not love,
+lives on luxury, intoxicating perfumes, shimmering silk, and all the
+mysterious surroundings of draperies which are the accompaniment of the
+adventure. Vaudrey would recoil before this Bohemian studio. The famous
+"nimbus," of which Kayser spoke, was the creature of his tobacco smoke.
+What was to be done, then? Receive the minister yonder in that remote
+apartment where, all alone,--it was true--she went to dream, dream with
+all the strange joys attending isolation? Draw this man to a distant
+corner of Paris, in the midst of the ruins of former luxury, as mean as
+the wretch's studio?--Eh! that was to acknowledge to Vaudrey that she
+was intriguing for a liaison with the single object of quitting the
+prison-walls of want. She realized that this man, full of illusions,
+believing that he had to do with perhaps a virtuous girl, or, at least,
+one who was not moving in her own circle, who was giving herself, but
+not selling herself, would shrink at the reality on finding himself face
+to face with an adventuress.
+
+"Illusion is everything! He must be deceived! They are all stupid!" she
+mused.
+
+But how was she to deceive this man as to her condition, how cloak her
+want, how cause herself to pass for what she was not? With Rosas it
+would have been a simple matter. Poor, she presented herself to him in
+her poverty. He loved her so. She could the better mislead him. But with
+Vaudrey, on the contrary, she must dazzle.
+
+"Two innocents," Marianne said to herself, "the one thirsts for virtue,
+the other for vice."
+
+Should she confess everything to Sulpice as she had done to Rosas? Yes,
+perhaps, if she discovered no better way, but a better plan had to be
+found, sought, or invented. Find what? Borrow? Ask? Whom? Guy? She would
+not dare to do so, even supposing that Lissac was sufficiently well off.
+Then she wished to keep up appearances, even in Guy's eyes. Further,
+she had never forgiven him for running off to Italy. She never would
+forget it. No, no, she would ask nothing from Guy.
+
+To whom, then, should she apply? She again found herself in the
+frightful extremity of those who, in that almost limitless Paris,
+involved in the terrible intricacies of that madly-directed machine,
+seek money, a loan, some help, an outstretched hand, but who find
+nothing, not an effort to help them in all its crowd. She was overcome
+with rage and hatred. Nothing! she had nothing! She would have sold
+herself to any person whatsoever, to have speedily obtained a few of the
+luxuries she required. Yes; sold herself now, to sell herself more
+dearly to-morrow.
+
+Sold! Suddenly from the depths of her memory she recalled a form,
+confused at first, but quickly remembered vividly, of an old woman
+against whom she had formerly jostled, in the chance life she had led,
+and who, once beautiful, and still clever and rich, it was said, had
+been seized with a friendly desire to protect Marianne. It was a long
+time since the young woman had thought of Claire Dujarrier. She met her
+occasionally, her white locks hidden under a copious layer of golden
+powder, looking as yellow as sawdust. The old woman had said to her:
+
+"Whenever you need advice or assistance, do not forget my address: Rue
+La Fontaine, Auteuil."
+
+Marianne had thanked her at the time, and had forgotten all about it
+till now, when in the anguish of her pursuit she recalled the name and
+features of Claire Dujarrier as from the memories of yesterday. Claire
+Dujarrier, a former danseuse, whose black eyes, diamonds, wild
+extravagance, and love adventures were notorious formerly, had for the
+last two or three years buried herself in a little house, fearing that
+she would be assassinated; she kept her diamonds in iron-lined safes
+built in the wall, and had a young lover, a clerk in a novelty store,
+who was stronger than a market-house porter, and who from time to time
+assumed a high tone and before whom she stood in awe.
+
+"Claire Dujarrier! The very thing!--Why not?" thought Marianne.
+
+She had been introduced to the ex-danseuse by Guy de Lissac. He was
+considered as one of Claire's old lovers. They quarrelled when the old
+dame had heard one of Guy's bons mots that had become familiar at the
+Club:
+
+"When I see her, I always feel a slight emotion: she recalls my youth to
+me!--But alas! not hers!"
+
+Claire was well-off and perhaps miserly. Marianne instinctively felt,
+however, that she would get help at her hands.
+
+Money!
+
+"I will return her all! It is usury. Her pledge is here!"
+
+With brazen front, Kayser's niece struck her bosom, looking at the same
+time at the reflection of her fine bust and pale face in the mirror.
+
+The next day she went straight to the former danseuse's.
+
+Claire Dujarrier lived in that long Rue La Fontaine at Auteuil which
+partook of the characteristics of a suburban main street and a
+provincial faubourg, with its summer villas, its little cottages
+enclosed within gloomy little gardens, railed-off flower-beds,
+boarding-schools for young people, and elbowing each other as in some
+village passage, the butcher's store, the pharmacy, the wine-dealer's
+shop, the baker's establishment,--a kind of little summer resort with a
+forlorn look in February, the kiosks and cottages half decayed, the
+gardens full of faded, dreary-looking leaves. Marianne looked about,
+seeking the little Claire house. She had visited it formerly. A
+policeman wandered along sadly,--as if to remind one of the town,--and
+on one side, a gardener passed scuffling his wooden shoes, as if to
+recall the village.
+
+However, here it was that the formerly celebrated girl, who awoke storms
+of applause when she danced beside Cerrito at the Opera, now lived
+buried in silence,--a cab going to the Villa Montmorency seemed an event
+in her eyes,--forgotten, her windows shut, and as a diversion looking
+through the shutters at the high chimneys of some factory in the
+neighboring Rue Gras that belched forth their ruddy or bluish fumes, or
+yellow like sulphuric acid, or again red like the reflection of fire.
+
+Marianne rang several times when she arrived at the garden railing of
+the little house. The bells sounded as if they were coated with rust. An
+ancient maid-servant, astonished and morose, came to open the door.
+
+She conducted the young woman into the salon where Claire Dujarrier sat
+alone, eating cakes, with her terrier on her lap.
+
+The dog almost leaped at Marianne's throat while Claire, rising, threw
+herself on her neck.
+
+"Ah! dear little one!--How pleased I am! What chance brings you?"
+
+Marianne looked at the Dujarrier. She might still be called almost
+lovely, although she was a little painted and her eyes were swollen, and
+her cheeks withered; but she knew so perfectly well all the secrets for
+rejuvenating, the eyebrow preparation, the labial wash, that she was a
+walking pharmaceutical painting done on finely sculptured features. The
+statue, although burdened with fat, was still superb.
+
+She listened to Marianne, smiled, frowned and, love-broker and advisory
+courtesan that she was, ended by saying to the "little one" that she had
+a devilish good chance and that she had arrived like March in Lent.
+
+"It is true, it has purposely happened. Vanda, you know her well?"
+
+"No!" answered Marianne.
+
+"What! Vanda, whom that big viper Guy called the Walking Rain?"
+
+"I do not remember--"
+
+"Well! Vanda has gone to Russia, she left a month ago. She will be there
+all the winter and summer, and part of next winter. Her _general_
+requires her. He is appointed to keep an eye on the Nihilists. So she
+wishes to rent her house in Rue Prony. That is very natural. A charming
+house. Very _chic_. In admirable taste. You have the chance. And not
+dear."
+
+"Too dear for me, who have nothing!"
+
+"Little silly! You have yourself," said Claire Dujarrier. "Then you have
+me, I have always liked you. I will lend you the ready cash to set
+yourself up, you can give me bills of exchange, little documents that
+your minister--pest! you are going on well, you are, ministers!--that
+His Excellency will endorse. Vanda will not expect anything after the
+first quarter. Provided that her house is well-rented to someone who
+does not spoil it, she will be satisfied. If she should claim all, why,
+at a pinch I can make up the amount. But, my dear,"--and the old woman
+lowered her voice,--"on no account say anything to Adolphe."
+
+"Adolphe?"
+
+"Yes, my _husband_. You do not know him?"
+
+She took from the table a photograph enclosed in a photograph-case of
+sky-blue plush, in which Marianne recognized a swaggering fellow with
+flat face, large hands, fierce, bushy moustache, who leaned on a cane,
+swelling out his huge chest in outline against a mean, gray-tinted
+garden ornamented with Medicis vases.
+
+"A handsome fellow, isn't he? Quite young!--and he loves me--I adore
+him, too!"
+
+The tumid eyes of Claire Dujarrier resembled lighted coals. She pressed
+kiss after kiss of her painted lips on the photograph and reverently
+laid it on the table.
+
+Marianne almost pitied this half-senile love, the courtesan's
+terrifying, last love.
+
+She was, however, too content either to trouble herself, or even to
+reflect upon it. She was wild with joy. It seemed to her that a sudden
+rift had opened before her and a gloriously sunny future pictured itself
+to her mind. What an inspiration it was to think of Claire Dujarrier!
+
+She would sign everything she wished, acknowledge the sums lent, with
+any interest that might be demanded. Much she cared about that,
+indeed!--She was sure now to free herself and to _succeed_.
+
+"You are jolly right," said the ancient danseuse. "The nest is entirely
+at the birds' disposal. Your minister--I don't ask his name, but I shall
+learn it by the bills of exchange--would treat you as a grisette if he
+found you at your uncle's. Whereas at Vanda's--ah! at Vanda's! you will
+have news to tell me. So, see this is all that is necessary. I will
+write to Vanda that her house is rented, and well rented. Kiss me and
+skip! I hear Adolphe coming. He does not care to see new faces. And
+then, yours is too pretty!" she added, with a peculiar significance.
+
+She got the old servant to show Marianne out promptly, as if she felt
+fearful lest her _husband_ should see the pretty creature. Claire
+Dujarrier was certainly jealous.
+
+"It is not I that would rob her of her porter!" Marianne thought, as she
+walked away from Rue La Fontaine.
+
+Evening was now darkening the gray streets. A faint bluish mist was
+rising over the river and spreading like breath over the quays. Marianne
+saw Paris in the distance, and her visit seemed like a dream to her; she
+closed her eyes, and a voice within her whispered confusedly the names
+of Rosas, Vaudrey, Vanda, Rue Prony; she pictured herself stretched at
+length on a reclining chair in the luxurious house of a courtesan, and
+she saw at her feet that man--a minister--who supplicatingly besought
+her favor, while in the distance a man who resembled Rosas was
+travelling, moving away, disappearing--
+
+"Nonsense!" the superstitious creature said to herself, "it was one or
+the other! The duke or the minister! I have not made the choice."
+
+Then looking at the confused image of herself thrown on the window of
+the cab, she threw a kiss at her own pale reflection, happy with the
+unbounded joy of a child, and cried aloud while laughing heartily:
+
+"Bonjour, Vanda! I greet you, Mademoiselle Vanda."
+
+
+
+
+
+PART SECOND
+
+I
+
+
+The Monceau plain is the quarter of changed fortunes and dice-throwing.
+An entire town given over to luxury, born in a single night, suddenly
+sprung into existence. The unpremeditated offspring of the aggregation
+of millions. Instead of the cobbler's stall, the red-bedaubed shop of
+the dealer in wines, the nakedness of an outer boulevard, here in this
+spot of earth all styles flourish: the contrast of fancy, the chateau
+throwing the English cottage in the shade; the Louis XIII. dwelling
+hobnobbing with the Flemish house; the salamander of Francis I. hugging
+the bourgeois tenement; the Gothic gateway opening for the entry of the
+carriages of the courtesan. A town within a town. Something novel,
+white, extravagant, overdone: the colossal in proximity to the
+attractive, the vastness of a grand American hotel casting its shadow
+over an Italian loggia. It partook at once of the Parisian and the
+Yankee. The Chateau de Chambord sheltering a chocolate maker, and the
+studio of an artist now become the salon of a rich curbstone broker.
+
+The little Hotel de Vanda,--_one of our charming fugitives_, as those of
+the chroniclers who still remember Vanda, say of her in their articles
+sometimes--is an elegant establishment, severe in external appearance,
+but of entirely modern interior arrangements, with a wealth of choice
+knickknacks, and is regarded as one of the most attractive houses in Rue
+Prony. Since the flight of the pretty courtesan, it bears the sad
+notice: _Residence to let_. Its fast closed shutters give it the gloomy
+appearance of a deserted boudoir. Complete silence succeeds feverish
+bustle! Vanda was a boisterous, madcap spendthrift. Through the old
+windows with their old-fashioned panes there often used to escape
+snatches of song, airs of waltzes, fragments of quadrilles. Vanda's
+horses pawed the ground spiritedly as they started at the fashionable
+hour for the Bois, through the great gateway leading to the stables. And
+now, for months, a corner of Rue Prony had been silent and drowsy, and
+weighted with the melancholy that surrounds forsaken objects.
+
+It was here that Marianne, in carrying out her determination, entered
+with a high head, resolved to cast off her sombre misery or to sink, her
+plans defeated. The Dujarrier had greatly assisted her in taking up her
+abode, building her hopes on Mademoiselle Kayser's beauty as on some
+temporary profitable investment. As the old woman looked at her, she
+shook her head. Marianne had to be quick. She was pale, already weary,
+and her beauty, heightened by this weariness, was "in full blast," as
+the former bungling artiste said in her capacity of a connoisseur.
+
+"After all," Dujarrier said to herself, "it is the favorable moment for
+success. One does not become a _general_ except through seniority."
+
+Marianne also experienced the same feelings as the Dujarrier. She
+realized that she had reached the turning-point of her life, it was like
+a game of baccarat that she was playing with fate. She might come out of
+it rich and preserved from the possibility of dying in a hospital or a
+hovel after having dragged her tattered skirts through the streets, or
+overwhelmed with debts, ruined forever, strangled by liabilities. This
+commercial term made her smile ironically when she thought of it.
+Against her she had her past, her adventurous life, almost the life of a
+courtesan, carried away by the current of her amorous whims; it now
+needed only the burden of liabilities for her to become not only
+completely disclassed, but ruined by Parisian life. She had given the
+Dujarrier receipts for all that that quasi-silent-partner had advanced
+her, the old lady excusing herself for the precaution she took by saying
+precisely:
+
+"In that way one can hold people. Grateful acknowledgments are good;
+written acknowledgments are better!"
+
+The Dujarrier considered herself witty.
+
+Marianne had signed, moreover, all that the other had asked. She still
+needed, indeed, to make further outlay. And what mattered it if she
+plunged deeper while she was _taking a dive_, as she expressed it in her
+language, which was a mixture of street slang and the elegant
+phraseology of the salon.
+
+"Bah! I know how to swim."
+
+She suddenly straightened herself under this anxiety, reassured,
+moreover, and spurred on as she was by the Dujarrier herself, who said
+as she shrugged her shoulders:
+
+"When a woman like you has a man like Vaudrey,--a minister,--she has her
+nest lined."
+
+Sulpice was not the man long to resist so refined a Parisienne as
+Marianne. In him, the repressed ardors, the poetic ideas of a man of
+twenty, had become the appetites of a man of forty. This provincial,
+hungry for Parisianism,--very young in feelings and soul,--felt, as soon
+as he found himself in Marianne's company, mad with desire for a new
+life. The dazzling honors attending his entry into the ministry found
+their culmination in the burning glance of Marianne, as their eyes met.
+
+Hardly was she installed in Rue Prony than she reminded him of his
+promise to call on her. He hastened to her with strange eagerness and he
+left her more disturbed, as if he had just taken a peep at an unknown
+world. The feminine elegance of the Hotel de Vanda had suddenly
+intoxicated him. Marianne played her part very calmly in producing the
+daily ravage that passion was making on Sulpice. She studied its rapid
+progress with all the sang-froid of a physician. She regulated the doses
+of her toxicant, the poison of her glance instilled into the veins of
+this man. Determined to become his mistress, she desired to fall in the
+guise of a woman madly in love, and not as an ordinary courtesan. With
+any other man than Vaudrey, she would, perhaps, have yielded more
+quickly. But she acted with Vaudrey as formerly she had done with Rosas.
+Seeing that these idealists caressed their dreams, she coquetted with
+platonic love, besides, she preferred to remain free for a short time,
+without the burden of those pleasures of which she had grown tired, and
+which had always caused her more disgust than delight.
+
+Moreover, she said to herself that it was necessary in Sulpice's case to
+have the appearance of playing frankly, of loving truly, as in the case
+of Rosas. But, this time, she would not let Vaudrey escape her by
+flight, as the duke did. She would yield at the desired moment, certain
+that Sulpice would not leave her the next day.
+
+"Rosas would be here," she said to herself self-confidently, "if he had
+been my lover."
+
+After a moment of regretful preoccupation, she shrugged her shoulders
+and said quickly:
+
+"Bah! _what is written is written_, as he said. If I haven't him, I have
+the other."
+
+The "other" grew day by day more deeply enamored. He rushed off in hot
+haste to visit Marianne; his hired hack, in which he sometimes left his
+minister's portfolio peacefully at rest, pending his return, stood
+before the little door in the Avenue Prony. He was happier when he
+thought he had made a forward step in Marianne's affections than when he
+had acquired new votes from the minority in the Chamber. Ambitious
+projects yielded to the consuming desire that he felt toward this woman.
+At the ministry, during the familiar conversations at table with
+Adrienne and even during the hurly-burly attendant on private receptions
+and morning interviews, he sometimes remained silent, lost in thought,
+his mind wandering and, in reality, with Marianne.
+
+Adrienne, at such times, with a sweet smile which made Sulpice shudder
+with remorse, would beseech him to work less, to take some recreation,
+and not allow himself to be so absorbed in politics.
+
+"You are extremely pale, I assure you. You look worn out. You work too
+hard."
+
+"It is due to administrative changes. There are so many documents to
+examine."
+
+"I know that very well, but isn't Monsieur Warcolier there? In what way
+does he help you?"
+
+"In no way," replied the minister sharply, speaking with truth.
+
+Public affairs, in fact, absorbed him, and he found it necessary to
+steal the precious time to make a hasty trip to Rue Prony. A vacation,
+it is true, was near. In less than a month, Vaudrey would have more
+time at his disposal. But for more than three weeks yet, the minister
+would have everything to modify and change,--everything to put into a
+healthy shape, as Warcolier said--in the Hotel Beauvau.
+
+What matter! He found the time to fly incognito to the Maison de Vanda,
+leaving his coupe at the ministry. Marianne was always there for him
+when he arrived. The male domestic or the femme de chambre received him
+with all the deference that "domestics" show when they suspect that the
+visitor brings any kind of subsidy to the house. To Vaudrey, there was a
+sort of mystery in Mademoiselle Kayser's life. Ramel, who knew her uncle
+Kayser, had told him of the poverty of the painter. How then, seeing
+that her uncle was so shabby, could the niece be so sumptuously
+established?
+
+Kayser, whom he had once met at Marianne's, had answered such a question
+by remarking that his niece was a _sly puss_ who understood life
+thoroughly and would be sure to make headway. But that was all.
+
+"I have suspected for a long time that that little head was not capable
+of much," the painter had added. "I considered her a light-headed
+creature, nothing more. Fool that I was! she is a shrewd woman, a clever
+woman, a true woman. I only find fault with her for one thing."
+
+"What?" asked Vaudrey.
+
+"Do you ask what, Monsieur le Ministre? The style of her establishment.
+It is flashy, tawdry, noisy, it is boudoir art. It lacks seriousness! It
+lacks morality! I would have in it figures that have style, character. I
+don't ask for saintly pictures, but moral allegories, austere art. I
+understand only the severe in art. I am a puritan in the matter of the
+brush. For that reason, I shall attain nothing in these days of _genre_
+and water-color painting."
+
+And Kayser went on painting allegories, to digest his dinner, the pate
+de foie gras washed down with kummel, of which he had just partaken at
+his niece's.
+
+Vaudrey himself viewed those Japanese trifles, those screens, those
+carpets, those pedestals surmounted by terra-cotta figures presenting in
+their nudity the flesh tints of woman, those clock-cases above the
+doors, that profusion of knickknacks, of furniture, of ottomans, that
+soft upholstery that seemed to be made only to excuse a fall--nay, even
+urged to sudden temptations, to chance love, to violent caprices; and on
+leaving the house, where he had spoken to Marianne only in compliments a
+hundred times repeated, and where she had but re-echoed sarcasms full of
+tender, double meanings, as a woman who would undoubtedly yield, but
+would not offer herself, he bore away with him in his nostrils and, as
+it were, in his clothes, a permeating, feminine odor, which would now
+follow him everywhere, and everywhere float about him in whiffs, urging
+him to return to that house in which a new world seemed to be opening to
+him.
+
+He would not long persist in enquiring how Marianne Kayser had procured
+all those baubles that so highly incensed the puritan instincts of her
+honest uncle. He found himself urged forward with profound delight in
+this adventure whose mysterious features pleased him. Bah! the very fact
+that he found so much inexplicable in the life of this woman enticed him
+all the more. It seemed to him that not only had he entered upon a
+romantic course, but that he was himself the hero of the romance. Never,
+in the days when he rolled about, an unknown student, on the Parisian
+wave, and had lifted his thoughts toward some pale patrician girl,
+toward some pretty creature he had caught a glimpse of, leaning back in
+a dark-blue coupe, or framed in by the red velvet hangings of a
+proscenium box, had he more perfectly incarnated the ideal of his desire
+than in so charming a creature. Dreams of power, visions of love of his
+twentieth year, had now become tangible to him and at forty he stretched
+out his feverish hand toward them all.
+
+"Could Ramel have been right?" he said to himself, "and I, only a
+provincial, athirst for Parisine? But what matter? Let Mademoiselle
+Kayser be what she will and I what I may be, it seems to me that I have
+never loved any one as I love this woman."
+
+"Not even Adrienne," added a faint, trembling voice from within. But
+Sulpice had a ready answer to stifle it: Adrienne could not be compared
+with any creature in the world. Adrienne was the charm, the daily
+comfort of the domestic hearth. She was the wife, not the "woman." She
+was the darling, not the love. Vaudrey would have severed one of his
+arms to spare her any heavy sorrow, but he was not anxious about
+Adrienne. She knew nothing, she would know nothing. And what fault,
+moreover, had he committed hitherto? In that word _hitherto_, a host of
+mental reservations were involved that Sulpice would gladly have
+obliterated with his nails, he was ready to cry out with the same good
+faith,--that of the husband who deceives the wife whom he loves:
+
+"What wrong have I done?"
+
+One afternoon,--there was no session of the Chamber that day,--Marianne
+was seated in her little salon. She was warming the tips of her
+slippers, that furtively peeped from beneath the lace of her skirt as a
+little bird might protrude its beak from a nest, her right leg crossed
+over the other, and she appeared to be musing, her chin resting on her
+delicate hand.
+
+She was weary. Justine, her recently engaged femme de chambre, who, like
+the silverware, was provided by the Dujarrier, came to announce with the
+discreet, bantering little smile of servants, that Monsieur Dachet, the
+upholsterer, had called twice.
+
+"The upholsterer!"
+
+Marianne frowned slightly.
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Nothing, that he would return to-morrow."
+
+"You call that nothing?" said Marianne, with a short laugh.
+
+When Justine had left the room, she went straight to a small, black,
+Italian cabinet inlaid with ivory, of which one drawer was locked. In
+opening it, the sound of gold coins rattling on the wood caused her to
+smile; then, with the tips of her white fingers, she spread out the
+louis at the bottom of the drawer, which she abruptly closed, making a
+wry face, and folding her arms, she returned to her seat in front of the
+fire, beating her right foot nervously upon the wrought-iron fender.
+
+"The Dujarrier's money will not go much further," she thought. "It is
+finished."
+
+She thought of striking a decisive blow. Up to the present time, her
+relations with Sulpice had floated in the regions of the
+sentimentalities of the novel, or of romance. The minister believed
+himself loved for love's sake. He saw in Marianne only an eccentric girl
+free from all prejudices and every duty, who disposed of her life as
+seemed best to her, without being under the necessity of accounting to
+either husband or lover. Free, she made of her liberty pleasure or
+passion according to her fancy. The frightful, practical questions, the
+daily necessities, were lost sight of by this man who was burdened with
+the governmental question of France. Again, he never asked himself the
+source of Marianne's luxury. He delighted in it without thinking of
+analyzing anything or of knowing anything, and this ingenuously.
+Mademoiselle Kayser's first word must necessarily awaken him to the
+situation.
+
+She knew that Vaudrey was to come, and suddenly leaving the fire, she
+arrayed herself for him in a black satin peignoir lined with red surah,
+with lapels of velvet thrown widely apart and allowing the whiteness of
+her neck and chest to be seen under folds of old lace. Her fair hair
+fell upon her velvet collar, and surmounting this strange costume, her
+pale face against the background of the red-draped salon assumed the
+disturbing charm of an apparition.
+
+On seeing her, Sulpice could not refrain from stopping short and looking
+at her in admiration. Seated there, in the centre of her salon, she was
+awaiting him and arranging bundles of papers in a basket with gilded
+feet and lined with pink satin. She extended her hand to him. It was a
+pale hand, as inanimate as the hand of a dead person, and she languidly
+asked him why he remained there stupefied without approaching her.
+
+"I am looking," said the minister.
+
+"You are always the most gallant of men," said Marianne, and she added:
+
+"You are not already tired then of looking at me? Usually, caprices do
+not last so long."
+
+"The affection that I have for you is not a caprice."
+
+"What is it, then? I am curious--"
+
+"It is a passion, Marianne, an absolute, deep, mad passion--"
+
+"Oh! nonsense! nonsense!" said Marianne. "I know that you speak
+wonderfully well, I have heard you in the tribune. A declaration of love
+costs you no more than a ministerial declaration. But to-day, my dear
+minister, I am not disposed to listen to it even from you."
+
+In these last words, there was a certain tenderness that in a measure
+modified the expression of weariness or sulkiness which Marianne
+suggested. Sulpice inferred therefrom an implied acceptance of his
+proffered love.
+
+"Yes," said she abruptly; "I am very sad, frightfully sad."
+
+"Without a cause?" asked Vaudrey.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh! I am not of those who allow their nerves to control them. When I am
+out of sorts, there is invariably a cause. Let that be understood once
+for all."
+
+"And the cause?--I should be delighted to learn it, Marianne, for I
+swear to you that I would always bear a half of your troubles and
+pains."
+
+"Thanks!--But in life there are troubles so commonplace that one could
+only acknowledge them to the most intimate friends."
+
+"You have no more devoted friend than I am," replied Vaudrey, in a tone
+that conveyed unmistakable conviction.
+
+She knew it positively. She could read that heart like an open page.
+
+"When one meets friends like you, one is the more solicitous to keep
+them and to avoid saddening them with stupid affairs."
+
+"But why?" asked Vaudrey, drawing close to Marianne. "What troubles you?
+I beseech you to tell me!"
+
+He gazed earnestly at her eyes, seeking in the depths of their blue
+pupils a secret or a confession that evaded him, and with an instinctive
+movement he seized Marianne's hands which she abandoned to him; they
+were quite cold. As he bent toward her to plead with her to speak, he
+felt her gentle breath, inhaled the perfume of her delicate, fair skin,
+and saw the exquisite curves of her body outlined beneath the black
+folds of her satin peignoir. Marianne's knee gently pressed his own
+while her heavy eyelids fell like veils over the young woman's eyes, in
+which Vaudrey thought he observed tears.
+
+"Marianne, I entreat you, if you have any sorrow whatever, that I can
+assuage, I pray you, tell me of it!"
+
+"Eh! if it were a sorrow!--" she said, quickly withdrawing her left hand
+from Sulpice's warm grasp. "But it is worse: it is a financial worry,
+yes, financial," she said brusquely, on observing that Vaudrey's face
+depicted astonishment.
+
+She seized the handful of papers that she had thrown into the
+work-basket, and said in a tone that was expressive of mingled wrath and
+disgust:
+
+"There now, you see that? They are bills for this house: the accounts of
+clamorous creditors, upholsterers, locksmiths, builders and I don't know
+what besides!"
+
+"What! your house?"
+
+"You thought that I had paid for it? It is a rented one and nothing in
+it is paid for. I owe for all, and to a hungry pack."
+
+She began to laugh.
+
+"Do you imagine then that old Kayser's niece could lead this life in
+which you see her? Without a sou, should I possess all that you see
+here?--No!--I have perpetrated the folly of ordering all these things
+for which I am now indebted and which must be paid for at once, and now
+I am about to be sued. There! you were determined to urge me to confess
+all that--Such are my worries and they are not yours, so I ask your
+pardon, my dear Vaudrey: so let us talk of something else. Well! how did
+the Fraynais interpellation turn out?--What has taken place in the
+Chamber?"
+
+"Let us speak only of you, Marianne," said the minister, who looked at
+the young woman with a sort of frank compassion as a friendly physician
+looks at a sick person.
+
+She nervously snapped her fingers and with her feet crossed, beat the
+little feverish march that she had previously done.
+
+He drew still closer to her, trying to calm her and to obtain some
+explanation, some information from her; and Marianne, as if she had
+already yielded in at once confiding her secret unreflectingly, refused
+at present to accord him the full measure of her confidence. She
+repeated that nothing that could be a source of annoyance or sordid,
+ought to sadden her friends. Besides, one ought to draw the line at
+one's life-secret. She was entitled, in fact, to maintain silence. That
+Vaudrey should question her so, caused her horrible suffering.
+
+"And you, Marianne," he said, "you torture me much more by not replying
+to me, to whom the least detail of your life is interesting. To me who
+see you preoccupied and distressed, when I wish, I swear to you, to
+banish all your sadness."
+
+She turned toward him with an abrupt movement and with her gray,
+gold-speckled eyes flashing, she seemed to yield to a violent, sudden
+and almost involuntary decision and said to Sulpice:
+
+"Then you wish to know even the wretchedness of my life? So be it! But I
+warn you that it is not very cheerful. For," said she, after a moment's
+silence,--Sulpice shuddered under her glance,--"it is better to be
+frank, and if you love me as you say you do, you should know me
+thoroughly; you can then decide what course to take. For myself, I am
+accustomed to deception."
+
+Ah! although this woman were ready to tell him everything, Vaudrey felt
+sure that her confidence could only intensify the love that he felt. She
+had risen, her arms were crossed over her black gown whose red velvet
+trimming suggested open wounds, her ardent eyes were in strong contrast
+with her pale face, her lips of unusually heightened color expressed a
+strange sensuality that invited a kiss, while her nostrils dilated under
+the impulse of bitter anger--standing thus, she began to narrate her
+life to Vaudrey who was seated in front of her, looking up to her--as if
+at her knees. Her story was a sad one of a wicked childhood, ignorant
+youth, wasted early years, melancholy, sins, outbursts of faith, falls,
+returns of love, pride, virtue, restitution through repentance, scourged
+hopes, dead confidences, the entire heartrending existence of a woman
+who had left more of her heart than of the flesh of her body clinging to
+the nails of her calvaries:--all, though ordinary and commonplace, was
+so cruel in its truth that it appealed at once to Sulpice's heart, a
+heart bursting with pity, to that credulous man who was attracted by all
+that seemed to him so exquisitely painful and new about this woman.
+
+"Perhaps I am worrying you?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"You!" said he.
+
+He looked at her with a tear in his eye.
+
+Marianne's eyes gleamed with a sudden light.
+
+"Well!" she said, "such is my life! I have loved, I have been betrayed.
+I have had faith in some one and I awakened one fine morning with this
+prospect before me: to sink in the deep mud or to do like so many
+others,--to take a lover and save myself through luxury, since I could
+not recover myself through passion. Bah! the world shows more leniency
+toward those who succeed than toward those who repent. All that is
+necessary is to succeed, and on my word--you know Monsieur de Rosas
+well?"
+
+"No," stammered Vaudrey, before whose mind the duke's blond face
+appeared.
+
+"You heard him the other evening!"
+
+"I mean that I have never spoken to him. Well! what of Monsieur de
+Rosas?"
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas loved me. Oh!" she said, interrupting a gesture made
+by Vaudrey, "wait. He said that he loved me. He is rich. Why should I
+not have been Rosas's mistress? Deal for deal, that was a good bargain,
+at least! I accept Rosas! It was to receive him that I was foolish
+enough to make my purchases without reckoning, without knowing. What's
+that for a Rosas?" she said, as she crushed the bundle of bills between
+her fingers.
+
+"And--Monsieur de Rosas?" asked Vaudrey, who was quite pale.
+
+"He?"
+
+Marianne laughed.
+
+"Well, he has gone--I have told you as much. He has, moreover, perhaps,
+done wisely. I regretted him momentarily--but, bah! I should have sent
+him away--yes, very quickly, just so! without even allowing him to
+touch the tips of my fingers."
+
+"Rosas?" repeated the minister, looking keenly into Marianne's eyes.
+
+"Rosas!" she again said, lowering her voice. "And do you know why I
+would have done that?"
+
+"No--" answered Sulpice trembling.
+
+"Simply because I no longer loved him, and that I loved another."
+
+She had spoken these last words slowly and in such passionate, vibrating
+tones that Sulpice felt himself shudder with delight.
+
+"Ah," he said, as he went toward her, "is that the reason? Truly,
+Marianne, is that the reason?"
+
+She had not confessed whom she loved, she had spoken only by her looks.
+But Sulpice felt that he belonged to her, he was burning with passion,
+transported, insane from this avowal; his hands sought hers and drew her
+to him. He clasped her to his bosom, intoxicated by the pressure of this
+body against his own, and added in a very low tone while his fingers
+alternately wandered over her satiny neck and her silky hair:
+
+"How can I help loving you, Marianne? Is it true, really true? You love
+me?--Ah! what the great nobleman has not done, do you think I cannot do?
+You are in your own home, you understand, Marianne.--Then, as he touched
+the young woman's exquisite ears with his lips, he added:
+
+"Our home--will you have it so?--Our home!--"
+
+He felt, as she remained in his embrace with her body leaning against
+his, that she quivered throughout her frame; his lips wandered from her
+ear to her cheek and then to her lips, there they rested long in a
+ravishing kiss that filled him with the languishing sensation of
+swooning, he holding her so tightly that, with a smile, she disengaged
+herself, pink with her blushes, and bright-eyed, said, with an
+expression of peculiar delight:
+
+"It is sealed now!"
+
+Sulpice, even in his youthful days, had never felt so intoxicating a
+sensation as that which he enjoyed to-day. It was a complete abandonment
+of himself, a forgetfulness of everything in the presence of his
+absolute intoxication. All the realities of life that were ready to take
+possession of him on leaving this place melted before this dream: the
+possession of that woman. He forgot the assembly, the foyer, that human
+crowd that he ruled from the height of the tribune, and Adrienne, who
+was seated yonder at the window, awaiting him. He forgot everything.
+Like those who possess the singular faculty of easily receiving and
+losing impressions, he fancied that his horizon was limited to these
+walls with their silken hangings, these carpets, this feminine salon,
+opening on a boudoir, a retreat whence escaped the odors of flowers and
+perfume bottles.
+
+Then, too, a special feeling of pride entered his heart. He felt his joy
+increased tenfold at the thought that he, the petty bourgeois from
+Grenoble, had snatched this woman from a duke and, like a great
+nobleman, had paid the debts that she had contracted. He raised his head
+proudly from an instinctive impulse of vanity. Rosas! He, the son of
+honest Dauphiny folks, would crush him with his liberality.
+
+"What shall I do to silence those creditors?" he said to
+Marianne,--whose hands he held and whose face grazed his in a way that
+almost made him frantic.
+
+"Nothing," she replied. "What you have promised me is enough. Now I feel
+that I am saved. Our house, you said so, we are in our own house here.
+If the creditors will not believe me when I tell them to have
+patience--"
+
+"They will believe you," said Vaudrey. "Come, we will find the means--On
+my signature, any one will lend me money."
+
+It seemed that Marianne was expecting this word _money_, coarse but
+eloquent, in order to tell Vaudrey that an old friend, Claire Dujarrier,
+was on intimate terms with a certain Adolphe Gochard, who upon the
+endorsement of a responsible person, would certainly advance a hundred
+thousand francs that he had at this moment lying idle. Gochard only
+needed a bill of exchange in his favor for one hundred thousand francs
+at three months' date, plus interest at five per cent. This Gochard was
+a very straightforward capitalist, who did not make it a business to
+lend money, but merely to oblige. It was Madame Dujarrier who had
+introduced him and Marianne would have already availed herself of his
+courtesy, if she had believed herself able to repay it at the appointed
+date.
+
+"And where does this Monsieur Gochard live?" Vaudrey promptly asked.
+
+"Oh! it would not be necessary for you to go to see him," replied
+Marianne. "On receipt of a bill of exchange from me, Madame Dujarrier
+would undertake to let me have a hundred thousand francs from hand to
+hand."
+
+"A hundred thousand francs!--In three months," said Vaudrey to himself,
+"in a vast placer like Paris, one can find many veins of gold."
+
+He had, besides, his personal property and land in Dauphiny. If need be,
+without Adrienne's even knowing it, he could mortgage his farms at
+Saint-Laurent-du-Pont!
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas would not have hesitated. But in his case there would
+have been no merit," said Mademoiselle Kayser.
+
+At the name of that man, coupled with the recollection of him, Sulpice
+felt himself spurred to a decision. Clearly the great millionaire noble
+would not have delayed before snatching this woman from the claws of her
+creditors. A hundred thousand francs, a mere trifle for the count! Well,
+Vaudrey would give it as the Spaniard would have done. He would find it.
+Within three months, he would have put everything right; he did not
+know how, but that mattered little.
+
+"Have you a pen, Marianne?"
+
+The minister had not noticed the sheet of white paper that was lying on
+the blotting pad of Russia leather, among the satin finished envelopes
+and the ivory paper-cutters.
+
+"What are you going to do, my friend?"
+
+She pretended to put away the green, sharkskin penholder lying near the
+inkstand, but drew it imperceptibly nearer to Sulpice, who with a quick
+movement had already seated himself in front of the secretaire.
+
+"A minister's signature is sufficient, I suppose?" he said with a smile.
+
+He commenced to write.
+
+"What did you say?--Gochard?--"
+
+She was quite pale as she looked over Sulpice's shoulder and saw him
+rapidly write several lines on the paper, then she spelled:
+
+"Adolphe Gochard--Go-go-c-h-ar-d."
+
+"There it is!" he said, as he handed her the sheet of paper.
+
+"I wish to know what is thereon, or I would never consent."
+
+She took the paper between her fingers as if to tear it to pieces.
+Sulpice prevented her.
+
+"No," he said, "I request you to keep it; it is the best reply you can
+give to those people.--Rely on me!"
+
+"Do you wish it?" asked Marianne, with a toss of her head, speaking in a
+very sweet voice.
+
+"Decidedly. It is selfish, but I wish to feel myself not a little at
+home here," Sulpice replied.
+
+He seized her hands, her plump, soft, coaxing hands, and as he clasped
+them within his own, he carried them to his lips and kissed them, as
+well as her face, neck, ear and mouth, which he covered with kisses; and
+Marianne, still holding the satin paper that the minister had just
+signed, said with a laugh as she feebly defended herself:
+
+"Come--come--have done with it! Oh! the big boy!--You will leave nothing
+for another time!"
+
+He left the house, his head was swimming, and he was permeated with
+strong odors. He flung to the coachman an address half-way to the
+ministry.
+
+"Place de la Madeleine."
+
+He shut his eyes to picture Marianne.
+
+As soon as she was alone, her lips curled as a smile of satisfied vanity
+played over them. She began by reading the lines that he had so hastily
+written: _I guarantee to Monsieur Adolphe Gochard a bill of exchange at
+three months, if he agrees to advance that amount to Mademoiselle
+Dujarrier who will hand it to Mademoiselle Marianne Kayser_.
+
+"Well! the Dujarrier was right," she said; "a woman's scheming works
+easier than a sinapism."
+
+Then, after a slight toss of the head and still smiling, she opened one
+of the drawers of the small Inaltia cabinet and slipped into it the
+satin paper to which the minister had affixed his signature and which
+she had carefully folded four times. She considered that autograph worth
+a thousand times more gold than the few pieces that remained scattered
+about the drawer, like so many waifs of luxury. Then, slowly returning
+to her armchair, she sank into it, clasping her two hands behind her
+head and gazing at the ceiling, her thoughts wandered in dreams--a crowd
+of little ambitious thoughts passed through her brain like drifting
+clouds across the sky--and while with the top of her foot she again beat
+her nervous march on the hem of her petticoat, her lips, the lips whose
+fever had been taken away by Vaudrey, still preserved the strange turn
+of the corners that indicated the unsatiated person who sees, however,
+his opportunity arrive.
+
+She was as fully mistress of herself as Vaudrey was embarrassed and
+unbalanced. He seemed to hear voices laughing and singing within him and
+his brain was inflamed with joy. Before him opened the immense prospects
+of his dreams. Glorious as it was to be all-powerful, it was better to
+be loved. Everything whirled about within his brain, he thought he still
+heard Denis Ramel talking to him, and in a twinkling, Marianne's smiling
+face appeared, and with a kiss she interrupted the old journalist's
+sallies, and Sulpice saw her, too, as it were half-fainting, through the
+window of her fiacre, like a pastel half-hidden beneath the glass.
+
+He was delighted to walk about for a moment when the carriage had set
+him down on the asphalted space that surrounds the Madeleine. The walk
+was beneficial. He raised his head instinctively, expanded his lungs
+with the air, and threw out his chest. He thought that people looked at
+him attentively. Some passers-by turned round to see him. He would have
+felt prouder to have heard them say: "That is Mademoiselle Kayser's
+lover!" than: "That is Monsieur Vaudrey, the minister!"
+
+He felt a kind of annoyance on returning to Place Beauvau. He was still
+with Marianne. He recalled her attitudes, her smile, the tone of her
+voice. Public matters now fastened their collar on him, there were
+signatures to be subscribed, reports to be read, telegrams, routine
+work; in a word, vulgar professional duties were to be resumed. He did
+not at once go to his cabinet. Warcolier, the Under Secretary of State,
+received and despatched ordinary matters.
+
+Through some strange caprice, he felt a desire to see Adrienne very soon
+after leaving Marianne, perhaps to know how he would feel and if "_cela
+se voyait_" as they say. There was also a feeling of remorse involved in
+this eagerness. He wished to satisfy himself that Adrienne was not
+suffering, and as formerly, to smile on her as if redoubled affection
+would, in his own eyes, obliterate his fault.
+
+Adrienne was in her salon. Sulpice heard the sound of voices beyond the
+door. Some one was talking.
+
+"Madame has a visitor?" he inquired of the domestic.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Ministre--Monsieur de Lissac."
+
+"What! Guy! what chance brings him here!" Sulpice thought.
+
+He opened the door and entered, extending his hand to his friend.
+
+"How lucky! it is very kind of you to come."
+
+Guy stood, hat in hand, while Vaudrey stooped toward Adrienne to kiss
+her brow unceremoniously in the presence of his friend.
+
+"Oh!" said Lissac, "I have not come to greet Your Excellency. It is your
+charming wife that I have called on."
+
+"I thank you for it," said Sulpice, "my poor Adrienne does not receive
+many visits outside the circle of official relations."
+
+"And she does not get very much entertainment! So I promise myself to
+come and pay court to her--or such court as you would wish--from time to
+time. Madame," said Lissac jocosely, "it is a fact that this devilish
+minister deserves that you should receive declarations from morning to
+night while he is over yonder ogling his portfolio. Such a husband as he
+is, is not to be found again--"
+
+Adrienne, blushing a little, looked at Vaudrey with her usual expression
+of tender devotion as profound as her soul. Sulpice made an effort to
+smile at Lissac's pleasantries.
+
+"No, take care, you know!" added Guy. "As Madame Vaudrey is so often
+alone, I shall allow myself to come here sometimes to keep her company,
+and I won't guarantee to you that I won't fall in love with her."
+
+He turned respectfully toward Adrienne and added, with the correct
+bearing of a gentleman:
+
+"Madame, all this is only to make him comprehend that nothing in the
+world, not even a rag of morocco,--is his portfolio a morocco one?--is
+worth the happiness of having such a wife as you. And the miserable
+fellow doesn't suspect it. You see, I speak of you as the Opposition
+journals do."
+
+Sulpice tried to smile but he divined under Guy's jesting, a serious and
+truthful purpose. Perhaps Adrienne had just been allowing herself to
+complain of the sadness and dreariness of her life. He was hurt by it.
+After all, he did all that he could to gratify his wife. But a man like
+him was not, in fact, born to remain forever tied down. The wife of a
+minister must bear her part of the burden, since there must be a burden.
+
+As if Adrienne had divined Sulpice's very thoughts, she quickly added,
+interrupting the jester who had somewhat confused the minister:
+
+"Don't pay any attention to Monsieur de Lissac. I am very happy just as
+I am."
+
+Vaudrey had taken her hand to clasp it between his fingers with a
+slightly nervous grasp. The trustful, good-natured, pure smile that
+Adrienne gave him, recalled the anxious, distracted expression on
+Marianne's lip.
+
+"Dear wife!"
+
+He sought to find a word, a cry, some consolation, a sort of caress,
+proceeding from one heart and penetrating the other. He could find none.
+
+"Come!" said Guy. "I am going to leave you, and if you will allow me,
+madame, I will occasionally come here and tell you all the outside
+tittle-tattle."
+
+"You will always be welcome, Monsieur de Lissac," Adrienne said, as she
+extended her hand to him.
+
+Guy bowed to Madame Vaudrey in a most profoundly respectful way.
+
+Sulpice accompanied him through the salons as far as the hall.
+
+"Do you want me to tell you?" said Lissac. "Your wife is very weary,
+take care! This big mansion is not very cheerful. One must inevitably
+catch colds in it, and then a woman to be all alone here! A form of
+imprisonment! Do not neglect to wheedle the majority, my dear minister,
+but don't forget your wife. Come! I will not act traitorously toward
+you, but I warn you that if I often find your wife melancholy, as she is
+to-day, I will tell her that I adore her. Yes! yes! your wife is
+charming. I would give all the orders in the world for a lock of her
+hair. Adieu, Monsieur le Ministre."
+
+"Great idiot," said Vaudrey, giving him a little friendly, gentle tap on
+the neck.
+
+"Be it so, but if you do not love her well enough, I shall fall in love
+with her, and I forewarn you that it is much better that I should than
+any other. Au revoir."
+
+"Au revoir!" Sulpice repeated.
+
+He tried now to force a smile and went down to his cabinet, where he
+found heaped-up reports awaiting his attention and he turned the pages
+over nervously and read them in a very bad humor.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_She was quite pale as she looked
+over Sulpice's shoulder and saw him rapidly write several lines on the
+paper, then she spelled:
+
+"Adolphe Gochard--Go-go-ch-a-r-d."_
+
+[Illustration: SULPICE BECOMES SURETY FOR MARIANNE]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Madame Vaudrey drew no real pleasure from the commonplace receptions at
+the ministry, or at her Wednesday _at homes_, except when by chance,
+Denis Ramel permitted himself to abandon the Batignolles to call at
+Place Beauvau, or when Guy enlivened this dull spot by recounting the
+happenings of the outside world.
+
+Adrienne felt herself terribly isolated; she knew hardly any one in
+Paris. Since Vaudrey had installed himself in Rue de la
+Chaussee-d'Antin, she had not had time to form acquaintances among the
+wives of the deputies to the Assembly, the majority of whom lived in the
+provinces or dwelt at Versailles for economical reasons.
+
+Evidently the residence at the ministry had only brought her ready-made
+relations, depressingly inevitable visitors who resembled office-seekers
+or clients. These official receptions filled her with sadness. The
+conversation always took the same hackneyed tone, disgusting in its
+flattery or disquieting by reason of its allusions. People discussed
+coming interpellations of ministers; government majorities, projected
+legislation; the same phrases, as dreary as showers, fell with all the
+regularity of drops of rain. Even young girls, brought up in this centre
+of infuriated politicians, spoke of the breaking up of the majority,
+reports or ballots, in the same manner as shopkeepers talk of their
+trade.
+
+Poor Adrienne exerted herself to acquire an interest in these matters.
+Since her husband's very existence was involved therein, hers should
+also be. She had, however, formerly dreamed of an entirely different
+youth and on bright, sunshiny days she reflected that yonder on the
+banks of the Isere, it was delightful in her sweet, little, provincial
+house.
+
+Besides, she carefully concealed her melancholy. She knew that she was
+already reproached for being somewhat sad. A minister's wife should know
+how to smile. This was what Madame Marsy never failed to repeat to her
+as often as possible when she visited her at Place Beauvau. This woman
+who hardly concerned herself at all about her son, allowing him to grow
+up badly enough and committing all her maternal duties to the
+grandmother, was perpetually cheerful, notwithstanding that her life had
+been chequered by chance and her widowhood of sufficiently dramatic
+character, as was said. She endeavored to play the part of an adviser,
+an intimate friend to Adrienne. She frequently said to Madame Gerson,
+who rarely left her, that Madame Vaudrey would be altogether charming if
+she had _chic_.
+
+"Unfortunately, she is provincial; not in her element. She still smacks
+of Dauphiny. And then--what is the funniest thing: she knows nothing of
+politics."
+
+"She does not even concern herself about it," said the pretty Madame
+Gerson, laughing heartily.
+
+According to these ladies she did not take the trouble to fulfil the
+role of a minister's wife faultlessly. Ah! if only Sabine or Blanche
+Gerson occupied the position filled by this _petite bourgeoise_ of
+Grenoble! Well! Paris would have seen what an Athenian Republic was.
+
+Sabine Marsy was decidedly clever. She politely advised Adrienne,
+without appearing to do so, as to many matters, in such a way as to
+convey reproof under the guise of kindness. Madame Vaudrey would have
+done well, as Madame Gerson also observed, to have studied the _Code du
+Ceremonial_ on reaching Place Beauvau.
+
+Like Madame Marsy, Madame Gerson had gradually gained Adrienne's
+friendship. From an ostentatious desire to be able to tell of what
+happened at the ministry; to be on the first list of guests, when the
+minister received or gave a ball, Sabine Marsy, who had suffered from
+the mania of aspiring to become an artist, patronized the
+_intransigeant_ painters and exhibited at the salon, now set her mind on
+playing the role of a political figure in Paris. Madame Gerson,
+_Blanche_, as Sabine called her, had a similar ambition, but simply from
+a desire to be in fashion.
+
+She wished to bring herself into notice. Everything attracted her,
+tempted her. She belonged, body and soul, to that machine with its
+manifold gearing, brilliant, noisy, active, puffing like a locomotive,
+that is called _chic_. _Chic_, that indefinite, indefinable word,
+changeable and subtle like a capillary hygrometer, is a Parisian tyranny
+that grinds out more fashionable lives than the King of Dahomey offers
+as victims on his great feast days. For Blanche, everything in this most
+stimulated, over-excited, feverishly deranged life, was reduced to these
+two inevitable conclusions: what was _chic_ and what was not _chic_. Not
+only was this the inevitable guide in reference to style, clothing, hat,
+gloves, costume, material, jewelry, the dress that she should wear, but
+also the book that should be read, the play that should be heard, the
+operatic score that should be strummed on the piano, the bonbon that
+should be presented, the opinion that one should hold, the picture one
+should comment upon, all was hopelessly a question of _chic_.
+
+Madame Gerson would have preferred to be compromised in the matter of
+her honor rather than to be ridiculed as to her opinions or to express
+an idea that was not chic. The necessary result was that all this
+woman's conversation--and she often came to see Madame Vaudrey,--was on
+well-known topics; so that Adrienne knew in advance what Blanche's
+opinion was upon such and such a matter, and that ideas could only pass
+muster with Madame Gerson when they bore the stamp of chic, just as a
+coin, to escape suspicion of being counterfeit, must bear the stamp of
+the mint.
+
+Blanche would have been heartbroken if she had not been seen in the
+President's salon on the occasion of a great reception at the Elysee; at
+the ministry, on the evening of a comedy; if she had not been in the
+front rank of the ladies' gallery on the day of interpellation at the
+Assembly; if she had not been greeted from the top of the grand stand by
+some minister, on Grand Prix day; if she had not been the first at the
+varnishing; the first at the general rehearsals, a little _chic_,--the
+first everywhere. Slender, delicate, but hardy as a Parisian, she
+dragged her exhausted husband, with her hand of fine steel, through
+receptions, balls, soirees, salons, talking loudly, judging everything,
+chattering, cackling and haranguing, delighted to mount, with head
+erect, the grand staircase of a minister and feel the joy of plunging
+her little feet into the official moquettes as if her heels had been
+made for state carpets; swelling with pride when she heard the usher,
+amid the hubbub of the reception, call loudly the name which meant the
+fashionable couple, a couple found at every fete:
+
+"Monsieur and Madame Gerson!"
+
+While the husband, fatigued, weary, left his office heavy-headed, after
+having eaten a hasty meal, put on his dress coat and white tie in
+haste, got into his carriage in haste, hurriedly accompanied his wife,
+left her in order to take a doze on an armchair during the height of the
+ball, woke in haste, returned home in haste, slept hurriedly, rose the
+same, dragging this indefatigable creature about with him like a
+convict's chain, she smiled at others, enticed others, waltzed with
+others, adorned herself for others, keeping for him only her weariness,
+her yawns, her pallor and her sick-headaches.
+
+For these two galley-slaves of _chic_, the winter passed in this manner,
+as fatiguing as months of penal servitude, and they went none too soon,
+when the summer arrived, to breathe the sea air or enjoy the sunshine of
+the country, in order to restore their frames, wan, worn-out, seedy and
+"gruelled," as Sabine Marsy said, when she recalled her connection with
+the artists.
+
+"Ah! how much better I like my home!" thought Madame Vaudrey.
+
+Sabine and Madame Gerson, with the wives of the ministers, those of the
+chiefs of departments, and the regular visitors, were the most assiduous
+in their attentions to Adrienne, whom they considered decidedly
+provincial. She, stupefied, was alarmed by these Parisian bustlers, that
+resembled machines in running order, jabbering away as music-boxes play.
+
+"Do they tire you?" said Guy de Lissac to her bluntly one evening,
+succumbing to a feeling of pity for this pensive young woman,--who was a
+hundred times prettier than Madame Gerson, whose beauty was so highly
+extolled in the journals,--this minister's wife, who voluntarily kept
+herself in the background with a timidity that betrayed no awkwardness,
+but was in every way attractive, especially to a man about town like
+Guy.
+
+"They do not tire me, they upset me," Adrienne replied.
+
+"Ah! they are in full _go_, as it is called. An express train. But they
+amuse themselves so much that they have not even time to smile. When the
+locomotive spins along too rapidly, try to distinguish the scenery!"
+
+Adrienne instinctively felt that under his irony this sceptic disguised
+a sort of sincerity. Lissac's wit pleased her. He surprised her somewhat
+at times, but the probably assumed raillery of the young man compensated
+for the insipid nonsense of the conversation to which she listened
+daily.
+
+At first from mere curiosity and after from a sentiment of respectful
+devotion, Guy was impelled to study that delicate and sensitive nature,
+entirely swayed by love of Sulpice, that suffered at times a vague
+pressure as of some indefinable anguish at the throat, as if a vacuum--a
+choking vacuum--had been created about her by some air-pump.
+
+This huge mansion seemed to her to be entirely innocent of all memories,
+and though peopled with phantoms, was as commonplace and vulgar as an
+apartment house. There were no associations save dust and cracks. These
+salons, built for the Marechal de Beauvau, these walls that had
+listened to the sobs of Madame d'Houdetot at the death-bed of
+Saint-Lambert, appeared to Adrienne to exude ennui, strangling and
+inevitable ennui, solemn, official, absolute ennui, nothing but ennui in
+the very decorum of the place, and isolation in the midst of power.
+
+She cursed her loneliness, she felt lost amid the salons of this
+furnished ministerial mansion, whose cold, gloomy apartments, with the
+chairs symmetrically arranged along the walls, she wandered through, but
+evidently without expecting any one: state chairs lacking
+occupants,--ordinary chairs, domestic chairs seem to have tongues--that
+never exchanged conversation. Vast, deserted rooms where the green
+curtains behind the glass doors of the bookcases were eternally drawn,
+bookcases without books, forever open, mournful as empty sepulchres.
+
+Yes, this immense gilded dwelling with its Gobelins tapestries stifled
+her with its terrifying gloom, where nothing, not a single article,
+recalled her charming provincial home, her Grenoble house with its
+garden filled with lilacs where she was often wont to read while Sulpice
+worked upstairs, bent over his table crowded with papers, before his
+open window. Ah! those cherished rooms, in the humble corner of the
+provincial home, their happy crouching in the peaceful nest; aye, even
+the happy first days in Paris, in the Chaussee-d'Antin apartments, in
+which Adrienne at least felt herself in her own home, free in her
+actions and thoughts, and where she could talk aloud without feeling
+that an eye was constantly watching her, and ears were always strained,
+in fact, a perpetual espionage upon all her actions and a criticism of
+all her words.
+
+She had reached a point when she asked herself if, even for Sulpice,
+happiness was not far removed from this life of slavery, of feverish
+politics, which for some time past had been visibly paling his cheeks
+and rendering him nervous and altogether different from of old.
+
+"If you did not love me so much," she said with a sweet smile, "I could
+believe that you loved me no longer."
+
+"What folly! you have only one rival, Adrienne."
+
+"Ah! I know that very well, but that robs me of everything. It is
+politics. Come! be great, and I shall be happy or resigned, as you wish.
+I adore you so much! I would give you my life, so I would gladly give
+you my days of weariness!"
+
+Although she was rich, she strove to introduce into her official
+surroundings the bourgeois and provincial orderly methods that she had
+been so virtuously taught. She found that her desserts vanished with
+frightful rapidity, that dishes scarcely touched and bottles whose
+contents had only been tasted, were removed to the kitchen. She
+commented thereon, but the somewhat contemptuous smile of her domestics
+was her only reply and it made her feel ashamed.
+
+Vaudrey's predecessor, Monsieur Pichereau, was exacting,
+_close-fisted_. His table was meagre but there was nothing astonishing
+in that, Monsieur Pichereau had a delicate stomach. Well and good, but
+the predecessors of Monsieur Pichereau, they had given fetes, they had!
+It is true that one was a count and the other a marquis. One can always
+tell a gentleman anywhere.
+
+One evening, they heard one of the domestics of the ministry say to
+another:
+
+"As if it were not our money that the ministers spend! It is the
+electors' money. They give us wages: we give them salaries. There it
+is!"
+
+The domestic was discharged immediately, but these remarks, however,
+recurred to Adrienne's memory and filled her with dislike for the
+flunkeyism that surrounded her, waiting on her with cold civility, but
+without any attachment, like hotel waiters or girls at an inn that one
+will leave the next day, giving them a gratuity.
+
+Vaudrey saw much less of these daily little wounds. He lived in an
+atmosphere of constant flattery, favor-begging cloaked under
+complimentary phrases. Had he leisure, he would have been able to
+calculate with mathematical exactitude how many angles the human form
+would describe in the process of bowing and scraping. In his department,
+everybody asked for something or got someone else to ask. _Promotion_,
+that insatiable hunger, was the greedy dream of all that little world of
+intriguing, underhand, begging employes, who opened up around the new
+minister so many approaches, like military lines around a redoubt.
+
+Sulpice felt himself besieged and the target for a crowd of greedy
+ambitions. The sub-heads of departments cast bitterly envious glances at
+the offices of chiefs, like hungry beggars hypnotized by the display at
+Chevet's. Commendatory letters rained on him. This shower of
+begging-missives nauseated the minister to such an extent that he
+endeavored to arrest the stream, ordering Warcolier, the Under Secretary
+of State, to be called and requesting him to reply to the deputies, to
+the senators, to everybody, in fact: that he had no influence to use,
+that the era of favoritism was over; that he, Vaudrey, understood that
+only merit would receive official gifts. "Merit only. You understand,
+Monsieur Warcolier?"
+
+Warcolier rolled his huge eyes in astonishment; then, with the
+self-satisfied smile of an expressionless beau, after passing his fat
+hand through his long whiskers, yellow and streaked with gray, that
+decorated his rosy cheeks, he remarked doctorally, that Monsieur le
+Ministre was entering on a path that, in all conscience, he could
+qualify as being only dangerous. Eh! _bon Dieu!_ one must do something
+for one's friends!--Vaudrey's accession to the Department of the
+Interior had given birth to many new hopes; on all grounds they must be
+satisfied. Vaudrey would never be forgiven for such deception.
+
+"What deception?" asked Sulpice. "I promised reforms and I am going to
+carry them out, but people laugh at my reforms and ask what?--Places."
+
+"Bless me!" replied Warcolier, "entirely logical."
+
+"Be it so! but there are places and places. I cannot, however, retire a
+whole staff of employes to give place to a new one. That's precisely
+what they want. There is not a deputy who has not one candidate to
+recommend to me."
+
+"That's very natural, Monsieur le Ministre, seeing that there is not a
+deputy who may not himself be a candidate."
+
+"Still, he should be independent of his electors, but in truth, it is
+not the rights of those who have elected them that my colleagues defend,
+it is their own interests."
+
+"Every man for himself, Monsieur le Ministre. Yesterday, even yesterday,
+one of my electors whose wife has just given birth to a child, wrote me,
+asking for a good nurse. That is like one of our colleagues, Perraud--of
+the Vosges.--One of his electors commissioned him to take back an
+umbrella with him upon his early return. The electors regard their
+deputies in the light of commission merchants."
+
+"And as tobacco bureaus! Well, I wish to have more morality than that in
+State affairs. I like giving, but I know how to refuse," said Vaudrey.
+
+"That will be easy enough so long as you are popular and solid in
+Parliament; but on the day that it is clearly proved that such and such
+a future minister can make himself more useful than you to the personal
+interests of everybody--and there are such ministers in sight--"
+
+"Granet, yes, I know! He promises more butter than bread, to cry quits
+later in giving more dry crusts than fresh butter. But I don't care to
+deceive any one."
+
+"As you please, Monsieur le Ministre, as you please," answered
+Warcolier, in a mocking and gentle tone.
+
+Sulpice did not like this man. He was a phrase-maker. He had a vague
+feeling that this Warcolier who in public affected strictly severe
+principles was privately undermining him and that he yielded to favors
+in order to win support. It was enough for the minister to discourage
+coarse, greedy ambitions, provided that the Under Secretary of State
+encouraged unsavory, eager hopes by shrewd smiles and silence that
+assented to all that was desired. This little underhand work going on in
+his office was unknown to Vaudrey; he did not know that out of every
+refusal he gave, Warcolier secured friends; but he maintained a watchful
+distrust for this republican who had become so stanch a supporter of the
+Republic only since that form of government had triumphed. Besides, what
+had he to fear? The President of the Council, Monsieur Collard, of
+Nantes, had the unbounded confidence of the head of the State and of the
+Chamber; and he was Collard's intimate friend. The majority of the
+cabinet was compact. The perfect calm of the horizon was undisturbed by
+a cloud. Vaudrey could rule without fear, without excitement and give
+all his spare time to that woman whose piercing glance, wandering smile,
+palpitating nostrils, dishevelled, fair hair, kisses, fondness, cries,
+and tones pursued him everywhere.
+
+Marianne, how he loved her! From day to day, how his love of her
+increased like a madman's! It seemed to him that he suddenly found
+himself in the presence of the only woman who could possibly understand
+him, and in the only world in which he could live; his petty bourgeois,
+sensual inexperience flourished in the little hotel of the courtesan.
+
+He had doubtless loved; often enough he had thought himself once more in
+love; the poor grisettes, to whom he had written in verse, as he might
+have sung songs to them, were gone from his thoughts, though they had
+occupied his heart for a short time. He had profoundly loved her who
+bore his name, perhaps he loved her still as warmly, as sincerely--the
+unfortunate man!--as of old. He sometimes recalled with tearful eye, how
+his whole frame trembled with love in the presence of that young girl
+who had given herself entirely to him, in all her trust and sincerity,
+in all her candor, and all her chastely-timid innocent modesty. But
+Adrienne's love was insipid compared with the intoxicating and
+appetizing voluptuousness of this woman, so adorable in her exquisite
+luxury, the refinements of her charm, the singular grace of her
+attitudes, of her mind, of her disjointed conversation which dared
+everything, mocked, caressed, beginning with a pout and ending with some
+drollery, and challenged passion by exasperating it with refusals and
+mockery that changed into distracting lasciviousness.
+
+When she extended to Vaudrey her little hand, covered with rings, and
+indolent and soft, he felt as if he had received an electric shock and
+that his marrow had been touched. This man of forty felt all the
+enthusiasm and distraction of a youth. It seemed to him that this was
+the only woman that he possibly could love, and in truth she was the
+only one that he could have loved as he did, with his forgetfulness of
+self, his outbursts of madness, the distracted sentiment of a love for
+which he would have braved and risked everything.
+
+When he confessed it frankly, she had a way of answering with a
+questioning manner full of doubt, which conveyed the delicacy of the
+woman's self-love and the intentionally refined doubt of the coquette, a
+questioning _yes_:
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Simply that.
+
+And in this _yes_, there was a world of tenderness, excitement and
+burning promises for Sulpice.
+
+Then he drew her to him:
+
+"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" he repeated in burning tones, as he thrust his
+head between her shoulders that emerged from her embroidered chemise,
+and her neck perfumed and satiny, that he covered with eager kisses.
+
+Yes! And he would have uttered this _yes_ before every one like a
+bravado. _Yes!_ It was his delight to give himself wholly to Marianne
+and to tell her again and again that nothing in the whole world could
+take the place of this mistress who made him forget everything:
+politics, the home, the ambition that had been his life, and his
+affection for Adrienne that had been his joy.
+
+Thanks to the Dujarrier, Marianne had paid the rent of the house, the
+servants and the pressing debts. Claire Dujarrier advanced the hundred
+thousand francs demanded by Mademoiselle Kayser, and which she had
+apparently--in reality she took them from her own funds--borrowed from
+Adolphe Gochard, her lover, who had not a sou, and in whose favor
+Vaudrey signed in regular legal form, a bill of exchange at three
+months' date _value received in cash_. The Dujarrier merely retained
+twenty thousand francs as her commission and handed only eighty thousand
+to Marianne.
+
+"But Vaudrey's acceptance to Gochard is for one hundred thousand!"
+
+"You are silly, my girl! What if I lose the balance? If your minister
+should not pay?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Stranger things have happened, my little one."
+
+Vaudrey having paid, given his name, signed this bill of exchange, felt
+the extreme joy arising from the base self-love of the man who pays a
+lovely creature and who, nevertheless, believes himself loved.
+
+In the early days, Sulpice went to Rue Prony only during the day or at
+night after dinner, or on leaving a reception or the theatre. Marianne
+awaited him. He came stealthily, distracted with joy. There, in the
+closed chamber he remained with Marianne, who was full of pride at the
+complete subjugation of the will of this man in her embrace. She amused
+herself occasionally by calling him _Your Excellency_, in reading to him
+from some book which spun out the ceremonial necessary in applying for
+an interview with a minister:
+
+"If ever I ask you for an audience, do you know how I must address
+myself to the secretary? Listen to this book, it is funny: 'Ordinary
+toilet. The etiquette for the toilet is not very strict, but it is,
+however, in good taste to appear dressed as for a ceremonious call. For
+women, the toilet should be simple and the gloves new.'"
+
+She laughed as she rested almost naked in Sulpice's arms, and repeated,
+looking into his eyes:
+
+"A simple toilet!"
+
+"And again, listen!" she said, as she resumed the book. "'In speaking to
+a minister as in writing to him, one should address him as _Monseigneur_
+or _Your Excellency_. On reaching the door as you leave the salon, you
+should again bow respectfully.' That is amusing, ah! how amusing it
+is!--Then they respect you as much as that? Your Excellency!
+Monseigneur! Shall I be obliged to courtesy to you?--Your lips, give me
+your lips, Monseigneur! I adore you!--You are my own minister; my
+finance minister, my lover, my all! I do not respect you, but I love
+you, I love you!"
+
+He trembled to the very roots of his hair when she spoke to him thus. He
+felt transports of joy in clasping her in his arms and genuine despair
+when he left her. Leave her! leave her there under that lamp alone, in
+that low bed where he had just forgotten that there existed anything
+else in the world besides that apartment, warm with perfumes. He would
+have liked to pass the whole night beside her, separating only when
+satiated and overwhelmed with caresses. But how could he leave Adrienne
+alone over there in the ministerial mansion? However trustful this young
+wife might be, and innocent, credulous and incapable of suspicion, if he
+had passed a night absent from her, she would have been terrified and
+warned.
+
+He easily invented prolonged receptions and night sessions that detained
+him until an advanced hour.
+
+"One would say that the evening sessions grow more frequent than
+formerly," Adrienne remarked gently at breakfast.
+
+"Don't talk to me about it," replied Sulpice. "In order to reach the
+vacation sooner, the deputies talk twice as long."
+
+Adrienne never opened the _Officiel_, which Vaudrey received in his
+private office, pretending that the sight of a newspaper too vividly
+recalled the fatiguing political life that absorbed him. One day,
+however, he allowed the journals to be brought into the salon and to lie
+about in Madame's room. He informed Adrienne that he was going to pass
+the day in Picardy, at Guise or at Vervins, where an important deputy
+had invited him to visit his factory. He would leave in the morning and
+could not return until the following day toward noon.
+
+"What a long time!" said Adrienne.
+
+"It is still longer for me than for you, since you remain here, in our
+home."
+
+"Oh! our home! we have only one home: in Chaussee-d'Antin, or the house
+at Grenoble, you know."
+
+"Dear wife!" cried Vaudrey, as he embraced her tenderly,--sincerely,
+perhaps.
+
+And he left. He set out for Guise, returned in the evening and ordered
+the Director of the Press to send to all the journals by the Havas
+agency, a message which ran: _The Minister of the Interior passed the
+entire day yesterday at Guise, at Monsieur Delair's, the deputy from
+L'Aisne. He dined and slept at the house of his host. Monsieur Vaudrey
+is to return to Paris this morning, at eleven o'clock._
+
+Then he showed the news to Adrienne, and laughed as he said:
+
+"It is surprising! one cannot take a single step without it appears in
+print and the entire population is informed at once!"
+
+"Tell me everything," Adrienne replied, as she embraced him with her
+glance. "Are you tired? You look pale. How did you spend the day? You
+made a speech? Were you applauded?"
+
+It was mainly by kisses that Vaudrey answered. What could he say to
+Adrienne? She knew perfectly well how similar all these gatherings were,
+with their official routine. Monsieur Delair had been very agreeable,
+but the minister had necessarily had to endure much talk, much
+importunity.
+
+"The day seemed very long to me!"
+
+"And to me also," she said.
+
+Sulpice indeed returned from Guise, but the last train on the previous
+night had taken him to Rue Prony, at Marianne's. He had then found out
+the secret of remaining at her side undisturbed for a long time, and the
+telegraph, managed by the Director of the Press, enabled him to prove an
+alibi to Adrienne from time to time. He had taken to Marianne a huge
+bouquet of fresh flowers gathered in the park at Guise for Madame
+Vaudrey by Monsieur Delair's two daughters. That appeared to him to be
+quite natural.
+
+Marianne, who was waiting for him, put the flowers in the Japanese vases
+and said to him as she threw her bare arms around him:
+
+"Very good! You thought of me!----"
+
+The next morning Vaudrey left, more than ever enchained by the delight
+of her embraces. He sometimes returned on foot, to breathe the
+vivifying freshness of the roseate dawn, or taking a cab, he stretched
+himself out wearily therein, as he drove to the ministry, musing over
+the hours so recently passed and striving to arrest them in their
+flight, to enjoy again their seductive joy and to squeeze as from a
+delicious fruit, all their intoxicating poetry, delight and fascination.
+
+He closed his eyes. He saw Marianne again with her eyes veiled as he
+kissed her, he drank in the odor of her hair that fell like a sort of
+fair cover over the lace pillow. It seemed that he was permeated with
+her perfume. He breathed the air with wide-open nostrils to inhale it
+again, to recover its scent and preserve it. His whole frame trembled
+with emotion at the recollection of that lovely form that he had left
+whiter than the sheet of the bed, in the dim light that filtered through
+the opal-shaded lamp.
+
+Then he thought that he must forget, and invent some tale for Adrienne.
+Again he opened his eyes and trembled in spite of himself, as he saw, on
+both sides of the cab, workmen slowly trudging along the sidewalks with
+their hands in their pockets, their noses red, a wretched worn-out silk
+scarf about their necks and swinging on their arms the supply of food
+for the day, or again with their fingers numb with the cold, holding
+some journal in their hands in which they read as they marched along,
+the speech of "Monsieur le Ministre de l'Interieur," that magnificent
+speech not made during the night session as Sulpice had told Adrienne,
+but the day before yesterday, in broad day, when the majority,
+faithfully grouped about him, had applauded this phrase: _I, whose hours
+are consecrated to the amelioration of the lot of the poor and who can
+say with the poet,--I shall be pardoned for this feeling of vanity:_
+
+"What I steal from my nights, I add to my days!"
+
+Sulpice heard again the applause that he received. He saw those devoted
+hands reached out to him as he descended from the tribune; he again
+experienced a feeling of pride, and yet he felt dissatisfied with
+himself now that he saw the other hands, the servile hands of the
+applauders, hidden by the red, cold hands of a mason who held this
+speech between his horny fingers.
+
+Sulpice returned to the ministry, shaking himself as if to induce
+forgetfulness, busy, weary, and still,--eternally,--as if immovably
+fixed in an antechamber of Place Beauvau, he found the inevitable
+place-hunters, the hornets of ministries.
+
+Vaudrey caused these urgent people, as well as some others, to be
+received by Warcolier, who asked nothing better than to make tools, to
+sow the seed of his clientage. Guy de Lissac and Ramel had
+simultaneously called Vaudrey's attention to the eagerness which
+Warcolier manifested in toying with popularity.
+
+"He is not wholly devoted to you, is this gentleman who prefers every
+government!" said Guy.
+
+"He will undermine you quietly!" added Ramel.
+
+"I am satisfied of that. But I am not disturbed: I have the majority.
+Oh! faithful and compact."
+
+"Woman often changes," muttered Ramel.
+
+Guy was troubled about Vaudrey for another reason. He vaguely suspected
+that Sulpice was neglecting Adrienne. Political business, doubtless.
+Vaudrey unquestionably loved his wife, who adored him and was herself
+adorable. But he manifestly neglected her.
+
+Lissac found them one day smilingly discussing a question that was
+greatly occupying the journalists: divorce. Apropos of a trifle, of a
+suit for separation that Adrienne had just read in the _Gazette
+Tribunaux_. It referred to an adulterous husband, a pottery dealer in
+Rue Paradis, Monsieur Vauthier, the lover of a singer at a rather
+notorious _cafe-concert_, named Lea Thibault. The wife had demanded a
+separation. Adrienne had just read the pleadings.
+
+"Poor woman!" she said. "She must have suffered, indeed."
+
+Sulpice did not reply.
+
+"Do you know that if that were my case, I could never forgive you?"
+
+"You are mad! What are you thinking of?"
+
+"Oh! it is true, the idea that you could touch another woman, that you
+could kiss her as you kiss me, that would make me more than angry,
+horrified and disgusted. I tell you, I would never forgive you."
+
+"Who puts all this stuff in your head? Come, I will do as I used to do,"
+said Vaudrey. "Not another paper shall enter your house! What an idea,
+to read the _Gazette des Tribunaux_!"
+
+"It is because this name: _Vauthier_, somewhat resembles your own that I
+was induced to read it. And then this very mournful title: _Separation
+de corps_. I would prefer divorce myself. A complete divorce that severs
+the past like a knife-cut."
+
+"But what an idea!" repeated Sulpice, who was somewhat uneasy.
+
+Vaudrey was delighted to hear Guy announced in the midst of this
+discussion. They would then change the topic. But Adrienne, who was much
+affected by her reading, returned to the same subject in an obstinate
+sort of way and Lissac commenced to laugh.
+
+"What a joke! To speak of divorce between you two! Never fear, madame,
+your husband will never present to the Chamber a law in favor of
+divorce."
+
+"Who knows?" Sulpice answered. "I am in favor of divorce myself, yes,
+absolutely."
+
+"And I cannot understand, for my part, how a woman can belong to two
+living men," said Adrienne.
+
+"You reason for yourself. But the unhappy women who suffer--and the
+unhappy men--The existing law, in fact, seeing that it admits
+separation, permits divorce, but more cruel, heartrending, and unjust.
+Divorce without freedom. Divorce that continues the chain."
+
+"Sulpice is right, madame, and sooner or later, we shall certainly
+arrive at that frightful divorce."
+
+"After all, what does it matter to me?" Adrienne replied.
+
+She threw the accursed _Gazette des Tribunaux_ into the waste basket
+with its _Suit of Vauthier vs. Vauthier_. "We are not interested,
+neither my husband nor I; he loves me and I love him. I am as sure of
+him as he is sure of me. He may demand all the laws that are possible:
+it would not be for selfish interest, for he would not profit by them."
+
+"Never!" said Sulpice with a laugh, delighted to be released from the
+magnetic influence of Adrienne's strange excitement.
+
+There was, however, a somewhat false ring in this laugh. Face to face
+with the avowed trustfulness of his wife, Sulpice experienced a slight
+pricking of conscience. He thought of Marianne. His passion increased
+tenfold, but this very increase of affection made him afraid. He
+hastened to find himself again at Rue Prony. The Hotel Beauvau depressed
+him. It became more than ever a prison. How gladly he escaped from it!
+
+Yes, it was a prison for him as it was for Adrienne; a prison that he
+fled from to seek Marianne's boudoir, to enjoy her kisses and mirth,
+while, at the same moment, his wife, the dear abandoned, disdained
+creature, sad without being cognizant of the cause of her melancholy,
+terrified by the emptiness of that grand ministerial mansion, that
+"sounded hollow," as she said, quietly and stealthily took the official
+carriage that Vaudrey sent back to her from the Chamber, and had herself
+driven--where?--only she knew!
+
+"You ought to make a great many calls," the minister had frequently
+said. "It would divert your mind and it is well to appear to know a
+great many persons."
+
+But she only found pleasure in making one visit, she gave the coachman
+the address of the apartments on Chaussee-d'Antin, where she had lived
+long, happy years with Sulpice, sweet and peaceful under the clear light
+of the lamp. She entered this deserted apartment, now as cold as a tomb,
+and had the shutters opened by the concierge in order that she might see
+the sunlight penetrate the room and set all the motes dancing in its
+cheerful rays. She shut herself in and remained there happy, consoled;
+sitting in the armchair formerly occupied by Sulpice, she pictured him
+at the table at which he used to work, his inkstand before him and
+surrounded by his books, his cherished books! She lived again the
+vanished life. "Return!" she said to the dream, the humble dream she had
+at last recovered. She rambled about those deserted rooms that on every
+side reminded her of some sweet delight, here it was a kiss of chaste
+and eternal love, there a smile. Ah! how easy life would have been there
+all alone, happy for ever!
+
+The Ministry! Power! Popularity! Fame! Authority! What were they worth?
+
+Is all that worth one of the blessed hours in this little dwelling,
+where the cup of bliss would have been full if the wife could have heard
+the clear laugh or the faint cry of a child?
+
+Poor Sulpice! how he was exhausting himself now in an overwhelming task!
+He was giving his health and life to politics, while here he only
+experienced peace, consoling caresses and the quieting of every
+excitement. On the study-table there still remained some pens and some
+books that were formerly in constant use.
+
+Adrienne went away with reddened eyes from these pilgrimages, as it
+were, to her former happiness. She returned to her carriage and
+moistened her cambric pocket handkerchief with her warm breath, in order
+to wipe her eyes so that Sulpice might not see that she had been
+weeping. Then when her well-known carriage passed before the shops in
+the Faubourg Saint-Honore, the wives of mercers or booksellers,
+dressmakers, young girls, all of whom enviously shook their heads, said
+to each other:
+
+"The minister's wife!--Ah! she has had a glorious dream!--She is
+happy!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Marianne was contented. Not that her ambition was completely satisfied,
+but after all, Sulpice in place of Rosas was worth having. Though a
+minister was only a passing celebrity, he was a personage. From the
+depths of the bog in which she lately rolled, she would never have dared
+to hope for so speedy a revenge.
+
+Speedy, assuredly, but perhaps not sufficient. Her eager hunger
+increased with her success. Since Vaudrey was hers, she sought some
+means of bringing about some adventure that would give her fortune. What
+could be asked or exacted from Sulpice? She recalled the traditions of
+fantastic bargains, of extensive furnishings. She would find them. She
+had but to desire, since he had abandoned himself, bound hand and foot,
+like a child.
+
+She knew him now, all his candor, all his weakness, for, in the presence
+of this blase woman, weary of love, Vaudrey permitted himself to confide
+his thoughts with unreserved freedom, opening his heart and disclosing
+himself with a clean breast in this duel with a woman:--a duel of
+self-interest which he mistook for passion.
+
+She had studied him at first and speedily ranked him, calling him:
+
+"An innocent!"
+
+She felt that in this house in Rue Prony, where she was really not in
+her own home but was installed as in a conquered territory, Sulpice was
+dazzled. Like a provincial, as Granet described him so often, he entered
+there into a new world.
+
+Uncle Kayser frequently called to see his niece. Severe in taste, he
+cast long, disdainful looks at the tapestries and the artistic trifles
+that adorned the house. In his opinion, it was rubbish and the luxury of
+a decaying age. He never changed his tune, always riding the hobby-horse
+of an aesthetic moralist.
+
+"It lacks severity, all this furnishing of yours," was his constantly
+repeated criticism to Marianne, as he sat smoking his pipe on a divan,
+as was his custom in his own, wretched studio.
+
+Then, in an abrupt way, with his eye wandering over the ceiling as if he
+were following the flight of a chimera, he would say:
+
+"Why! your minister must do a great deal, if all this comes from the
+ministry!"
+
+Marianne interrupted him. It was no business of his to mix himself up
+with matters that did not concern him. Above all, he must hold his
+tongue. Did he forget that Vaudrey was married? The least indiscretion--
+
+"Oh! don't alarm yourself," the painter broke in, "I am as dumb as a
+carp, the more so since your escapade is not very praiseworthy!--For you
+have, in fact, deserted the domestic hearth--yes, you have deserted the
+hearth.--It is pretty here, a little like a courtesan's, perhaps, but
+pretty, all the same.--But you must acknowledge that it is a case of
+interloping. It is not the genuine home with its dignity, its virtuous
+severity, its--What time does your minister come? I would like to speak
+to him--"
+
+"To preach morality to him?" asked Marianne, glancing at her uncle with
+an ironical expression.
+
+"Not at all. I am considered to be ignorant--No, I have a plan to
+decorate in a uniform way, all the mayors' offices in Paris and I want
+to propose it to him--_The Modern Marriage_, an allegorical
+treatment!--_Law Imposing Duty on Love_. Something noble, full of
+expression, moralizing. Art that will set people thinking, for the
+contemplation of lofty works can alone improve the morals and the
+masses--You understand?"
+
+"Perfectly. You want a commission!"
+
+"Ah! that's a contemptible word, hold! A commission! Is a true artist
+commissioned? He obeys his inspiration, he follows his ideal--A
+commission! a commission! Ugh!--On my word, you would break the wings of
+faith! Little one, have you any of that double zero Kummel left, that
+you had the other day?"
+
+Marianne sought to spare Sulpice the importunities of her uncle. She
+wished to keep the minister's entire influence for herself.
+
+She had nothing to fear, moreover. Sulpice was hers as fully as she
+believed. Like so many others who have lived without living, Sulpice
+did not know _woman_, and Marianne was ten times a woman, woman-child,
+woman-lover, woman-courtesan, woman-girl, and every day and every night
+she appeared to her lover renewed and surprising, freshly created for
+passion and pleasure. Everything about her, even the frame that
+surrounded her beauty, the dwelling, perfumed with passionate love,
+distractedly captivated Sulpice. Behind the dense curtains in the
+dressing-room upholstered like a boudoir, with its carpet intended only
+for naked feet, as the reclining chair with its extra covering of
+Oriental silk was adapted to moments of languishing repose, Sulpice saw
+and contemplated the vast wardrobe with its three mirrors reflecting the
+huge marble washstand with its silver spigots, its silver bowl, wherein
+the scented water gleamed opal-like with its perfumes, the gas
+illuminating the brushes decorated with monograms, standing out against
+the white marble, the manicure sets of fine steel, the dark-veined
+tortoise-shell combs, the coquettish superfluity of scissors and files
+scattered about amongst knickknacks, inlaid enamels, and Japanese ivory
+ornaments, and there, stretched out and watching Marianne, who came and
+went before him with a smile on her face, her hair unfastened, sometimes
+with bare shoulders, Sulpice saw, through a half-open door in the middle
+of a bathroom floored with blue Delft tiles, the bath that steamed with
+a perfumed vapor, odorous of thyme, and the water which was about to
+envelop in its warm embrace that rosy form that displayed beneath the
+lights and under the full blaze of the gas, the nudity of her flesh
+beneath a transparent Surah chemise, silky upon the living silk.
+
+Milk-white reflections seemed to play on her shoulders and Sulpice never
+forgot those ardent visions that followed him, clung to him, thrust
+themselves before his gaze and into his recollections, never leaving
+him, either at the Chamber, the Council Board or even when he was with
+Adrienne.--The young woman, seeing his absorption, hesitated to disturb
+his thoughts, political as they were, no doubt, while he mused upon his
+hours of voluptuous enjoyment, forever recalling the youthful roundness
+of her shoulders, and the inflections of her body, the ivory-like curve
+of her neck, whose white nape rested upon him, and her curls escaped
+from the superb arrangement of her hair, held in its place at the top by
+a comb thrust into this fair mass like a claw plunged into flesh.
+
+Vaudrey must have had an active and prompt intelligence at times to
+forget suddenly these passionate images, when he unexpectedly found
+himself compelled to ascend the tribune during a discussion or to
+express his opinion clearly at the Ministerial Council. He increased his
+power, finding, perhaps, a new excitement, a new spur in the love that
+renewed his youth. He had never been seen more active and more stirring
+in the Chamber, though he was somewhat nervous. He determined to put
+himself in evidence at the Ministry and to prove to the phrase-monger
+Warcolier that he knew how to act. The President of the Council,
+Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--said several times to Sulpice:
+
+"Too much zeal, my dear minister. A politician ought to be cooler."
+
+"I shall be cooler with age!" Sulpice replied with a laugh.
+
+From time to time he went to seek advice from Ramel, as he had promised.
+The little shopkeepers and laundresses of Rue Boursault hardly suspected
+when they saw a coupe stop at the door of the old journalist, that a
+minister alighted from it.
+
+Sulpice felt amid the bustle of his life, amid the spurring and
+over-excited events of his existence, the need of talking with his old
+friend. Besides, Rue Boursault was on the way to Rue Prony. As Marianne
+was frequently not at home, Sulpice would spend the time before her
+return in chatting with Ramel.
+
+"Well! Ramel, are you satisfied with me?"
+
+"How could I be otherwise? You are an honest man and faithful and
+devoted to your ideas. I am not afraid of you, but I am of those by whom
+you are surrounded."
+
+"Warcolier?"
+
+"Warcolier and many others, of those important fellows who ask me--when
+they deign to speak to me--with an insignificant air of superiority and
+almost of pity, the idiots: 'Well! you are no longer doing anything!
+When will you do something?' As if I had not done too much already,
+seeing that I have made them!"
+
+Denis Ramel smiled superciliously and the minister looked with a sort of
+respect at this vanguard warrior, this laborer of the early morn who had
+never received his recompense or even claimed it.
+
+"I should like you to resume your journal in order to announce all these
+truths," Vaudrey said to him.
+
+"Do you think so? Why, a journal that would proclaim the truth to
+everybody would not last six months, since no one would buy it."
+
+As Sulpice was about to go, there was a ring at Ramel's door.
+
+"Ah! who can it be? A visit. I beg you will excuse me, my dear Vaudrey."
+
+Denis went to open the door.
+
+It was a man of about fifty, dressed in the garb of a poor workman,
+wearing a threadbare greatcoat and trousers that were well polished at
+the knees, who as he entered held his round, felt hat in his hand. He
+was thin, pale and tired-looking, with a dark, dull complexion and a
+voice weak rather than hoarse. He bowed timidly, repeating twice: "I
+earnestly ask your pardon;" and then he remained standing on the
+threshold, without advancing or retiring, in an embarrassed attitude,
+while a timid smile played beneath his black beard, already sprinkled
+with gray.
+
+"Pardon--I disturb you--I will return--"
+
+"Come in, Garnier," said Ramel.
+
+The man entered, saluting Vaudrey, who was not known to him, and at a
+gesture from Denis, he took a seat on the edge of a chair, scarcely
+sitting down and constantly twirling his round-shaped hat between his
+lean fingers. From time to time, he raised his left hand to his mouth to
+check the sound of a dry cough which rose in his muscular throat, that
+might be supposed to be a prey to laryngitis.
+
+"You ask for the truth--Listen a moment, a single moment," Ramel
+whispered in the ear of the minister.
+
+Without mentioning Sulpice's name, he began to question Garnier, who
+grew bolder and talked and gossiped, his cheek-bones now and then
+heightened in color by small, pink spots.
+
+"Well! Garnier, about the work?--Oh! you may speak before monsieur, it
+interests him."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders with a sad, somewhat bitter smile, but
+resigned at least. He very quietly, but without any complaint,
+acknowledged all that he was enduring. Work was in a bad way. It
+appeared that it was just the same everywhere in Europe, in fact, but
+indeed that doesn't provide work at the shop. The master, a kind man, in
+faith, had grown old, and was anxious to sell his business of an art
+metal worker. He had not found a purchaser, then he had simply closed
+his shop, being too ill to continue hard work, and the four or five
+workmen whom he employed found themselves thrown into the street. There
+it is! Happily for Garnier, he had neither wife nor child, nothing but
+his own carcass. One can always get one's self out of a difficulty, but
+the others who had households and brats! Rousselet had five. Matters
+were not going to be very cheerful at home. He must rely on charity or
+credit, he did not know what, but something to stave off that distress,
+real and sad distress, since it was not merited.
+
+"Do you interest yourself in politics?" asked Vaudrey curiously,
+surmising that this man was possessed of strong and quick intelligence,
+although he looked so worn and crushed and his cough frequently
+interrupted his remarks.
+
+Garnier looked at Ramel before replying, then answered in a quiet tone:
+
+"Oh! not now! That is all over. I vote like everybody else, but I let
+the rest alone. I have had my reckoning."
+
+He had said all this in a low tone without any bitterness and as if
+burdened with painful memories.
+
+"It is, however, strange, all the same," added the workman, "to observe
+that the more things change, the more alike they are. Instead of
+occupying themselves over there with interpellations and seeking to
+overthrow or to strengthen administrations, would it not be better if
+they thought a little of those who are dying of hunger? for there are
+some, it is necessary to admit that such are not wanting! What is it to
+me whether Pichereau or Vaudrey be minister, when I do not know at the
+moment where I shall sleep when I have spent my savings, and whether
+the baker will give me credit now that I am without a shop?"
+
+At the mention of Vaudrey's name, Ramel wished to make a sign to this
+man, but Sulpice had just seized the hand of his old friend and pressed
+it as if to entreat him not to interrupt the conversation. The voice
+that he heard, interrupted by a cough, was the voice of a workman and he
+did not hear such every day.
+
+"Note well that I am not a blusterer or a disturber, isn't that so,
+Monsieur Ramel? I have always been content with my lot, myself--One
+receives and executes orders and one is satisfied. Everything goes on
+all right--My politics at present is my work; when I shall have broken
+my back to bring journalists into power--I beg your pardon, Monsieur
+Ramel, you know very well that it is not of you that I speak thus--I
+shall be no fatter for it, I presume. I only want just to keep life and
+soul together, if it can be done. I suppose you could not find me a
+place, Monsieur Ramel? I would do anything, heavy work if need be, or
+bookkeeping, if it is desired. I would like bookkeeping better, although
+it is not my line, because the forge fire, the coal and heat, as you
+see, affect me there now--he touched his neck--it strangles me and
+hastens the end too quickly. It is true for that I am in the world."
+
+Vaudrey felt himself stirred even to his bones by the mournful, musical
+voice of the consumptive, by this true misery, this poverty expressed
+without phrases and this claim of labor. All the questions _yonder_, as
+Garnier said, in the committees and sub-committees, in the tribune and
+in the lobbies, discussions, disputes, personal questions cloaked under
+the guise of the general welfare, suddenly appeared to him as petty and
+vain, narrow and egotistical beside the formidable question of bread
+which was propounded to him so quietly by this man of the people, who
+was not a rebel of the violent days, but the unfortunate brother, the
+eternal Lazarus crying, without threat, but simply, sadly: "And I?"
+
+He would have liked, without making himself known, to give something to
+this sufferer, to promise him a position. He did not dare to offer it or
+to mention his name. The man would have refused charity and the
+minister, in all the personnel of bustling employes, often useless, that
+fill the ministry, had not a single place to give to this workman whose
+chest was on fire and whose throat was choking.
+
+"I will return and we will talk about him," he said to Ramel, as he
+arose, indicating Garnier by a nod. "Do not tell him who I am. On my
+word, I should be ashamed--Poor devil!"
+
+"Multiply him by three or four hundred thousand, and be a statesman,"
+said Ramel.
+
+Vaudrey bowed to the workman, who rose quickly and returned his salute
+with timid eagerness, and the minister went rapidly down the stairs of
+the little house and jumped into his carriage, making haste to get
+away.
+
+He bore with him a feeling akin to remorse, and in all sincerity, for he
+still heard ringing in his ears, the poor consumptive's voice saying:
+
+"What is it to me, who am suffering, whether Vaudrey or Pichereau be
+minister?"
+
+On reaching Place Beauvau, he found a despatch requesting his immediate
+presence at the Elysee. At the Palace he received information that
+surprised him like a thunderbolt. Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--had just
+been struck down by apoplexy in the corridors of the ministry. The
+President of the Council was dead and the Chief of the State had turned
+to Vaudrey to fill the high position which, but two hours before, had
+been held by Monsieur Collard.
+
+President of the Council! He, Vaudrey! Head of the Ministry! The first
+in his country after the supreme head? The joyful surprise that such a
+proposition caused him, so occupied his mind that he was unable to feel
+very much moved by the loss of Monsieur Collard--of Nantes--. Sulpice,
+moreover, had never profoundly cared for this austere advocate, although
+he had been much associated with him. His liking for this man who
+brought to the Council old-time opinions and preconceived ideas was a
+merely political affection. The President's offer proved to him that his
+own popularity, as well as his influence over parliament, had only
+increased since his recent entry on public life. He was then about to be
+in a position to assert his individuality still better. What a glorious
+time for Grenoble and what wry faces Granet would make!
+
+Sulpice hastened to announce this news to Adrienne, although it would
+not become official until after Collard's funeral obsequies. He returned
+almost triumphantly to the Hotel Beauvau. Only one thought, a sombre
+image, clouded his joy: it was not the memory of Collard, but the sad
+image of the man whom he had met at Ramel's, and who, when the
+_Officiel_ should speak, should make the announcement, would shrug his
+shoulders and say ironically:
+
+"Well! and what then?"
+
+He had scarcely whispered these words to Adrienne: "President of the
+Council! I am President of the Council!" when, without being astonished
+at the faint, almost indifferent smile that escaped the young wife, he
+suddenly thought that he was under obligation to make a personal visit
+to the Ministry of Justice where Collard was lying dead.
+
+He ordered himself to be driven quickly to Place Vendome.
+
+At every moment, carriages brought to the ministry men of grave mien,
+decorated with the red ribbon, who entered wearing expressions suitable
+to the occasion and inscribed their names in silence on the register,
+passing the pen from one to another just as the aspergillus is passed
+along in church. Everybody stood aside on noticing Vaudrey. It seemed to
+him that they instinctively divined that Collard being out of the way
+it was he who must be the man of the hour, the necessary man, the
+President of the Council marked out in advance, the chief of the coming
+_ministry_.
+
+"Poor Collard!" thought Sulpice, as he inscribed his name on the
+register. "One will never be able to say: the _Collard Administration_.
+But it would be glorious if one day history said: the _Vaudrey
+Administration_."
+
+He re-entered the Hotel Beauvau, inflated with the idea. In the
+antechamber, there were more office-seekers than were usually in
+attendance. One of them, on seeing Vaudrey, rose and ran to him and said
+quickly to Sulpice, who did not stop:
+
+"Ah! Monsieur le Ministre--What a misfortune--Monsieur Collard--If there
+were no eminent men like Your Excellency to replace him!--"
+
+Vaudrey bowed without replying.
+
+"What is the name of that gentleman?" said he as soon as he entered his
+cabinet, to the usher who followed him. "I always find him, but I cannot
+recognize him."
+
+"He! Monsieur le Ministre? Why, that is, _Monsieur Eugene_!"
+
+"Ah! very good! That is right! The eternal Monsieur Eugene!"
+
+Just then Warcolier opened the door, looking more morose than sad, and
+holding a letter that he crushed in his hand, while at the same time he
+greeted Vaudrey with a number of long phrases concerning the dreadful,
+unexpected, sudden, unlooked-for, crushing death--he did not select his
+epithets, but allowed them to flow as from an overrunning cask--the
+dramatic decease of Collard--of Nantes--. From time to time, Warcolier,
+while speaking, cast an involuntary, angry glance at the paper that he
+twisted in his fingers, so much so that Vaudrey, feeling puzzled, at
+last asked him what the letter was.
+
+"Don't speak to me about it--" said the fat man. "An imbecile!"
+
+"What imbecile?"
+
+"An imbecile whom I received with some little courtesy the other
+morning--I who, nevertheless, go to so much trouble to make myself
+agreeable."
+
+"And that is no sinecure!--Well, the imbecile in question?"
+
+"Left furious, no doubt, because of the reception accorded him--and to
+me, me, the Under-Secretary of State, this is the letter that he writes,
+that he dares to write! Here, Monsieur le Ministre, listen! Was ever
+such stupidity seen? '_Monsieur le Secretaire d'Etat, you have under
+your orders a very badly trained Undersecretary of State, who will make
+you many enemies, I warn you. As you are his direct superior, I permit
+myself to notify you of his conduct_,' etc., etc. You laugh?" said
+Warcolier, seeing that a smile was spreading over Vaudrey's
+blond-bearded face.
+
+"Yes, it is so odd!--Your correspondent is evidently ignorant that there
+are only Under-Secretaries of State in the administration!--unless this
+innocent is but simply an insolent fellow."
+
+"If I thought that!" said Warcolier, enraged. "No, but it is true," he
+said with astonishing candor, a complete overflowing of his satisfied
+egotism, "there are a lot of people who ask for everything and are good
+for nothing!--Malcontents!--I should like to know why they are
+malcontents!--What are they dreaming about, then? What do they want? I
+am asking myself ever since I came into office: What is it they want?
+Doesn't the present government carry out the will of the majority?--It
+is just like those journalists with their nagging articles!--They squall
+and mock! What they print is disgusting! Granted that we have demanded
+liberty, but that does not mean license!"
+
+While Warcolier, entirely concerned about himself, with erect head and
+oratorical gesture, spoke as if in the presence of two thousand hearers,
+Sulpice Vaudrey again recalled, still sad and sick, the dark and sunken
+cheeks and the colorless ears, the poor projecting ears of the
+consumptive Garnier with whom he had come in contact at Ramel's.
+
+He was anxious to be with Adrienne again, and above all, with Marianne.
+What would his mistress say to him when she knew of his reaching the
+presidency of the Council?
+
+Adrienne had certainly received the news with little pleasure.
+
+"If you are happy!"--was all she said, with a sigh.
+
+It was the very expression she had used at the moment when, on the
+formation of the "Collard Cabinet," he had gone to her and cried out: "I
+am a minister!"
+
+Adrienne was impassive.
+
+In truth, Sulpice was beginning to think that she was too indifferent to
+the serious affairs of life. The delightful joys of intimacy, now,
+moreover, discounted, ought not to make a woman forget the public
+successes of her husband. Instinctively comparing this gentle, slender
+blonde, resigned and pensive, with Marianne, with her tawny locks and
+passionate nature, whom he adored more intensely each day, Vaudrey
+thought that a man in his position, with his ambition and merit, would
+have been more powerfully aided, aye, even doubled in power and success
+by a creature as strongly intelligent, as energetic and as fertile in
+resource as Mademoiselle Kayser.
+
+He still had before him a peculiar smile of indefinable superiority
+expressed by his mistress when Adrienne and Marianne chanced to meet one
+evening at the theatre, which made him feel that his mistress was
+watching and analyzing his wife. The next day, Marianne with exquisite
+grace, but keen as a poisoned dart, said to him:
+
+"Do you know, my dear, Madame Vaudrey is charming?"
+
+He felt himself blush at these words hurled at him point-blank, then his
+cheeks grew cold. Never, till that moment, had Mademoiselle Kayser
+mentioned Adrienne's name.
+
+"You like blondes, I see!" said Marianne. "I am almost inclined to be
+jealous!"
+
+"Will you do me a great favor?" then interrupted Sulpice. "Never let us
+speak of her. Let us speak of ourselves."
+
+"Yes," continued the perfidious Marianne in a patronizing tone, as if
+she had not heard him, "she is certainly charming! A trifle--just a
+trifle--bourgeoise--But charming! Decidedly charming!"
+
+Knowing Vaudrey well, she understood what a keen weapon she was plunging
+straight into him. A little _bourgeoise_! This conclusion rendered by
+the Parisienne with a smile now haunted Sulpice, who was annoyed at
+himself and he sought to discover in his wife, the dear creature whom he
+had so tenderly loved, whom he still loved, some self-satisfying excuse
+for his passion and adultery.
+
+"Bah!" he thought. "Is it adultery? There is no adultery save for the
+wife. The husband's faithlessness is called a caprice, an adventure, a
+craving or madness of the senses. Only the wife is adulterous."
+
+In all candor, what sin had he committed? Was Adrienne less loved? He
+would have sacrificed his life for her. He overwhelmed her with
+presents, created surprises for her that she received without emotion,
+and simply said in a doleful tone:
+
+"How good you are, my dear!"
+
+He was ruining neither her nor his children! Ah! if he but had children!
+Why had not Adrienne had children? A woman should be a mother. It is
+maternity that in the marriage estate justifies a man in abandoning his
+freedom and a woman her shame.
+
+A mother! And was Marianne a mother?
+
+No, but Marianne was Marianne. Marianne was not created for the domestic
+fireside and the cradle. Her statuesque and seductively lovely limbs
+only craved for the writhings of pleasure, not the pangs of maternity.
+Adrienne, on the contrary, was the wife, and the childless wife soon
+took another name: the friend. No, he robbed her of nothing, Adrienne
+lost none of his affection, none of his fortune. The money squandered at
+Rue Prony, Vaudrey had acquired; it was the savings of the honest people
+of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, the parents, the _old folks_, that he
+threw--as in smelting--into the crucible of the girl's mansion.
+
+Adrienne expressed no desire that was not fulfilled, and Sulpice who
+was, moreover, confident and lulled by her quietude, felt no remorse. He
+did not enquire if his passion for Marianne would endure. He flung
+himself upon this love as upon some prey; nor was desire the only
+influence that now attached him to this woman, he was drawn to her also
+by the admiration that he felt for her boldness of thought, her
+singular opinions, her careless expressions, her devilish spirit; her
+appetizing and voluptuous attractions surprised and ensnared him--
+
+What a counselor and ally such a woman would be!
+
+Well and good! When Vaudrey informed her that he was about to become
+first minister, to preside over the Council, to show his power--this was
+his eternal watchword--Marianne immediately comprehended the new
+situation and what increase of influence in the country such a fortunate
+event would give him.
+
+He observed with pleasure that something like a joyful beam gleamed in
+Mademoiselle Kayser's gray eyes.
+
+She also doubtless thought that it was desirable to take advantage of
+the occasion, to seize and cling to the opportunity.
+
+"Then it is official?" she asked.
+
+"Not yet. But it is certain."
+
+What could Marianne hope for? Again, she had no well-defined object; but
+she watched her opportunity, and since Vaudrey's power was enlarged,
+well, she was to profit by it. Claire Dujarrier, who had already served
+her so well, could be useful to her again and advise her advantageously.
+That will be seen.
+
+"Are you desirous of attending Collard's funeral?" Vaudrey asked
+Marianne.
+
+She laughed as she asked:
+
+"Why! what do you think that would be to me?"
+
+"It will be very fine. All the authorities, the magistrates, the
+Institute, the garrison of Paris will be present."
+
+"Then you think it is amusing to see soldiers file past? I am not at all
+curious! You will describe it all to me and that will be quite
+sufficient for me."
+
+Vaudrey walked at the head of the cortege that accompanied through Place
+Vendome and Rue de la Paix, black with the crowd, the funeral procession
+of Collard--of Nantes--to the Madeleine. Troops of the line in parade
+uniforms lined the route. From time to time was heard the muffled roll
+of drums shrouded in crepe. The funeral car was immense and was crowded
+with wreaths. As with bowed head he accompanied the funeral procession
+of his colleague, almost his friend,--but, bah! friendship of committees
+and sub-committees!--Sulpice was sufficiently an artist to be somewhat
+impressed with the contrast afforded by the display of official pomp
+crowning the rather obscure life of the Nantes advocate. He had ever
+obtrusively before him, as if haunted by the spectre of the Poor Man
+before Don Juan, the lean face of Garnier and the white moustache of
+Ramel. Which of the two had better served his cause, Ramel vanquished or
+Collard--of Nantes--dying in the full blaze of success?
+
+He pondered over this during the whole of the ceremony. He thought of it
+while the notes of the organ swelled forth, while the blue flames of the
+burning incense danced, and while the butts of the soldiers' muskets
+sounded from time to time on the flagstones, as the men stood around
+the bier and followed the orders of the officer who commanded them.
+
+On leaving the ceremony, Granet approached Sulpice while gently stroking
+his waxed moustache, and said in an ironical tone:
+
+"Do you know that it is suggested that a statue be raised in Collard's
+honor?"
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, because he is considered to have shown a great example."
+
+"What?"
+
+"He is one of those rare cases of ministers dying in office. Imitate
+him, my dear minister,--to the latest possible moment."
+
+Sulpice made an effort to smile at Granet's pleasantry. This cunning
+fellow decidedly displeased him; but there was nothing to take offence
+at, it was mere diplomatic pleasantry expressed politely.
+
+Before returning to the ministry, Vaudrey had himself driven to Rue
+Prony. Jean, the domestic, told him that Madame had gone out; she had
+been under the necessity of going to her uncle's. After all, Sulpice
+thought this was a very simple matter; but he was determined to see
+Marianne, so he ordered his carriage to be driven to the artist's
+studio. Uncle Kayser opened the door, bewildered at receiving a call
+from the minister and, at the same time, showing that he was somewhat
+uneasy, coughing very violently, as if choked with emotion, or perhaps
+as a signal to some one.
+
+"Is Mademoiselle Kayser here?" asked Sulpice.
+
+"Yes--Ah! how odd it is--Chance wills that just now one of our
+friends--a connoisseur of pictures--"
+
+Vaudrey had already thrust open the door of the studio and he perceived,
+sitting near Marianne and holding his hat in his hand, a young man with
+pale complexion and reddish beard, whom Mademoiselle Kayser, rising
+quickly and without any appearance of surprise, eagerly presented to
+him:
+
+"Monsieur Jose de Rosas!"
+
+In the simple manner in which she had pronounced this name, she had
+infused so triumphant an expression, such manifest ostentation, that
+Vaudrey felt himself suddenly wounded, struck to the heart.
+
+He recalled everything that Marianne had said to him about this man.
+
+He greeted Rosas with somewhat frigid politeness and from the tone in
+which Marianne began to speak to him, he at once realized that she had
+some interest in allowing the Spaniard to surmise nothing. She unduly
+emphasized the title by which she addressed him, repeating a little too
+frequently: "Monsieur le Ministre."--Whenever Vaudrey sought to catch
+her glance she looked away in a strange fashion and managed to avoid
+carrying on any formal conversation with Sulpice. On the contrary, she
+addressed Rosas affably, asking what he had done in London, what he had
+become and what he brought back new.
+
+"Nothing," Jose answered with a peculiar expression that displeased
+Vaudrey. "Nothing but the conviction that one lives only in Paris
+surrounded by persons whom one vainly seeks to avoid and toward whom one
+always returns--in spite of one's self, at times."
+
+Vaudrey observed the almost proud, triumphant expression that flashed in
+Marianne's eyes. He vaguely realized an indirect confession expressed in
+that trite remark made by Rosas. The Spaniard's voice trembled slightly
+as he spoke.
+
+Marianne smiled as she listened.
+
+"You have taken a new journey, monsieur?" asked Sulpice, uncertain what
+bearing to assume.
+
+"Oh! just a temporary absence! A trip to London--"
+
+"Have you returned long?"
+
+"Only this morning."
+
+His first call was at Simon Kayser's house, where perhaps, he expected
+to see Marianne. And the proof--
+
+Vaudrey instinctively thought that it was a very hasty matter to call so
+soon on Uncle Kayser. This man's first visit was not to the painter's
+studio, but in reality to the woman who--Sulpice still heard Marianne
+declare that--who would not become his mistress. There was something
+strange in that. Eh! _parbleu!_ it was perhaps Monsieur de Rosas who had
+sent for Marianne.
+
+She endeavored to make it clear that only chance was responsible for
+bringing them together here, but Sulpice doubted, he was uneasy and
+angry.
+
+He felt almost determined to declare, if it were only by a word, the
+prize of possession, the conquest of this woman, whom he felt that Rosas
+was about to contend with him for.
+
+She surmised everything and interrupted Sulpice even before he could
+have spoken and, with a sort of false respect, displayed before Rosas
+the friendship which Monsieur le Ministre desired to show her and of
+which she was proud.
+
+"By the way, my dear minister, as to your appointment as President of
+the Council?"
+
+Vaudrey knit his brows.
+
+"That is so! I ask your pardon. I am betraying a state secret. Monsieur
+de Rosas will not abuse it. Isn't that so, Monsieur le Duc?"
+
+Rosas bowed; Vaudrey was growing impatient.
+
+"Madame Vaudrey will, of course, be delighted at this appointment,
+Monsieur le Ministre?" continued Marianne.
+
+She smiled at Sulpice who was greatly astonished to hear Adrienne's name
+mentioned there; then, turning to Rosas, she charmingly depicted a
+quasi-idyllic sketch of the affection of Monsieur le Ministre for Madame
+Vaudrey. A model household. There was nothing surprising in that,
+moreover. "Monsieur le Ministre" was so amiable--yes, truly amiable,
+without any flattery,--and Madame Vaudrey so charming!
+
+Sulpice, who was very nervous and had become slightly pale, endeavored
+to discover the meaning of this riddle. He asked himself what Marianne
+was thinking about, what she meant to say or dissimulate.
+
+Monsieur de Rosas sat motionless on his chair, very cool, looking calmly
+on without speaking a word.
+
+He seemed to await an opportunity to leave the studio, and since Vaudrey
+had arrived he had only spoken a few brief phrases in strict propriety.
+
+Marianne, all smiles and happy, with beaming eyes, interrogated Vaudrey
+and sought to provide a subject of conversation for the unexpected
+interview of these two men. Was there a great crowd at Collard's
+funeral? Who had sung at the ceremony? Vaudrey answered these questions
+rapidly, like a man absorbed in other thoughts.
+
+After a moment's interval, Monsieur de Rosas arose and bowed to Marianne
+with gentlemanly formality.
+
+"Are you going, my dear duke?"
+
+"Yes, I have seen you again. You are getting along well. I am
+satisfied."
+
+"You will come again, at any rate? My uncle has some new compositions to
+show you."
+
+"Oh! great ideas," began Kayser. "Things that will make famous
+frescoes!--For a palace--or the Pantheon!--either one!"
+
+He had looked alternately at the duke and Vaudrey.
+
+Rosas bowed to the minister and withdrew without replying, followed by
+Kayser and Marianne who, on reaching the threshold of the salon, seized
+his hand and pressed it nervously within her own soft one and said
+quickly:
+
+"You will return, oh! I beg you! Ah! it is too bad to have run away! You
+will come back!"
+
+She was at once entreating and commanding him. Rosas did not reply, but
+she felt in the trembling of his hand, as he pressed her own, in his
+brilliant glance, that she would see him again. And since he had
+returned to Paris alone, weary of being absent from her, perhaps, seeing
+that he had hastened back after having desired to free himself from her,
+did it not seem this time that he was wholly captivated?
+
+All this was expressed by a pressure of the fingers, a glance, a sigh.
+
+Rosas went rapidly away, like one distracted. Marianne, who motioned to
+Uncle Kayser to disappear, reappeared in the studio, entirely
+self-possessed.
+
+Vaudrey had risen from the divan on which he had been sitting and he was
+standing, waiting.
+
+"I believed that I understood that you had dismissed Monsieur de Rosas?"
+
+"I might have told you that I did so, since it is true."
+
+"You smiled at him, nevertheless, just now."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A man who begged you to be his mistress!"
+
+"And whom I rejected, yes!"
+
+She looked at Sulpice with her winsome, sidelong glance, curling her
+lovely pink lips that he had kissed so many times.
+
+"Then you love that man?"
+
+"I! not at all, only it is flattering to me to have him return like
+that, just like some penitent little boy."
+
+"I do not understand--"
+
+"_Parbleu!_ you are not a woman, that is all that that proves!--It is
+irritating to our self-love to see people too promptly accept the
+dismissal one gives them. What! Don't they suffer? Don't they say
+anything? Don't they complain? Monsieur de Rosas comes back to me, that
+proves that he was hurt, and I triumph. Now, do you understand?"
+
+"And--that joy that I observed is--?"
+
+"It is because Monsieur de Rosas is in Paris."
+
+"And you don't love him? You don't love him?" asked Vaudrey, clasping
+Marianne's hands in his.
+
+She laughed and said:
+
+"I do not love him in the least."
+
+"And you love me?"
+
+"Yes, you, I love you!"
+
+"Marianne, you know that it would be very wicked and wrong to lie! It is
+not necessary to love me at all if you must cease to love me!"
+
+"In other words, one should never lend money unless one is obliged to
+lend one's whole fortune."
+
+He felt extremely dissatisfied with Marianne's ironical remark. She
+looked at him with an odd expression which was all the more disquieting
+and intoxicating.
+
+"Let us speak no more about that, shall we?" she said. "I repeat to you
+that I am satisfied at having seen Monsieur de Rosas again, because it
+affords my self-love its revenge. Now, whether he comes back or not, it
+matters little to me. He has made the _amende honorable_. That is the
+principal thing, and you, my dear, must not be jealous; I find Othello's
+role tiresome; oh! yes, tiresome!--The more so, because you have no
+right to treat me as a Desdemona. The Code does not permit it."
+
+"You want to remind me again, then, that I am married? A moment ago, you
+stabbed me by pin-thrusts."
+
+"In speaking of your household? Say then with knife-thrusts."
+
+"Why did you mention my wife before Monsieur de Rosas?"
+
+"Why," said Marianne, "you do not understand anything. It was for your
+sake, for you alone, in order to explain the presence in Marianne's
+house, of a minister who is considered to lead a puritan life. Nothing
+could be more simple!--Would you have me tell him that you neglect your
+wife and that you are my lover? Perhaps you would have liked that
+better!"
+
+"Yes, perhaps," said Vaudrey passionately.
+
+"Vain fellow!" the pretty girl said as she placed upon his mouth her
+little hand which he kept upon his lips. "Then you would like me to
+parade our secrets everywhere and to publicly announce our happiness?"
+
+"I should like," he said, as he removed his lips from the soft palm of
+her hand, "that all the world should know that you are mine, mine
+only--only mine, are you not?--That man?"
+
+His eyes entreated her and lost their fire.
+
+Marianne shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Let Monsieur de Rosas alone in tranquillity and let us return to my
+house, _our house_," she said, with a tender expression in her eyes.
+
+"You do not love him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you love me?"
+
+"I have told you so."
+
+"You love me? You love me?"
+
+"I love you!--Ah!" she said, "how unhappy you would be, nevertheless, if
+I told you aloud some day in one of the lobbies of the Assembly what you
+ask me to repeat here in a whisper."
+
+"I should prefer that to losing you and to knowing that you did not love
+me."
+
+"He is telling the truth, however, the great fool!" cried Marianne,
+laughing.
+
+"The real, sincere, profound truth!"
+
+He drew her to him, seated on the vulgar divan where Simon Kayser was
+wont to display his paradoxes, and encircling her waist with both arms
+he felt her yielding form beneath her satin gown, and wished her to bend
+her fair face to his lips that were craving a kiss.
+
+Marianne took his face between her soft hands, and looking at him with
+an odd smile, tender and ironical at once, at this big simpleton who was
+completely dominated by her mocking tenderness, she said:
+
+"You are just the same Sulpice!"--as she spoke, she bent over him
+engagingly, and laughed merrily while he kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Jose de Rosas thought himself much more the master of himself than he
+actually was.
+
+This energetic man, firm as a very fine steel blade, had hoped to find
+that in living at a distance from Marianne, he might forget her or at
+least strengthen himself against her influence. He found on his return
+that he was, however, more seduced by her than before, his heart was
+wholly filled and gnawed by the distracting image of the pretty girl. He
+had borne away with him to London, as everywhere in fact, the puzzling
+smile, the sparkling glance of this woman's gray eyes that ceaselessly
+appeared to him at his bedside, and beside him, like some phantom.
+
+The phantom of a living creature whose kiss still burned his lips like a
+live coal. A phantom that he could clasp in his arms, carry away and
+possess. All the virgin sentiments of this man whose life had been the
+half-savage one of a trapper, a savant or a wanderer, turned toward
+Marianne as to an incarnated hope, a living, palpitating chimera.
+
+Jose felt certain that if he returned to Paris it was all over with him,
+and that he was giving his life to that woman. But he returned. His
+fight against himself over, the first visit he made, once again, was to
+the den where he knew well that he could discover Marianne's
+whereabouts. He went to her as he might walk to a gulf. Under his cold
+demeanor of a Castilian of former days, he was intensely passionate and
+would neither reflect nor resist. He had experienced that delightful
+sensation of impulse when, upon the rapids at the other end of the
+globe, the river carried into a whirlpool his almost engulfed boat. He
+would doubtless have been stupefied had he found Marianne installed in a
+fashionable little mansion. She promised herself to explain that to him
+when she next saw him while informing him, there and then, that she had
+taken up her abode there. A mere whim: Mademoiselle Vanda having gone
+away, the idea had attracted her of sleeping within a courtesan's
+curtains. "I will tell him that this transient luxury recalls my former
+follies when I made him believe that I was spending an inheritance from
+my grandmother."
+
+She had, indeed, already lied to him, for the money she had formerly
+squandered had been provided by De Lissac, but even then it was
+necessary--for the duke was in expectancy--to conceal its source from
+Rosas, hence the story of the inheritance that never existed. But she at
+once thoroughly realized that the surroundings which were favorable to
+the progress of the duke's love were not the bedroom and the
+dressing-room of Mademoiselle Vanda. What difference would Rosas have
+found between her and the fashionable courtesans whom he had loved, or
+rather, enriched, in passing? He would not believe this new lie this
+time.
+
+All that luxury might seduce Sulpice Vaudrey; it would have disgusted
+Jose. What satisfied the appetite of the little, successful bourgeois
+would nauseate the gentleman.
+
+As soon as Rosas returned to her, happy and stupefied at the same time,
+extravagantly happy in his joy, her plan of campaign was at once
+arranged. She did not wish to receive him in the vulgar hotel, where the
+clubmen had wiped their feet upon the carpets. She entreated him, since
+he wished to see her again, to see her at her "own house," yes, really,
+at her own house, in that little, unknown room, in Rue Cuvier, far from
+the noise of Paris and near the Botanical Garden, a kind of hidden cell
+into which no one entered.
+
+"No one but me," she said.
+
+The order had been given to Uncle Kayser in advance: in case Rosas
+should reappear, Simon was to at once inform his niece and prevent the
+duke from discovering Marianne's new address. And this had been done.
+
+The duke was then going to see Mademoiselle Kayser only at Rue Cuvier,
+after having rediscovered her at Uncle Simon's.
+
+He felt in advance a kind of gratitude to this woman who thus abandoned
+the secret of her soul to him; giving him to understand that it was
+there that she passed her days, buried in her recollections, dreaming of
+her departed years, of that which had been, of that which might be, a
+living death.
+
+Marianne had shrewdly divined the case. For this great soul, mystery
+added a new sentiment to the feelings that Rosas experienced. The first
+time that he found himself in that little abode where Simon Kayser's
+niece awaited him, he was deeply moved, as if he had penetrated into the
+pure chamber of a young girl. There, yonder, in that distant quarter, he
+found a peaceful retreat for one wounded by life, thirsting for solitude
+and passing there secret hours in the midst of loved books; in fact, the
+discreet dwelling of a poor teacher who had collected some choice
+_bibelots_ that she had found by chance. Rosas there felt himself
+surrounded by perfect virtue, amid the salvage of a happier past.
+Marianne thus became what he imagined her to be, superior to her lot,
+living an intellectual life, consoling herself for the mortification of
+existence and the hideous experiences of life by poet's dreams, in
+building for herself in Paris itself a sort of Thebais, where she was
+finally free and mistress of herself and where, when she was sad, she
+was not compelled to wear a mask or a false smile, and was free from all
+pretended gaiety. And she was so often sad!
+
+She had occasionally mentioned to Rosas the assumed name under which she
+lived at that place.
+
+"Mademoiselle Robert!"
+
+He had manifested surprise thereat.
+
+"Yes, I do not wish them to know anything of me, not even my name. You
+should understand the necessity that certain minds have for repose and
+forgetfulness. Did not one of your sovereigns take his repose lying in
+his coffin? Well! I envy him and when I have pushed the bolt of my
+little room in Rue Cuvier, I tremble with delight, just as if I felt my
+heart beating in a coffin. Do not tell any one. They would desire to
+know and see. People are so curious and so stupid!"
+
+Marianne now seemed to be still more strange and seductive to Rosas. All
+this romantic conduct, commonplace as it was, with which she surrounded
+herself, exalted her in the estimation of the duke. She became in that
+little chamber where she was simply Mademoiselle Robert, a hundred times
+more charming and attractive to him than any problem: a veritable
+Parisian sphinx.
+
+She was not his mistress. He loved her too deeply, with a holy,
+respectful passion, to take her hastily, as by chance, and Marianne was
+too skilful to risk any imprudent act, well-knowing that if she yielded
+too quickly, it would not be a woman who would fall into the duke's
+arms, but an idol that descended from its pedestal.
+
+In the silence of the old house in the deserted quarter, they held
+conversations in the course of which Rosas freely abandoned himself, and
+through which she gained every day a more intimate knowledge of the
+character of that man who was so different from those who hitherto had
+sought her for pleasure.
+
+Thus, the very respect that he instinctively felt for her, impelled her
+to love him.
+
+She had not been accustomed to such treatment. Every masculine look that
+since her puberty she had felt riveted upon her, clearly expressed even
+before the lips spoke: "You are beautiful. You please me. Will you?"
+Rosas, at least, said: "I love you," before: "I desire you."
+
+Tainted in the body which she had given, offered, abandoned, sold, she
+felt that she was respected by him even in that body, and although she
+considered him silly, she thought him superior to all others, or at
+least different, and that was a sufficient motive for loving him.
+
+One day she said to him in a peculiar tone and with her distracting
+smile:
+
+"Do you know, my dear Jose, there is one thing I should not have
+believed? You are bashful!"
+
+He turned slightly pale.
+
+"Sincere love is always bashful and clumsy. By that it may be known."
+
+"Perhaps!" said Marianne.
+
+Their conversations, however, only concerned love, so that Rosas might
+speak of his passion or of his reminiscences.
+
+She once asked him if he would despise a woman if she became his
+mistress.
+
+"No!" he said, with a smile, "it is only a Frenchman who would despise
+the woman who surrendered herself. Other nations treat love more
+seriously. They do not consider the gift of one's self in the light of a
+fall."
+
+Marianne looked at him full in the face with a strange expression.
+
+"What, then, if I love you well enough to become your mistress?"
+
+"I should still esteem you enough to become your husband!"
+
+She felt her color change.
+
+Was it a sport on the part of Monsieur de Rosas? Why had he spoken to
+her thus? Had he reflected upon what he had just said?
+
+Jose added in a very gentle tone:
+
+"Will you permit me to ask you a question, Marianne?"
+
+"You may ask me anything. I will frankly answer all your questions."
+
+"What was Monsieur Sulpice Vaudrey doing at your uncle's the other day?
+Was he there to see you?"
+
+Marianne smiled.
+
+"Why, the minister simply came to talk of business matters. I hardly see
+him except for Uncle Kayser, who is soliciting an official
+commission,--you heard him--"
+
+"Does Monsieur Vaudrey pay his addresses to you?"
+
+"Necessarily. Oh! but only out of pure French gallantry. Mere
+politeness. He loves his wife and he knows very well that I don't love
+any one."
+
+"No one?" asked Rosas.
+
+"I do not love any one yet," repeated Marianne, opening her gray eyes
+with a wide stare under the Spaniard's anxious glance.
+
+From that day, her mind was possessed of a new idea that imperiously
+directed it. When Rosas had returned to her, she had only regarded him
+as a possible lover, rich and agreeable. The mistress of a minister, she
+would become the mistress of a duke. A millionaire duke. The change
+would be profitable, assuming that she could not retain both. Her
+calculations were speedily made. She would only make Rosas pay more
+dearly for the resistance he had offered before surrendering himself.
+
+But now, abruptly and without her having thought of it, he had, with the
+incautiousness of a soldier who discloses his attack and lays himself
+open to a bully who tries to provoke him, the duke showed her the
+extent of his violent passion by a single phrase that feverishly
+agitated her.
+
+His mistress! Why his mistress, since he had shown her that perhaps?--
+
+"Idiot that I am!" thought Marianne. "Suppose I play my cards for
+marriage?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"It will cost no more!"
+
+Married! Duchess! and Duchesse de Rosas! At first she laughed. Duchess!
+I am asking a little from you! The mistress of Pierre Meran, the
+artist's drudge, the wretch who abducted her and debauched her, adding
+his depravity to hers, and who died of consumption while quite young,
+after having plunged this girl into vice, this Marianne Kayser, born and
+moulded for vice: she a duchess!
+
+"It would be too funny, my dear!" she thought.
+
+Never had Vaudrey, whom she saw that evening at Rue Prony, seemed so
+provincial, or, as she said, so _Sulpice_. Besides, he was gloomy and
+unable to express himself clearly at first, but finally he brought
+himself to acknowledge that he was embarrassed about providing for the
+bill of exchange--she understood--
+
+"No, I do not know!"
+
+"The bill of exchange in favor of Monsieur Gochard!"
+
+"Ah! that is so. Well! if you cannot pay it, my dear, I will advise--I
+will seek--"
+
+There was nothing to seek. Vaudrey would evidently get himself out of
+the affair--but the document matured at an unfortunate time. He did not
+dare to mortgage La Sauliere, his farm at Saint-Laurent-du-Pont. He had
+reflected that Adrienne might learn all about it. And then--
+
+Marianne broke in upon his confidences.
+
+"Don't speak to me about these money matters, my friend, you know that
+sort of thing disgusts me!--"
+
+"I understand you and ask your pardon."
+
+They were to see each other again the next day, as parliament was to
+take a rest.
+
+"What joy! Not to be away from you for the whole of the day!" remarked
+Vaudrey.
+
+"Well then, till to-morrow!"
+
+She felt intense pleasure in being alone again, wrapped in her sheets,
+with the light of the lamp that ordinarily shone upon her hours of love
+with Sulpice, still burning, and to be free to dream of her Spanish
+grandee who had said, plainly, with the trembling of passion on his
+lips: "I should esteem you enough to become your husband!"
+
+She passed the night in reverie.
+
+Vaudrey, in spite of the joy of the morrow,--a long tete-a-tete with his
+mistress,--thought with increasing vexation of the approaching maturity
+of his bill of exchange; within two months he would have to pay the
+hundred thousand francs which he had undertaken to pay Marianne's
+creditor.
+
+"It is astonishing how quickly time passes!"
+
+At breakfast the following day, Adrienne saw that her husband was more
+than usually preoccupied.
+
+"Are political affairs going badly?"
+
+"No--on the contrary--"
+
+"Then why are you melancholy?"
+
+"I am a little fatigued."
+
+"Then," said Madame Vaudrey, "you will scold me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have led Madame Gerson to hope--You know whom I mean, Madame Marsy's
+friend,--I have almost promised her that you would accept an invitation
+to dine at her house."
+
+For a moment Vaudrey was put out.
+
+Another evening taken! Hours of delight stolen from Marianne!
+
+"I have done wrong?" asked Adrienne, as she rested her pretty but
+somewhat sad face on her husband's bosom. "I did it because it is so
+great a pleasure to me to spend an entire evening with you, even at
+another's house. Remember you have so many official dinners, banquets
+and invitations that you attend alone. When the minister's wife is
+invited with him, it is a fete-day for the poor, little forsaken thing.
+I do not have much of you, it is true, but I see you, I hear you talking
+and I am happy. Do not chide me for having said that we would go to
+Madame Gerson's. The more so, because she is a charming woman. Ah! when
+she speaks of you! 'So great a minister!' Don't you know what she calls
+you?--'A Colbert!'"
+
+Vaudrey could not restrain a smile.
+
+"Come, after that, one cannot refuse her invitation. It is the
+_Monseigneur_ of the beggar," said he, kissing Adrienne's brow. "And
+when do we dine at Madame Gerson's?"
+
+"On Monday next; I shall have at least one delightful evening to see
+you," said the young wife sweetly.
+
+The minister entered his cabinet. Almost immediately after, a messenger
+handed him a card: _Molina, Banker_.
+
+"How strange it is!" thought Sulpice. "I had him in mind."
+
+In the course of his troublesome reflections concerning the Gochard
+paper, Vaudrey persistently thought of that fat, powerful man who
+laughed and harangued in a loud voice in the greenroom of the ballet, as
+he patted with his fat fingers the delicate chin of Marie Launay.
+
+Why! if he were willing, this Molina--Molina the Tumbler!--for him it is
+a mere bagatelle, a hundred thousand francs!
+
+Salomon Molina entered the minister's cabinet just as he made his way
+into the foyer of the Opera, with swelling chest, tilted chin and
+stomach thrust forward.
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre," he said in a clear voice, as he spread himself
+out in the armchair that Vaudrey pointed out to him, "I notify you that
+you have my maiden visit!--I am still in a state of innocency! On my
+honor, this is the first time I have set my foot within a minister's
+office!"
+
+He manifested his independence--born of his colossal influence--by his
+satisfied and successful air. The former Marseillaise clothes-dealer, in
+his youth pouncing upon the sailors of the port and Maltese and
+Levantine seamen, to palm off on them a second-hand coat or trousers, as
+the wardrobe dealers of the Temple hook the passer-by, Salomon Molina,
+who had paraded his rags and his hopes on the Canebiere, dreaming at the
+back of his dark shop of the triumphs, the pleasures, the revels and the
+indigestions that money affords, had, moreover, always preserved the
+bitterness of those wretched days and his red, Jewish lip expressed the
+gall of his painful experiences.
+
+His first word as he entered Vaudrey's cabinet, asserting the virginity
+of his efforts at solicitation, betrayed his bitterness.
+
+Now, triumphant, powerful, delighted, feasted and fat, his massive form,
+his gross flesh and his money were in evidence all over Paris. His huge
+paunch, shaking with laughter, filled the stage-boxes at the theatres.
+He expanded his broad shoulders as he reclined in the caleche that
+deposited him on race-days at the entrance of the weighing-enclosure. He
+held by the neck, as it were, everything of the Parisian quarry that
+yelps and bounds about money, issues of stock, and the food of public
+fortune: bankers, stock-brokers, and jobbers, financial, political and
+exchange editors, wretches running after a hundred sous, statesmen in a
+fair way to fortune; and he distributed to this little crowd, just as he
+would throw food into a kennel, the discounts and clippings of his
+ventures, taking malicious pleasure, the insolent delight of a fortunate
+upstart, in feigning at the moment when loans were issued, sickness that
+had no existence, in order to have the right of keeping his chamber, of
+hearing persons of exalted names ringing at his door and dancing
+attendance upon him,--powerful, influential and illustrious
+persons,--him, the second-hand dealer and chafferer from Marseilles.
+
+It was then that he tasted the joy of supreme power, that delight which
+titillated even his marrow, and after having rested all day, the prey of
+a convenient neuralgia, he experienced the unlimited pleasure of force
+overcoming mind, the blow of a fist crushing a weakling, as with a white
+cravat he appeared in some salon, in the greenroom of the ballet, or in
+the dressing-room of a _premiere_, saying with the mocking smile of
+triumph and the assurance attending a gorged appetite:
+
+"I was sick to-day, I suffered from neuralgia! The Minister of Finance
+called on me!--Baron Nathan came to get information from me!"
+
+Among all the pleasures experienced by this man, he valued feminine
+virtue occasionally purchased with gold as little in comparison with the
+virgin souls, honor and virtue that he often succeeded in humiliating,
+in bending before him like a reed, and snuffing out with his irony,
+whenever necessity placed at his mercy any of those puritanical beings
+who had passed sometimes with haughty brow before the millions of this
+man of money. It was then that the clothes-dealer took his revenge in
+all its hideousness. There was no pity to be expected from this fat,
+smiling and easy-going man. His fat fingers strangled more certainly
+than the lean hands of a usurer. Molina never pardoned.
+
+Ah! if this fellow went to see the minister, most assuredly he wanted a
+favor from him.
+
+But what?
+
+It was extraordinary, but before Vaudrey, Molina who could hold his own
+among rascals, found himself ill at ease. There was in the frank look of
+this _ninny_, as Molina the _Tumbler_ had one evening called him while
+talking politics, such direct honesty that the banker, accustomed as he
+was to dealings with sharks and intriguers, did not quite know how to
+open the question, nevertheless a very important matter was in hand.
+
+"A rich plum," thought Molina.
+
+A matter of railways, a concession to be gained. A matter of private
+interest, disguised under the swelling terms of the public welfare, the
+national needs. Millions were to be gained. Molina was charged with the
+duty of sounding the President of the Council and the Minister of Public
+Works. Two honest men. The _dodge_, as the _Tumbler_ said, was to make
+them swallow the affair under the guise of patriotism. A strategical
+railroad. The means of rapid locomotion in case of mobilization. With
+such high-sounding words, _strategy_, _frontier_, _safety_, they could
+carry a good many points.
+
+Unfortunately, Vaudrey was rather skittish on these particular
+questions, besides he was informed on the matter. He felt his flesh
+creep while Molina was speaking. Just before, on seeing the banker's
+card, the idea of the money of which the fat man was one of the
+incarnations, had suddenly dawned upon him as a hope. Who knows? By
+Molina's aid, he might, perhaps, free himself from anxiety about the
+Gochard bill of exchange!--But from the minister's first words, although
+the banker could not get to the point, intimidated as he was by
+Sulpice's honest look, it was clear that Vaudrey surmised some repugnant
+suggestions in the hesitating words of this man.
+
+What! Molina hesitating? He did not go straight to the point, squarely,
+according to his custom, Molina the illustrious _Tumbler_? Eh! no! the
+intentionally cold bearing of the minister decidedly discomposed him.
+Vaudrey's glance never wandered from his for a moment. When the promoter
+pronounced the word Bourse, a disdainful curl played upon Sulpice's
+lips, but not a word escaped him. Molina heard his own voice break the
+silence of the ministerial cabinet and he felt himself entangled. He
+came to propose a combination, a bonus, and he did not suspect that
+Vaudrey would refuse to have a hand in it. And here, this devilish
+minister appeared not to understand, did not understand, perhaps, or
+else he understood too well. Molina was not accustomed to such
+hard-of-hearing people. With his fat hand, he had dropped into the hands
+of senators and ministers of the former regime, a sum for which the only
+receipt given was a smile. He was accustomed to the style of
+conversation carried on by hints and ended between intelligent people by
+a _shake of the hand_, that in which some bits of paper rested:
+bank-notes or paid-up shares. And this Vaudrey knew nothing! So he felt
+himself obliged to explain himself clearly, to stoop to dotting every
+_i_, at the risk of being shown out of doors.
+
+Molina was too shrewd to run this risk. He would return at another time,
+seeing that the minister turned a deaf ear, but _pecaire_! he sweat huge
+drops in seeking roundabout phrases, this man who never minced his words
+and habitually called things by their proper names. Was the like ever
+seen! A pettifogger from Grenoble to _floor_ Salomon Molina!
+
+"It made me warm," said the money-maker, on leaving the cabinet, "but,
+deuce take it! I'll have my revenge. One is not a minister always. You
+shall pay me dearly, my little fellow, for that uncomfortable little
+time."
+
+Vaudrey had thoroughly understood the matter, but he did not intend to
+allow it to be seen that he did. That was a simpler way. He had not had
+to dismiss the buyer of consciences; he had enjoyed his embarrassment
+and that was sufficient.
+
+"What, however, if I had spoken to him of money before he had shown his
+hand! If I had accepted from him--!" he said to himself.
+
+He shuddered at the thought as he had previously done while Molina was
+talking to him. A single imprudence, a single confidence might easily
+have placed him under the hand of this fat man. He must, however, find
+some solution. The days were rolling away and the bills signed for
+Marianne would in a very short time reach maturity.
+
+"When I think that this Molina could in one day enable me to gain three
+times this sum."
+
+Salomon had just told him: "To forestall the news on the Bourse is
+sometimes worth gold ingots!" A _forestaller_! As well say the
+revelation of a State secret, base speculation, almost treachery! And
+yet on hearing these words that covered up an insult, he had not even
+rung for the messenger to show Molina out, but had striven to comprehend
+nothing!
+
+As the result of this conversation, he felt uncomfortable. The man had
+left an odor of pollution, as it were, behind him.
+
+Vaudrey must needs be soon reassured respecting the Gochard paper. In
+visiting Marianne, he observed that his mistress was a shrewd woman. She
+informed him immediately that Claire Dujarrier whom she had seen, would
+secure a renewal from Gochard, who was unknown to Vaudrey, from three
+months to three months until the expiration of six months in
+consideration of an additional twenty thousand francs for each period of
+ninety days.
+
+"I did not understand that at first," Marianne began by remarking.
+
+"Oh!" said Sulpice, "I understand perfectly, it is absolute usury. But
+time is ready money, and in six months it will be easier for me to pay
+one hundred and forty thousand francs than a hundred thousand to-day. I
+have plans."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Very difficult to explain, but quite clear in my mind! The important
+part is not to have the date of maturity on the first of June, but on
+the first of December."
+
+"Then nothing is more simple. Madame Dujarrier will arrange it."
+
+"Is Madame Dujarrier a providence then?"
+
+"Almost," said Marianne coldly.
+
+Sulpice was intoxicated with joy, realizing that he had before him all
+the necessary time in which to free himself from his embarrassment, when
+Marianne should have returned him his first acceptance for one hundred
+thousand francs against a new one for one hundred and forty thousand. He
+breathed again. From the twenty-sixth of April to the first of December,
+he had nearly seven months in which to free himself. He repeated the
+calculation that he had formerly made when he said: "I have ample time!"
+
+He reentered the Hotel Beauvau in a cheerful mood, Adrienne was
+delighted. She feared to see him return nervous and dejected.
+
+"Then you will be brilliant presently at Madame Gerson's."
+
+"Stop! that's so. It is this evening in fact!--"
+
+He had forgotten it.
+
+Marianne, too, was not free. She was going, she said, to Auteuil for
+that bill of exchange. Vaudrey did not therefore, regret the soiree. His
+going to Madame Gerson's was now a matter of indifference to him.
+
+"As for me, I am so happy, oh! so happy!" said Adrienne, clapping her
+little hands like a child.
+
+In undressing, Vaudrey fortunately found this document which he had
+folded in four and left in his waistcoat pocket:
+
+     "On the first of June next, I will pay to the order of Monsieur
+     Adolphe Gochard of No. 9, Rue Albouy, the sum of One Hundred
+     Thousand Francs, value received in cash.
+
+         "SULPICE VAUDREY,
+             "Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin, 37."
+
+He turned pale on reading it. If Adrienne had seen it!--
+
+He burned the paper at a candle.
+
+"I am imprudent," he said to himself. "Poor Adrienne! I should not like
+to cause her any distress."
+
+She was overjoyed as she made the journey in the ministerial carriage
+from Place Beauvau to the Gersons' mansion. At last she had a rapid,
+stolen moment in which she could recover the old-time joy of happy
+solitude, full of the exquisite agitation of former days.
+
+"Do you recall the time when you took me away like this, on the evening
+of our marriage?" she whispered to him, as the carriage was driven off
+at a gallop.
+
+He took her hands and pressed them.
+
+"You still love me, don't you, Sulpice?--You believe too, that I love
+you more than all the world?"
+
+"Yes, I believe it!"
+
+"You would kill me if I deceived you?--I, ah, if you deceived me, I do
+not know what I should do.--Although I think that you are here, that I
+hold you, that I love you, you may still belong to another woman--"
+
+"Again! you have already said that. Are you mad?" said Sulpice. "See! we
+have reached our destination."
+
+Madame Gerson had brilliantly illuminated her house in Rue de Boulogne
+with lights, filled it with flowers, and spread carpets everywhere to
+receive the President of the Council. The house was too small to
+accommodate the guests, who were about to be stifled therein. She packed
+them into her dining-room. For the soiree which was to follow, she had
+sounded the roll-call of her friends. She was bent on founding a new
+salon, on showing Madame Marsy that she was not alone to be the rival of
+Madame Evan.
+
+Madame Gerson was not on friendly terms with Sabine Marsy. People were
+ignorant as to the cause. Adrienne, who was not familiar with the
+history of such little broils, was very much surprised to learn of this
+fact.
+
+"She claims that we take away all her _personnel_," said Madame Gerson.
+"It is not my fault if people enjoy themselves at our house. I hope that
+you will find pleasure here, Monsieur le President."
+
+Vaudrey bowed. "Madame Gerson could not doubt it."
+
+The guests sat down to dinner. Madame Gerson beamed with joy beside the
+minister. Guy de Lissac, Warcolier, some senators and some deputies were
+of the dinner party. Monsieur and Madame Gerson never spoke of them by
+their names but: _Monsieur le Senateur, Monsieur le Depute!_ They
+lubricated their throats with these titles, just as bourgeois who come
+in contact with highnesses swell out in addressing a prince as
+_Monseigneur_, absolutely as if they were addressing themselves.
+
+Sulpice felt in the midst of this circle in which everything was
+sacrificed to _chic_, as he invariably did, the painful sensation of a
+man who is continually on show. He never dined out without running
+against the same menu, the same fanfare, and the same conversation.
+
+Monsieur Gerson endeavored to draw the President of the Council into
+political conversation. He wished to know Vaudrey's opinion as to the
+one-man ballet. Sulpice smiled.
+
+"Thanks!" he said. "We have just been dealing with that. I prefer
+truffles, they are more savory."
+
+Through the flowers, Adrienne could see her husband who was seated
+opposite to her beside Madame Gerson. She conversed but little with Guy
+de Lissac, who was sitting on her right, although the formalities of the
+occasion would have suggested that Monsieur le Senator Crepeau and
+Monsieur de Prangins, the deputy, should have been so placed. Madame
+Gerson, however, had remarked with a smile, that Madame Vaudrey would
+not feel annoyed at having Monsieur de Lissac for her neighbor. "I have
+often met Monsieur de Lissac at the ministry; he is received noticeably
+well there."
+
+Not knowing any one among the guests, Adrienne was, in fact, charmed to
+have Guy next to her. He was decidedly pleasing to her with his sallies,
+his skepticism which, as she thought, covered more belief than he wished
+to disclose. For a long time, he had felt himself entirely captivated by
+her cheerful modesty and the grace of her exquisite purity. She was so
+vastly different from all the other women whom he had known. How the
+devil could Vaudrey bring himself to neglect so perfect a creature, who
+was more attractive in her fascinating virtue than all the damsels to be
+met with in society, among the demi-monde, or those of a still lower
+grade? For Vaudrey remained indifferent to Adrienne; and this was a
+further and manifest blow. A specialist in matters of observation like
+Guy was not to be deceived therein. Madame Vaudrey had not yet
+complained, but she was already suffering. Was it merely politics, or
+was it some woman who was taking her husband from Adrienne? Guy did not
+know, but he would know. The pretty Madame Vaudrey interested him.
+
+"If that idiot Sulpice were not my friend, I would make love to her.
+Besides," he said to himself, as he looked at Adrienne's lovely, limpid
+eyes, "I should fail; there are some lakes whose tranquillity cannot be
+disturbed."
+
+Adrienne, pleased to have him beside her, enquired of him the names of
+the guests. On the left of Madame Gerson sat a little, broad-backed man,
+with black hair pasted over his temples, long leg-of-mutton whiskers
+decorating his bright-colored cheeks, and a keen eye: he was Monsieur
+Jouvenet, formerly an advocate; to-day Prefect of Police.
+
+Senator Crepeau sat further away. He was a fat manufacturer, who talked
+about alimentary products and politics. In the _Analytical Table of the
+Accounts of the Sittings of the Senate_, his name shone brilliantly,
+with the following as his record: "CREPEAU, of L'Ain, Life
+Senator--Apologizes for his absence--8 January--. Apologizes for his
+absence--20 February--. Member of a commission--_Journal Officiel_, p.
+1441. Apologizes for not being able to take part in the labors of the
+commission--4 March--. Apologizes for his absence--20 March--. Asks for
+leave of absence--5 April--." Such were his services during the ordinary
+work of that year. Monsieur Crepeau--of L'Ain--had earned the right to
+take a rest.
+
+"He eats very heartily," said Lissac. "His appetite is better than his
+eloquence."
+
+Next to Crepeau was another legislator, Henri de Prangins, a publicist,
+an old, wrinkled, stooping, dissatisfied grumbler.
+
+"Ah! that is Monsieur de Prangins," said Adrienne, "I have heard much
+about him."
+
+"He is a typical character," Lissac said, with a smile. "You know
+Granet, _the gentleman who will become a minister_; well, Prangins is
+the gentleman who would be a minister, but who never will be! Moreover,
+he is five hundred times more remarkable than a hundred others who have
+been in office ten times, for what reason cannot be said."
+
+For nearly half a century Prangins, the old political wheel-horse, had
+plotted and jockeyed in politics, set up and overthrown ministries,
+piled up review articles on newspaper articles, contradiction on
+contradiction, page on page, spoiled cartloads of paper in his vocation
+of daily or fortnightly howler, and withal he was applauded, rich and
+popular, famous and surrounded by flatterers, knife-and-fork companions,
+without friends but not wanting clients, as he had made and spoiled
+reputations, ministers, governments, and although he well knew the
+vanity and nothingness of power, he aspired to secure that vain booty,
+oft alleging, with bitter enviousness of authority and impatient of
+tyranny, that to enjoy popularity uninterruptedly was not worth a
+quarter of an hour of power, approaching with greedy eagerness the
+desired lot, yet seeing it inevitably, eternally, relentlessly escape
+and recede from him, plucked from his grasp as it were, like a shred of
+flesh from the jaw of a Molossian. And now, in his unquenchable lust of
+power, amid the monuments of combination and deception he had created,
+this man was weary, disgusted and irritated,--believing himself
+vanquished and smothering the anger of defeat in the luxurious isolation
+of his wealth. He was neither officially influential nor liked. Feared
+he was, probably, and envied because of his good fortune, recognized,
+too, as a _force_, but only as acting in the whirlwind of his ideas and
+struggling in the emptiness of his dreams. After having immolated
+everything, youth, family, friendship, love, to this chimera: power, he
+found himself old, worn-out, broken by his combats, face to face with
+the folly of his hopes and the worthlessness of his will. Never had his
+nervous hand been able to grasp in its transition, the fragment of
+morocco of a portfolio and now that his parchment-like fingers were old
+and feeble, they would never cling to that shred of power! And now this
+Prangins avenged himself for the contempt or the injustice of his
+colleagues and the folly of circumstances, by criticism, defiance,
+mockery, denial and by loudly expressing his opinion:
+
+"The defect of every government is that it will try to play new airs on
+an old violin! Your violin is cracked, Monsieur Vaudrey! I do not
+reproach you for that, you did not make it!"
+
+Vaudrey laughed at the sally, but Warcolier felt that he was choking.
+How could the minister allow his policy to be thus attacked at table?
+Ah! how Warcolier would have clinched the argument of this Prangins.
+
+Madame Gerson was delighted. The dinner was served sumptuously and went
+off without a hitch. The _maitre d'hotel_ directed the service
+admirably. The soiree that was to follow it would be magnificent. The
+journals would most certainly report it. Gerson had invited one reporter
+in spite of his dislike of journalists. Ah! those gossipers and foolish
+fellows, they never forgot to describe the toilettes worn by "the pretty
+Madame Gerson" at _first nights_, at the Elysee or at Charity Bazaars.
+Occasionally, her husband pretended to be angered by the successes of
+his wife:
+
+"Those journalists! Just imagine, those journalists! They speak about my
+wife just as they would about an actress! 'The lovely Madame Gerson wore
+a gown of _crepe de Chine_!' The lovely Madame Gerson! What has my
+wife's beauty or her toilette to do with them?"
+
+In truth, however, he felt flattered. He was only sincerely annoyed
+when people respected the devilish wall of private life, the cement of
+which he would have stripped off himself, in order to show his wife's
+beauty. To be quoted in the paper, why! that is _chic_.
+
+Adrienne felt a little stunned by the noise of the conversation which
+increased in proportion as the dinner advanced. She was also very much
+astonished and not a little grieved when Madame Gerson abruptly spoke in
+a loud voice before all the guests concerning Madame Marsy, at whose
+house it was, in fact, that she made the acquaintance of Vaudrey. Madame
+Gerson showed her pretty teeth in a very charming manner as she tore her
+old friend Sabine to pieces, as it were. In a tenderly indulgent tone
+which was the more terrible, she repeated the tales that were formerly
+current: the affecting death of Philippe Marsy, the painter of
+_Charity_, and a particular escapade in which Sabine was involved with
+Emile Cordier, one of the leaders of the _intransigeante_ school of
+painters.
+
+"What! you did not know that?" said the pretty Madame Gerson in
+astonishment.
+
+Adrienne knew nothing. She was delighted moreover to know nothing. She
+heard this former friend relate how Sabine had, at one time, exhibited
+at the Salon. Oh! mere students' daubs, horrid things! Still-life
+subjects that might have passed for buried ones, and yet, perhaps,
+Cordier retouched them.
+
+"I thought that Madame Gerson was on the best of terms with Madame
+Marsy," whispered Adrienne to Lissac, who replied:
+
+"They have been on better! They perhaps will be so again. That is of
+very little importance. Women revile each other and associate at the
+same time."
+
+Adrienne decided that she would not listen. She knew Sabine Marsy only
+slightly; she was not interested as a friend; but this little execution,
+gracefully carried out here by a woman who recently did the honors at
+the Salon of Boulevard Malesherbes seemed to her as cowardly as
+treachery. This, then, was society! And how right was her choice in
+preferring solitude!
+
+Then, in order that she might not hear the slander that was greeted with
+applause by those very persons who but yesterday besieged Madame Marsy's
+buffet, and who would run to-morrow to pay court to that woman, she
+conversed with Lissac. She frankly told him what she suffered at Place
+Beauvau. She spoke of Sulpice, as Sulpice was loved by her beyond all
+else in the world.
+
+"Fancy! I do not see him, hardly ever! The other week he passed two days
+at Laon, where an exposition was held at which he was present."
+
+"An exposition at Laon?" asked Lissac, astonished. "What exposition?"
+
+"I do not know. I know nothing myself. Perhaps it is wrong of me not to
+keep myself informed of passing events, but all that wearies me. I
+detest politics and journals--I am told quite enough about them.
+Politics! that which takes my husband from me! My uncle, Doctor Reboux,
+often said to me: 'Never marry a doctor; he is only half a husband.'
+Vaudrey is like a doctor. Always absent, with his everlasting
+night-sessions."
+
+"Night-sessions?" asked Lissac.
+
+"Yes, at the Chamber--continually--"
+
+Guy determined to betray nothing of his astonishment; but he knew now as
+surely as if he had learned everything, why Sulpice neglected Adrienne.
+The fool! some girl from the Opera! some office-seeker who was skilfully
+entangling His Excellency! That appertained to his functions then? He
+was exasperated at Vaudrey and alternately looked at him and at
+Adrienne. So perfect a woman! Ravishing. What an exquisite profile, so
+delicate and with such a straight nose and a delightful mouth! Was
+Vaudrey mad then?
+
+The guests rose from the table, and, as usual, the men went into the
+smoking-room, leaving the salon half-empty. Madame Gerson profited
+thereby to continue distilling her little slanders about Sabine, which
+she did while laughing heartily. In the smoking-room the men chatted
+away beneath the cloud that rose from their _londres_. The clarion tones
+of Warcolier rung out above all the other voices.
+
+Guy, seated in a corner on a divan, was still thinking of Adrienne, of
+those _night-sessions_, of those expositions, of those agricultural
+competitions invented by Sulpice, and caught but snatches of the
+conversation, jests, and nonsensical stories which were made at the cost
+of the colleagues of the Chamber and political friends:
+
+"You know how Badiche learned at the last election that he was not
+elected?"
+
+"No, how?"
+
+"He returned to his house, anxious as to the result of the ballot. And
+he heard, what do you think? His children, a little boy and a little
+girl, who on receipt of the telegram that papa was waiting for and that
+mamma in her feverish expectation had opened, had already composed a
+song to the air of _The Young Man Poisoned_:
+
+    Resultat tres negatif,
+    Ballottage positif!
+    Badiche est ballo--
+        Bate,
+      Est ballotte!
+    Oui, Badiche est ballotte;
+    C'est papa qu'est ballotte!
+
+Happy precocity! genuine frightful gamins!"
+
+"_Du Gavarni_!"
+
+"Apropos, on what majority do you count, Monsieur le President?"
+
+"One hundred and thirty-nine."
+
+"That is a large one."
+
+"I! my dear fellow,"--it was old Prangins speaking to Senator
+Crepeau,--"I do not count myself as likely to be included in the next
+ministry, no! I do not delude myself, but I shall be in the second--or
+rather in the third--no, in the fourth--yes, in the fourth
+ministry--Assuredly!"
+
+An asthmatic cough, the cough of an old man, interrupted his remarks.
+
+Guy heard Warcolier, as he held a small glass of kirsch in his hand, say
+with a laugh:
+
+"I have a way of holding my electors in leash. Not only when I visit
+them do I address them as _my friend, my brave_, which flatters them,
+but from time to time, I write them autograph letters. They look upon
+that like ready money. Some of them, the good fellows, are flattered:
+'He has written to me, he is not proud!' Others, the suspicious fellows,
+are reassured: 'Now--I have his signature, I have him!' And there you
+are!"
+
+They laughed heartily.
+
+"How they laugh _afterward_," thought Lissac, "at the electors whose
+shoes they would blacken _beforehand_."
+
+"The course that I have followed is very simple," said another. "I
+desired to become sub-prefect so as to become a prefect and a prefect to
+become a deputy, and a deputy so as to reach a receiver-generalship. The
+salaries assured, why, there's the crowning of a career."
+
+"Why, that fellow _plays the whole gamut_," again thought Guy, "but he
+is frank!"
+
+"I read very little," now replied Crepeau to Warcolier--"I do not much
+care for pure literature--we politicians, we need substantial reading
+that will teach us to think."
+
+"I believe you!--" murmured this Parisian Guy, still smoking and
+listening. "Go to school, my good man!"
+
+The conversation thus intermingled and confused, horrified and irritated
+this _blase_ by its gravity and selfishness. He summed up an entire
+character in a single phrase and shook his head as he very shrewdly
+remarked: "Suppose _Universal Suffrage_ were listening?"
+
+Lissac did not take any part in these conversations. It was his delight
+to observe. He drew amusement from all these wearisome commonplaces,
+according to his custom as a curious spectator.
+
+He was about, however, to rise and approach Vaudrey, who was
+instinctively coming toward him, when the Prefect of Police, Monsieur
+Jouvenet, without noticing it, placed himself between the minister and
+his friend.
+
+Jouvenet spoke in a low tone to Vaudrey, smiling at the same time very
+peculiarly and passing his fingers through his whiskers. Whatever
+discretion the prefect employed, Guy was near enough to him to hear the
+name of Marianne Kayser, which surprised him.
+
+Marianne! what question of Marianne could there be between these two
+men?
+
+Lissac observed that Vaudrey suddenly became very pale.
+
+He drew still nearer, pretending to finish a cup of coffee while
+standing. Then he heard these words very distinctly:
+
+"A reporter saw you leave her house the other evening!"
+
+Guy moved away very quickly. He felt a sort of sudden bewilderment, as
+if the few words spoken by the Prefect of Police were the natural result
+of his conversation with Adrienne, an immediate response thereto.
+
+"It would be astonishing if Marianne--" thought Lissac.
+
+Besides, he would know soon. He would merely question Vaudrey.
+
+As soon as Jouvenet, always polite, grave and impassive, had left
+"Monsieur le Ministre" in a state of visible nervousness, almost of
+anxiety, he entered upon his plan.
+
+"You know Mademoiselle Kayser intimately then?" he asked Vaudrey, who,
+taken aback, looked at him for a moment without replying and endeavored
+to grasp Lissac's purpose.
+
+"Am I imprudent?" further asked Guy.
+
+"No, but who has told you--?"
+
+"Nothing, your Prefect of Police only spoke a little too loud. He seemed
+to me to understand."
+
+Vaudrey's hand rapidly seized Lissac's wrist.
+
+"Hush! be silent!"
+
+"Very well! Good!" said Lissac to himself. "Poor little Adrienne."
+
+"I will tell you all about that later. Oh! nothing is more simple! It
+isn't what you think!"
+
+"I am sure of that!" answered Lissac, with a smile.
+
+In a mechanical way, and as if to evade his friend, Sulpice left the
+smoking-room for the salon, tritely observing:
+
+"We must rejoin the ladies--the cigar kills conversation--"
+
+He felt uncomfortable. It was the first time that Jouvenet had informed
+him that there are agents for learning the movements of ministers. The
+Prefect of Police, in a chance conversation at the Opera with the
+editor-in-chief of a very Parisian journal, had suppressed a rumor which
+stated that a minister hailing from Grenoble set propriety at defiance
+in his visits to Rue Prony. It would have been as well to print
+Vaudrey's name.
+
+Hitherto he had been able to enjoy his passion for Marianne without
+scandal and secretly. His mysterious intrigue was now known to the
+police, to everybody, to a reporter who had stumbled against him on
+leaving a supper-party at the house of a courtesan in the neighborhood.
+
+The minister was bitterly annoyed. The very flattering applause that
+the women bestowed upon him when he returned to the salon could not
+dissipate his ill-humor. He tried to chat and respond to the affected
+remarks of Madame Gerson and to the smiles of the women; but he was
+embarrassed and nervous. Adrienne thought he looked ill.
+
+Everything was spoken of in the light but pretentious, easy tone of the
+conversation of those second-rate salons where neither ideas nor men are
+made, where, on the contrary, they are accepted, ready-made and _en
+bloc_. On every question, the picture in vogue, the favorite book, the
+man of the hour, they expressed themselves by the same stereotyped,
+expected word, borrowed from the ceaseless repetition of current
+polemics. Nothing was new. The conversation was as well worn as an old
+farthing. Adrienne was pained to see a man of Vaudrey's intelligence
+compelled to listen to these truisms and wondered if he would presently
+reproach her for having brought him into the suffocating void of this
+Parisian establishment where all was superficial, glittering and _chic_.
+
+She was in a hurry to get away. She saw that Sulpice was growing weary,
+and took advantage of the first opportunity to whisper to him:
+
+"Would you like to go?"
+
+"Yes, let us go!" he said.
+
+He sought Lissac and repeated to him that he would have something to say
+to him, and Guy bowed to the Minister and Madame Vaudrey, who left too
+early to please the Gersons.
+
+Adrienne, out of heart and discouraged by commonplace gossip and
+slander, was eager to be again with her husband, to tell him that
+nothing could compensate her for the deep joy of the tete-a-tete, their
+evenings passed together as of old--he remembered them well,--when he
+read to her from the works of much-loved poets.
+
+"Poetry!" said Vaudrey. "Will you be quiet! The Gersons would find me as
+antiquated as Ramel. It is old-fashioned."
+
+"I am no longer surprised," added the young wife, "at being so little
+fashionable. Morally speaking, those hot-houses of platitudes stifle
+one. Never fear, Sulpice, I shall not be the one to ever again drag you
+into salons. Are you tired? Are you weary?"
+
+"No, I was thinking of something else," replied Vaudrey, who really was
+thinking of Marianne.
+
+Madame Vaudrey had not left Madame Gerson's salon before that pretty
+little Parisian whispered imprudently enough in the ear of a female
+friend:
+
+"Our ministers' wives are always from Carpentras, Pont-a-Mousson, or
+Moulins; don't you think so?"
+
+"And what would you have!" said Lissac, who on this evening heard
+everything that he ought not to hear, "it is as good as being from the
+_Moulin-Rouge_!"
+
+Madame Gerson smiled, thought the expression charming, very apt, very
+happy, but again reflected that Lissac was exceedingly considerate
+toward Adrienne and that Madame Vaudrey was a little too indulgent
+toward Monsieur de Lissac.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Since the moment when it had entered her mind that she might find
+something more than a lover in Monsieur de Rosas, Marianne had been
+sorely puzzled. She was playing a strong hand. Between the minister and
+the duke she must make a choice.
+
+She did not care seriously for Vaudrey. In fact she found that he was
+ridiculously unreserved. "He is a simple fellow!" she said to Claire
+Dujarrier. But she had sufficient _amour-propre_ to retain him, and she
+felt assured that Sulpice was weak enough to obey her in everything:
+such an individual was not to be disdained. As to Rosas, she felt a
+sentiment which certainly was not love, but rather a feeling of
+astonishment, a peculiar affection. Rosas held her in respect, and she
+was flattered by his timid bearing, as he had in his veins the blood of
+heroes. He spoke almost entirely of his love, which, however, he never
+proposed to her to test, and this platonic course, which in Vaudrey's
+case she would have considered _simple_, appeared to her to be "good
+form" in the great nobleman's case. The duke raised her in her own
+eyes.
+
+He had never repeated that word, doubtless spoken by him at random:
+marriage, and Marianne was too discreet and shrewd to appear to have
+specially noticed it. She did not even allude to it. She waited
+patiently. With the lapse of time, she thought, Rosas would be the more
+surely in her grasp. Meantime it was necessary to live and as she was
+bent on maintaining her household, she kept Vaudrey, whom she might need
+at any moment.
+
+Her part was to carry on these two intrigues simultaneously, leading
+Rosas to believe that the minister was her friend only, nothing more,
+the patron of Uncle Kayser, and making Vaudrey think that since she had
+dismissed the duke he had become resigned and would "suppress his
+sighs." She could have sworn, in all sincerity, that Jose was not her
+lover.
+
+To mislead Vaudrey was not a very difficult task. Sulpice was literally
+blinded by this love.--For a moment, he had been aroused by Jouvenet's
+intimation that his secret was known to others. For a while he seemed to
+have kept himself away from Marianne; but after taking new precautions,
+he returned trembling with ardent passion to Mademoiselle Vanda's hotel,
+where his mistress's kiss, a little languid, awaited him.
+
+Months passed thus, the entire summer, the vacation of the Chamber, the
+dull season in Paris. Adrienne set out for Dauphiny, where Vaudrey was
+to preside over the Conseil-General, and she felt a childish delight on
+finding herself once more in the old house at Grenoble, where she had
+formerly been so happy! Yet even beneath this roof, within these walls,
+the mute witnesses of his virtuous love, especially when alone, Vaudrey
+thought of Marianne, he had but one idea, that of seeing her again, of
+clasping her in his arms, and he wrote her passionate letters each day,
+which she hardly glanced over and with a shrug of her shoulders burned
+as of no importance.
+
+In the depths of his province he grew weary of the continual bustle of
+fetes, receptions held in his honor, addresses delivered by him,
+ceremonies over which he had to preside, deputations received, statues
+inaugurated. Statues! always statues! In the lesser towns, at Allevard
+or Marestel, he was dragged from the _mairie_ to the _Grande Place_,
+between rows of firemen, in noisy processions, whose accompanying brass
+instruments split his ears, under pink-striped tents, draped with
+tricolor flags, before interminable files of gymnastic societies, glee
+clubs, corporate bodies, associations, Friends of Peace, or Friends of
+War societies! Then wandering harangues; commonplace remarks, spun out;
+addresses, sprinkled with Latin by professors of rhetoric; declarations
+of political faith by eloquent municipal councillors, all delighted to
+grab at a minister when the opportunity offered. How many such harangues
+Vaudrey heard! More than in the Chamber. More thickly they came, more
+compressed, more severe than in the Chamber. What advice, political
+considerations and remonstrances winding up with demands for offices!
+What cantatas that begged for subsidies! Everywhere demands: demands for
+subsidies, demands for grants, demands for help, demands for
+decorations! Nothing but harass, enervation, lassitude, deafening
+clamor. They wished to kill him with their shouts: _Vive Vaudrey!_
+
+The Prefect and the Commandant General of the division were constantly
+on guard about Vaudrey, who was dragged about in torture between these
+two coat-embroidered officers. From the lips of the prefect, Vaudrey
+heard the same commonplace utterances: progress, the future, the fusion
+of parties and interests, the greatness of the department, the cotton
+trade and the tanneries, the glory of the minister who--of the minister
+whom--of the glorious child of the country--of the eagle of Dauphiny.
+_Vive Vaudrey! Vive Vaudrey!_ The general, at least, varied his effects.
+He grumbled and wrung his hands, and on the day of the inauguration of
+the statue of a certain Monsieur Valbonnans, a former deputy and
+celebrated glove manufacturer,--also the glory of the country,--Vaudrey
+heard the soldier murmur from morning till night, with a movement of his
+jaw that made his imperial jerk: "_I love bronze! I love bronze!_" with
+a persistency that stupefied the minister.
+
+This was, perhaps, the only recollection of a cheerful nature that
+Vaudrey retained of his trips in Isere. This eternal murmuring of the
+general: _I love bronze! I love bronze!_ had awakened him, and he gayly
+asked himself what devilish sort of appetite that soldier had who
+continually repeated his phrase in a ravenous tone. Seated beside him on
+the platform, while the glee-club sung an elegy in honor of the late
+Monsieur Valbonnans, which was composed for the occasion by an amateur
+of the town:
+
+    Monsieur Valbonnans' praise let's chant, yes, chant!
+    His gloves the best, as all must grant,
+            The best extant!
+
+while the flourish of trumpets took up the refrain and the firemen
+unveiled, amid loud acclamations, the statue of Monsieur Valbonnans,
+which bore these words on the pedestal: _To the Inventor, the Patriot,
+the Merchant_; while, too, the prefect still poured in Vaudrey's left
+ear his inexhaustible observations: the glove trade, the glory of Isere;
+the progress, the interest, the greatness of the department, the
+minister who--the minister whom--(_Vive Vaudrey!_) Sulpice still heard,
+even amid the acclamations, the mechanical rumbling of the general's
+voice, repeating, reasserting, rehearsing: "_I love bronze! I love
+bronze!_"
+
+On the evening of the banquet, the minister at length obtained an
+explanation of this extraordinary affection. The general rose, grasping
+his glass as if he would shiver it, and while the _parfait_ overflowed
+on to the plates, he cried in a hoarse voice, as if he were at the head
+of his division:
+
+"I love bronze--I love bronze--because it serves for the erection of
+statues and the casting of cannon. I love bronze because its voice wins
+battles, the artillery being to-day the superior branch, although the
+cavalry is the most chivalrous! I love bronze because it is the image of
+the heart of the soldier, and I should like to see in our country an
+army of men of bronze who--whom--"
+
+He became confused and muddled, and rolled his white eyes about in his
+purpled face and to close his observations brandished his glass as if it
+had been his sword, and amid a frenzy of applause from the guests, he
+valiantly howled: "I love bronze! I love bronze!"
+
+Vaudrey could scarcely prevent himself from laughing hysterically, in
+spite of his ministerial dignity, and when he returned to Grenoble, his
+carriage full of the flowers that they had showered on him, he could
+only answer to Adrienne, who asked him if he had spoken well, if it had
+been a fine affair, by throwing his bouquets on the floor and saying:
+
+"I have laughed heartily, but I am crushed, stupefied! What a headache!"
+
+And Sulpice wrote all that to Marianne, and innocent that he was, told
+her: "Ah! all those applauding voices are not worth a single word from
+you! When shall I see you, Marianne, dear heart?"
+
+"At the latest possible date!" _the dear heart_ said.
+
+She regarded the close of summer and the beginning of autumn with
+extreme vexation, for it would bring with it the parliamentary session
+and Vaudrey, and inflict on her the presence of her lover.
+
+Sulpice provided her liberally with all that her luxurious appetites
+demanded, and it was for good reasons that she decided not to break with
+him, although for a long time she had sacrificed this man in her
+inclinations. "Ah! when I shall be able to bounce him!" she said,
+expressing herself like a courtesan. She could not, she would not accept
+anything from Rosas. On that side, the game was too fine to be
+compromised. She could with impunity accept the position of mistress of
+Vaudrey, but with Jose she must appear to preserve, as it were, an
+aureole of modesty, of virginal charms, that she did not possess.
+
+In fact, the Spaniard's mind became singularly crystallized, and she
+turned this result to good account: in proportion as he associated
+himself with the real Marianne, he created a fictitious Marianne, ideal,
+kind, _spirituelle_, perhaps ignorant, but subtile and corrupted in
+mind, who amused and disconcerted him at one and the same time. He had
+left the Continental Hotel, and rented a house on Avenue Montaigne,
+Champs-Elysees, where he sometimes entertained Marianne as he might have
+done a princess. At such times she gossiped while smoking Turkish
+tobacco. Her Parisian grace, her champagne-like effervescent manner,
+seduced and charmed this serious, pale traveller, whose very smile
+was tinged with melancholy.
+
+He completely adored this woman and no longer made an effort to resist.
+He entirely forgot that it was through Guy that he had known her. It
+seemed to him that he had himself discovered her, and besides, she had
+never loved Guy. No, certainly not. She was frank enough to acknowledge
+everything. Then she denied that Lissac ever--Then what! If it should be
+true? But no! no! Marianne denied it. He blindly believed in Marianne.
+
+All the conflicting, frantic arguments that men make when they are about
+to commit some foolish action were at war in Jose's brain. The more so
+as he did not attempt to analyze his feelings. He passed, near this
+pretty woman whose finger-tips he hardly dared kiss, the most delicious
+summer of his life. Once, however, on going out with Marianne in the
+Champs-Elysees, he had met the old Dujarrier with the swollen eyelids
+and the yellow hair that he had known formerly. One of his friends, the
+Marquis Vergano, had committed suicide at twenty for this woman who was
+old enough to be his mother. The Dujarrier had stopped and greeted
+Marianne, but as she remarked herself, a thousand bows and scrapes were
+thrown away, for Rosas had hardly noticed her with a glacial look.
+
+"Why do you return that woman's salutation?" he at once asked Marianne.
+
+"I need her. She has done me services."
+
+"That is surprising! I thought her incapable of doing anything but
+harm."
+
+He did not dream of Mademoiselle Kayser's coming in contact with
+courtesans. In the tiny, virtuous room in Rue Cuvier, Rosas thought that
+Marianne was in her true surroundings. She would frequently sit at the
+piano--one of the few pieces of furniture contained in this
+apartment,--and play for Rosas Oriental melodies that would transport
+him far away in thought, to the open desert, by the slow lulling of
+David's _Caravane_, then abruptly change to that familiar air, that
+rondeau of the Varietes that he hummed yonder, on his dunghill,
+forsaken--
+
+    "Voyez-vous, la-bas,
+    Cette maison blanche--"
+
+"I love that music-hall air!" she said.
+
+He now no longer meditated resuming travel, or quitting Paris.
+Mademoiselle Kayser's hold on him grew more certain every day. The
+suspicion of odd mystery that enveloped this girl intensified his
+passion.
+
+He sometimes asked her what her uncle was doing.
+
+"He? Why, he has obtained, thanks to Monsieur Vaudrey, the decoration of
+a hydropathic establishment, _Les Thermes des Batignolles_. He has
+commenced the cartoon for a fresco: _Massage Moralizing the People_. We
+shall see that in his studio."
+
+"Do you know," Marianne continued, "what I would like to see?"
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"Spain, your own country. Where were you born, Rosas?"
+
+"At Toledo. I own the family chateau there."
+
+"With portraits and armor?"
+
+"Yes, with portraits and armor."
+
+"Well, I would like to go to Toledo, to see that chateau. It must be
+magnificent."
+
+"It is gloomy, simply gloomy. A fortress on a rock. Gray stone, a red
+rock, scorched by the sun. Huge halls half Moorish in style. Walls as
+thick as those of a prison. Steel knights, standing with lance in hand
+as in _Eviradnus_! Old portraits of stern ancestors cramped in their
+doublets, or Duchesses de Rosas, with pale faces, sad countenances,
+buried in their collars whose _guipures_ have been limned by Velasquez
+or Claude Coello. Immense cold rooms where the visitors' footfalls echo
+as over empty tombs. A splendor that savors of the vault. You would die
+of ennui at the end of two hours and of cold at the end of eight days."
+
+"Die of cold in Spain?"
+
+"There is a cold of the soul," the duke replied with a significant
+smile. "That I have travelled so much, is probably due to my desire to
+escape from that place! But you at Toledo, at Fuentecarral,--that is the
+name of my castle,--a Parisian like you! It would be cruel. As well
+shut up a humming-bird in a bear-pit. No! thank God, I have other nooks
+in Spain that will shelter us, my dear sparrow of the boulevards! Under
+the Andalusian jasmines, beneath the oleanders of Cordova or Seville,
+under the fountains whose basins are decorated with azulejos, and in
+which sultanas bathe, my jasmins could never sufficiently exhale their
+perfume, my fountains could never murmur harmoniously enough to furnish
+you a joyous welcome--when you go--if you go--But Toledo! My terrible
+castle Fuentecarral! It is in vain that I am impenitently romantic, I
+would not take you there for anything in the world. It would be as if
+ice fell on your shoulders. Fuentecarral? Ugh!--that smacks of death."
+
+While he spoke, Marianne looked at him with kindling eyes and in thought
+roamed through those sweet-scented gardens, and she craved to see
+herself in that tomblike fortress Fuentecarral, passing in front of the
+pale female ancestors of Rosas, aghast at the _froufrou_ of the
+_Parisian woman_.
+
+Jose thought Marianne's burning glance was an expression of her love.
+Ah! how completely the last six months in Paris had riveted him to this
+woman, who was the mistress of another! One day,--Vaudrey had just left
+Marianne at the _rond-point_ of the Champs-Elysees,--the duke seeing her
+enter his house, said abruptly to her:
+
+"I was about to write you, Marianne."
+
+"Why, my dear duke?"
+
+"To ask an appointment."
+
+"You are always welcome, my friend, at our little retreat."
+
+He made her sit down, seized both her hands, and looked at her earnestly
+as he said:
+
+"Swear to me that you have never been Lissac's mistress!"
+
+She did not even quiver, but was as calm as if she had long awaited this
+question.
+
+She boldly met Jose's glance and said:
+
+"Does one ask such a question of the woman one loves?"
+
+"Suppose that I ask this question of the Duchesse de Rosas!" said the
+Spaniard, with quivering lip.
+
+She became as pale as he.
+
+"I do not understand--" she said.
+
+The duke remained silent for a moment; then his entire soul passed into
+his voice:
+
+"I have no family, Marianne. I am entirely my own master, and I love
+you. If you swear to me that you have not been Guy's mistress--"
+
+"Nobody has the right to say that he has even touched my lips," replied
+Marianne firmly. "Only one man, he who took me, an innocent girl, and
+left me heart-broken, disgusted, believing I should never again love,
+before I met you. He is dead."
+
+"I know," said Rosas, "you confided that to me formerly.--A widow save
+in name, I offer you, yes, I! my name, my love, my whole life--will you
+take them?"
+
+"Eh! you know perfectly well that I love you!" she exclaimed, as she
+frantically gave him the burning and penetrating kiss that had never
+left his lips since the soiree at Sabine's.
+
+"Then, no one--no one?" Jose repeated.
+
+"No one!"
+
+"On honor?"
+
+"On honor!"
+
+"Oh! how I love you!" he said, distractedly, all his passion shattering
+his coldness of manner, as the sun melts the snow. "If you but knew how
+jealous and crazed I am about you!--I desire you, I adore you, and I
+condemn myself to remain glacial before you, beneath your glance that
+fires my blood--I love you, and the recollection of Guy hindered me from
+telling you that all that is mine belongs to you--I am a ferocious
+creature, you know, capable of mad outbursts, senseless anger, and
+unreasoning flight--Yes, I have wished to escape from you again. Well!
+no, I remain with you; I love you, I love you!--You shall be my wife, do
+you hear? My wife!--Ah! what a moment of bliss! I have loved you for
+years! Have you not seen it, Marianne?"
+
+"I have seen it and I loved you! I also have kept silence! I saw plainly
+that you believed that I had given myself to another--No, no, I am
+yours, nothing but yours! All my love, all myself, take it; I have kept
+it for you; for I hate the past, more than that, I do not know that it
+exists--It is despised, obliterated, it is nothing! But you, ah! you,
+you are my life!"
+
+She left Jose's, her youth renewed, haughty, intoxicated with delight.
+She walked along alone, in the paths of the Champs-Elysees, the rusty
+leaves falling in showers at the breath of the already cold wind, her
+heels ringing on the damp asphalt. She marched straight ahead, her
+thoughts afire from her intoxicating emotions. It seemed that Paris
+belonged to her.
+
+That evening, she was to go to the theatre. It was arranged that Vaudrey
+should wait for her at the entrance with a hired carriage and take her
+to Rue Prony. She wrote to him that she could not leave the house. A
+slight headache. Uncle Kayser undertook to have the letter taken by a
+commissionaire.
+
+"Unless you would rather have me go to the ministry!"
+
+"Are you mad?" Marianne said.
+
+"That is true, it would be immoral."
+
+She wished to have the evening to herself, quite alone, so that she
+could let her dreams take flight.
+
+Dreams? Nonsense! On the contrary, it was a dazzling reality: a fortune,
+a title, a positive escape from want and the mire. What a revenge!
+
+"It is enough to drive one mad!"
+
+Sudden fears seized her; the terror of the too successful gambler. What
+if everything crumbled like a house of cards! She wished that she were
+several weeks older.
+
+"Time passes so quickly, and yet one has a desire to spur it on."
+
+Now in the solitude of her house she felt weary. She could neither read
+nor think, and became feverish. She regretted that she had written to
+Vaudrey. She wished to go to the theatre. A new operetta would be a
+diversion, and why should she not go? She had the ticket for her box.
+She could at once inform Vaudrey that her headache had vanished.
+
+"And then he bores me!--Especially now."
+
+Matters, however, must not be abruptly changed. Suppose Rosas should
+take a sudden fancy to fly off again! Besides, she had mutual interests
+with the minister, there was an account to be settled.
+
+"The Gochard paper?--Bah! he will pay it. More-ever, I am not involved
+in that."
+
+Suddenly she thought that she would act foolishly if she did not go
+where she pleased. Sulpice might think what he pleased. She got her maid
+to dress her hair.
+
+"Madame is going to the theatre?"
+
+"Yes, Justine. To the Renaissance!"
+
+She was greatly amused at the theatre, and was radiant with pleasure.
+She was the object of many glances, and felt delighted at being alone.
+One of the characters in the operetta was a duchess whose adventures
+afforded the audience much diversion. She abandoned herself to her
+dreams, her thoughts wandering far from the theatre, the footlights and
+the actors, to the distant orange groves yonder.
+
+During an entr'acte some one knocked at the door of her box. She turned
+around in surprise. It was Jouvenet, the Prefect of Police, who came to
+greet her in a very gallant fashion. The prefect--he had gained at the
+palais in former days, the title of _L'Avocat Pathelin_,--with
+insinuating and wheedling manners, hastened to pay his meed of respect
+to Marianne when he met her. There was no necessity to stand on ceremony
+with him. He knew all her secrets. Such a man, more-ever, must be
+treated prudently, as he can make himself useful. Never had Jouvenet
+spoken to her of Vaudrey, he was too politic in matters of state. But as
+a man who knows that everything in this world is transient, he skilfully
+maintained his place in the ranks, considering that a Prefect of Police
+might not be at all unlikely to succeed a President of the Council.
+
+Marianne permitted him to talk, accepted all his gallantries as she
+might have done bonbons, and with a woman's wit kept him at a distance
+without wounding his vanity.
+
+Jouvenet with the simple purpose of showing her that he was
+well-informed, asked her, stroking his whiskers as he did so, if she
+often saw the Duc de Rosas. What a charming man the duke was! And while
+the young woman watched him as if to guess his thoughts, he smiled at
+her.
+
+The prefect, not wishing to appear too persistent, changed the
+conversation with the remark:
+
+"Ah! there is one of our old friends ogling you!"
+
+"An old friend?"
+
+It was in fact Guy de Lissac who was standing at the balcony training
+his glass upon the box.
+
+Marianne had only very occasionally met Lissac, but for some time she
+had suspected him of being secretly hostile to her. Guy bore her a
+grudge for having taken Sulpice away from Adrienne. He pitied Madame
+Vaudrey and perhaps his deep compassion was blended with another
+sentiment in which tenderness had taken the place of a more modified
+interest. He was irritated against the blind husband because he could
+not see the perfect charms of that delicate soul, so timid and at the
+same time so devoted. Although he had not felt justified in showing his
+annoyance to Vaudrey, he had manifested his dislike to Marianne under
+cover of his jesting manner, and she had been exceedingly piqued
+thereby. Wherefore did this man who could not understand her, interfere,
+and why did he add to the injuries of old the mockery of to-day?
+
+"After all, perhaps it is through jealousy," she thought. "The dolt!"
+
+Guy did not cease to look at her through his glass.
+
+"Does that displease you?" Jouvenet asked.
+
+"Not at all. What is that to me?"
+
+"This Lissac was much in love with you!"
+
+"Ah! Monsieur le Prefet!" Marianne observed sharply. "I know that your
+office inclines you to be somewhat inquisitive, but it would be polite
+of you to allow my past to sleep in your dockets. They are famous
+shrouds!"
+
+Jouvenet bit his lips and in turn brought his glass to bear on Lissac.
+
+"See," he said, "he makes a great deal of the cross of the Christ of
+Portugal! It is in very bad taste! I thought he was a shrewder man!"
+
+"The order of Christ is then in bad odor?"
+
+"On the contrary; but as it is like the Legion of Honor in color, he is
+prohibited from wearing it in his buttonhole without displaying the
+small gold cross--And I see only the red there--"
+
+"I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Prefet, there is one."
+
+"Oh! my glass is a wretched one!--But even so, I do not believe Monsieur
+de Lissac is authorized by the Grand Chancellor to wear his decoration.
+That is easily ascertained!--I will nevertheless not fail to insert in
+the _Officiel_ to-morrow a note relative to the illegality of wearing
+certain foreign decorations--"
+
+"Is this note directed against Lissac?"
+
+"Not at all. But he reminds me of a step that I have wished to take for
+a long time: the enforcement of the law."
+
+The entr'acte was over. Jouvenet withdrew, repeating all kinds of
+remarks with double meanings that veiled declarations of love; that if
+the occasion arose, he would place himself entirely at her service, and
+that some day she might be very glad to meet him--
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Prefet, and I will avail myself of your
+kindness," replied Marianne, out of courtesy.
+
+Something suggested to her that Guy would pay his respects to her during
+the next entr'acte, were it only to jest about Jouvenet's visit, seeing
+that he was regarded as a compromising acquaintance, and she was not
+wrong.
+
+Behind his monocle, his keen, mocking glance seemed like a taunting
+smile.
+
+"Well," he said, in a somewhat abrupt tone, as he sat near Marianne, "I
+congratulate you, my dear friend."
+
+"Why?" she answered with surprise.
+
+"On the great news, _parbleu!_ Your marriage."
+
+She turned slightly pale.
+
+"How do you know?--"
+
+"I have seen the duke. He called on me."
+
+"On you? What for?"
+
+"Can't you make a little guess--a very little guess--"
+
+"To ask you if I had been your mistress? Lissac, you are very silly."
+
+"Yes, my dear Marianne, prepare yourself somewhat for the position of a
+duchess. A gentleman, to whom you have sworn that I have never been
+your lover, could not doubt your word!--Jose asked me nothing. He simply
+stated his determination to see what I would say, or gather from my
+looks what I thought of it."
+
+"And you said?"
+
+"What I had to say to him: I congratulated him!"
+
+Marianne raised her gray eyes to Lissac's face.
+
+"Congratulate?" she said slowly.
+
+"The woman he marries is pretty enough, I think?"
+
+"Ah! my dear, a truce to insolent trifles!--what is it that has
+possessed you for some time past?"
+
+"Nothing, but something has possessed you--or some one."
+
+"Rosas?"
+
+"No, Vaudrey!"
+
+"I will restore him to you. Oh! oh! you are surprisingly interested in
+Vaudrey. Vaudrey or his wife?" she remarked.
+
+She smiled with her wicked expression.
+
+"Duchess," said Lissac, "accustom yourself to respect virtuous women!"
+
+"Is it to talk of such pleasant trifles that you have gained access to
+my box?"
+
+"No, it is to ask you for some special information."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Is it true, is it really true that you are about to wed Rosas?" he
+asked in an almost cordial tone.
+
+"Why not?" she replied, as she raised her head.
+
+"Because--I am going to be frank--I have always regarded you as an
+absolutely straightforward woman, a woman of honor--You once claimed so
+to be. Mad, fantastic, you often are; charming, always; but dishonest,
+never. To take Rosas's love, even his fortune, would be natural enough,
+but to take his name would be a very questionable act and a skilful one,
+but lacking in frankness."
+
+"That is to say that I may devour him like a courtesan, but not marry
+him as a--"
+
+"As a young girl, no, you cannot do that. And you put me--I am bound to
+tell you so and I take advantage of the intermission to do so--in a
+delicate position. If I declared the truth to Rosas, I act toward you as
+a rascal. If I keep silent to my friend, my true friend, I act almost
+like a knave."
+
+"Did Rosas ask you to speak to me?"
+
+"No, but there is a voice within me that pricks me to speech and tells
+me that if I allow you to marry the duke, I am committing myself to a
+questionable affair--Do you know what he asked me?--To be his witness."
+
+If Marianne had been in a laughing mood, she would have laughed
+heartily.
+
+"It is absurd," she said. "You did not consent?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I have consented. Because I really hoped that you would
+relieve me from such an undesirable duty, a little too questionable."
+
+"You would like?--What would you like?"
+
+"I wish--no, I would have you not marry Monsieur de Rosas."
+
+Marianne shrugged her shoulders.
+
+She clearly felt the threat conveyed in Lissac's words, but she desired
+to show from the first that she disdained them. What right, after all,
+had this casual acquaintance to mix himself up in her life affairs?
+Because, one day, she had been charitable enough to give him her youth
+and her body! The duty of friendship! The rights of friendship! To
+protect Vaudrey! To defend Rosas! Words, tiresome words!
+
+"And what if I wish to marry him, myself?--Would you prevent it?"
+
+"Yes, if I could!" he said firmly. "It is time that to the freemasonry
+of women we should oppose the freemasonry of men."
+
+"You are cruelly cowardly enough when you are alone, what would you be
+then when you are together?" said Marianne, with a malignant expression.
+"In fact," said she, after a moment's pause, "what would you have? What?
+Decide!--Will you send my letters to the duke?"
+
+"That is one way," said Lissac, calmly. "It is a _woman's_ way, that!"
+
+"You have my letters still?"
+
+"Preciously preserved."
+
+He had not contemplated such a threat, but she quickly scented a danger
+therein.
+
+"Suppose I should ask the return of those letters, perhaps you would
+restore them to me?"
+
+"Probably," he said.
+
+"Suppose I asked you to bring them to me, you know, in that little out
+of the way room of which I spoke to you one day?"
+
+She had leaned gently toward Lissac and her elbows grazed the knees of
+her former lover.
+
+"I would wear, that day, one of those otter-trimmed toques that you have
+not forgotten."
+
+She saw that he trembled, as if he were moved by some unsatisfied desire
+for her. She felt reassured.
+
+"Nonsense!" she said with a smiling face. "You are not so bad as you
+pretend to be."
+
+The manager tapped the customary three blows behind the curtain, and the
+orchestra began the prelude to the third act.
+
+"Adieu for a brief period, my enemy!" said Marianne, extending her hand.
+
+He hesitated to take that hand. At length, taking it in his own, he
+said:
+
+"Leave me Rosas!"
+
+"Fie! jealous one! Don't I leave Vaudrey to you?"
+
+She laughed, while Lissac went away dissatisfied.
+
+"I will have my letters, at all risks," thought Marianne when he had
+disappeared. "It is more prudent."
+
+That night she slept badly, and the following morning rose in a very
+ill-humor. Her face expressed fatigue, her eyes were encircled with dark
+rings and burned feverishly, but withal, her beauty was heightened. All
+the morning she debated as to the course she should take, and finally
+decided to write to Guy, when Sulpice Vaudrey arrived, and beaming with
+delight, informed Marianne that he had the entire day to spend with her.
+
+"I learned through Jouvenet this morning that you were able to go to the
+theatre. Naughty one, to steal an evening from me. But I have all
+to-day, at least."
+
+And he sat down in the salon like a man spreading himself out in his own
+house. Marianne was meditating some scheme to get rid of him when the
+chamber-maid entered, presenting a note on a tray.
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"A messenger, madame, has brought this letter."
+
+Marianne read the paper hurriedly.
+
+Vaudrey observed that she blushed slightly.
+
+"Is the messenger still there, Justine?"
+
+"No, madame, he is gone. He said that there was no reply."
+
+Marianne quickly tore in small pieces the note she had just read.
+
+"Some annoyance?" asked Vaudrey.
+
+"Yes, exactly."
+
+"May I know?"
+
+"No, it does not interest you. A family affair."
+
+"Ah! your uncle?" asked Vaudrey, smiling.
+
+"My uncle, yes!"
+
+"He has asked that he be permitted to exhibit at the Trocadero the
+cartoons that he has finished: _The Artist's Mission_, _Hydropathy the
+Civilizer_, I don't know what in fact, a series of symbolical
+compositions--"
+
+"With the _mirliton_ device underneath?--Yes, I know," said Marianne.
+
+She snapped her fingers in her impatience.
+
+The letter that she had torn up had been written by Rosas, and received
+by Uncle Kayser at his studio, whence he had forwarded it to his niece.
+The duke informed Marianne that he would wait for her at five o'clock at
+Avenue Montaigne. He had something to say to her. He had passed the
+entire night reflecting and dreaming. She remembered her own wild
+dreams. Had Rosas then caught her thought floating like an atom on the
+night wind?
+
+At five o'clock! She would be punctual. But how escape Vaudrey? She
+could not now feign sickness since she had received him! Moreover, he
+would instal himself near her and bombard her with his attentions. Was
+there any possible pretext, any way of getting out now? Her lover had
+the devoted, radiant look of a loved man who relied on enjoying a long
+interview with his mistress. He looked at her with a tender glance.
+
+"The fool--The sticker!" thought Marianne. "He will not leave!"
+
+The best course was to go out. She would lose him on the way.
+
+"What time have you, my dear minister?"
+
+"One o'clock!"
+
+"Then I have time!" she said.
+
+Vaudrey seemed surprised. Marianne unceremoniously informed him, in
+fact, that she had some calls to make, to secure some purchases.
+
+"How disagreeable!"
+
+"Yes, for me!"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Sulpice, correcting himself.
+
+She sent for a coupe and damp and keen as the weather was, she
+substituted for the glorious day of snug, intimate joy that Vaudrey had
+promised himself, a succession of weary hours passed in the draught
+caused by badly-fitting windows, while making a series of trips hither
+and thither, Marianne meantime cudgelling her brains to find a way to
+leave her lover on the way, or at least to notify Rosas.
+
+But above all to notify Lissac! It was Lissac whom she was determined to
+see. Yes, absolutely, and at once. The more she considered the matter,
+the more dangerous it appeared to her.
+
+Sulpice had not given her a moment of freedom at her house, in which to
+write a few lines. He might have questioned her and that would be
+imprudent.
+
+"I wish, however, to tell Guy to expect me!--Where? Rue Cuvier? He
+would not go there!--No, at his house!"
+
+On the way she found the means.
+
+Vaudrey evidently was at liberty for the day and, master of his time, he
+would not leave her. This he repeated at every turn of the wheel. She
+ordered the driver to take her to _The Louvre_.
+
+"I have purchases to make!"
+
+Sulpice could not accompany her, so he waited for her at the entrance on
+Place du Palais-Royal, nestled in a corner of the carriage, the blinds
+of which were lowered in order that he might not be seen. He felt very
+cold.
+
+Marianne slowly crossed between the stalls on the ground floor, hardly
+looking at the counters bearing the Japanese goods, the gloves and the
+artificial flowers. She ascended a winding iron stairway draped with
+tapestries, her tiny feet sinking into the moquette that covered the
+steps, and entered a noiseless salon where men and women were silently
+sitting before three tables, writing or reading, just as in the
+_drawing-room_ of a hotel. At a large round table, old ladies and young
+girls sat looking at the pictures in _Illustration_, the caricatures in
+the _Journal Amusant_, and the sketches in _La Vie Parisienne_. Others,
+at the second table, were reading the daily papers, some of which were
+rolled about their holders like a flag around its staff, or the _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_. Further on, at a red-covered table furnished with
+leather-bound blotters and round, glass inkstands in which the ink
+danced with a purple reflection, people were writing, seated on chairs
+covered in worn, garnet-colored velvet, with mahogany frames. This
+gloomy apartment was brightened by broad-leaved green plants, and was
+lighted from the roof by means of a flat skylight.
+
+Marianne walked direct to the table on which the paper was symmetrically
+arranged in a stationery rack, and quickly seating herself, she laid her
+muff down, half-raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny
+hand on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking off her
+gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper and some envelopes
+bearing the address of the establishment on the corners. As she looked
+around for a pen, Marianne could not refrain from smiling, she thought
+of that poor Sulpice down there, waiting in the carriage and probably
+shivering in the draughts issuing from the disjointed doors. And he a
+minister!
+
+"Such is adultery in Paris!" she said to herself, happy to make him
+suffer.
+
+She did not hurry. She was amused by her surroundings. A uniformed man
+promenaded the salon, watching the stationery in the cases and replacing
+it as it was used. If required, he sold stamps to any one present. A
+letter-box was attached near the tall chimney, bearing the hours of
+collection.
+
+Beside Marianne, elbow to elbow, and before her, were principally women,
+some writing with feverish haste, others hesitatingly, and amongst them
+were two girls opposite her, who as they finished their letters chuckled
+in a low tone and passed them one to the other, say-to each other, as
+they chewed their plaid penholders:
+
+"It is somewhat cold, eh! He will say: _Eh, well, it is true then!_"
+
+The two pretty, cheerful girls before her were doubtless breaking in
+this way some liaison, amusing themselves by sending an unexpected blow
+to some poor fellow, and enjoying themselves by spoiling paper; the one
+writing, the other reading over her companion's shoulder and giving vent
+to merry laughter under her Hungarian toque, a huge Quaker-collar almost
+covering her shoulders and her little jacket with its large steel
+buttons.
+
+This feminine head-gear made Marianne think of Guy. Her eyes, catlike in
+expression, gleamed maliciously.
+
+She took some paper and essayed to frame some tempting, tender phrases,
+something nebulous and exciting, but she could not.
+
+"What I would like to write him is that he is a wretch and that I hate
+him!" she thought.
+
+Then she stopped and looked about her, altogether forgetting Vaudrey.
+
+The contrast between that silent reading-room and the many-colored crowd
+in that Oriental bazaar, whose murmurs reached her ears like the roaring
+of a distant sea, and of which she could see only the corner clearly
+defined by the framework of the doors, amused Marianne, who with a smile
+on her lips, enjoyed the mischievous delight of fooling a President of
+the Council.
+
+"At least that avenges me for the cowardice that the _other_ forced me
+to commit!"
+
+Then mechanically regarding the crowd that flowed through these _docks_,
+that contained everything that could please or disgust a whole world at
+once, the crowd, the clerks, the carpets, the linen, the crowding, the
+heaping,--all seemed strange and comic to her, novel and not Parisian,
+but American and up-to-date.
+
+"Oh! decidedly up-to-date!--And so convenient!" she said, as she heard
+the young girls laugh when they finished their love-letters.
+
+Then she began to write, having surely found the expressions she sought.
+She sent Rosas a letter of apology: she would be at his house to-morrow
+at the same hour. To-day, her uncle took up her day, compelling her to
+go to see his paintings, to visit the Louvre, to buy draperies for an
+Oriental scene that he intended to paint. If Rosas did not receive the
+letter in time, it mattered little! To Lissac,--and this was the main
+consideration,--she intimated that she would call on him the next
+morning at ten o'clock.
+
+"Rendezvous box!" she said, as she slipped her two letters into the
+letter-box. "This extreme comfort is very ironical."
+
+She smiled as she thought how long it would take to count the number of
+the little hands, some trembling, some bold, that had slipped into the
+rectilinear mouth of the letter-box some little missive that was either
+the foretaste or the postscript of adultery.
+
+Then she went downstairs and rejoined Vaudrey, who was impatiently
+tapping the floor of the carriage with his foot.
+
+"I was a long time there, I ask your pardon," said Marianne.
+
+"At any rate, I hope you have bought something that suited you?" asked
+Vaudrey, who seemed to have caught a cold.
+
+"Nothing at all. There is nothing in that store!"
+
+Vaudrey was alarmed. Were they to visit one after the other all the
+fancy goods stores?
+
+Marianne took pity on him.
+
+"Let us return, shall we?" she asked.
+
+She called to the coachman: "Rue Prony!" while Sulpice, whom she
+unwillingly took with her, though he wearily yawned, seized her hand and
+said as he sneezed:
+
+"Ah! how kind you are!"
+
+The next day, Marianne rang the bell of Lissac's house in Rue d'Aumale,
+a little before the appointed hour.
+
+"Punctual as a creditor!" she thought.
+
+She reached Guy's, ready for anything. She was very pale and charming in
+her light costume, and she entered as one would go into a fray with
+head high. She would not leave the place until she had recovered her
+letters.
+
+It was only for those scraps of paper that she again, as it were, bound
+and tied herself to her past; she wished to cut herself away from it and
+to tear them to pieces with her teeth. But what if Guy should refuse to
+give them up to her? That could not be possible, although he was
+sincerely attached to Rosas. Still, between gratitude to a woman and
+duty to a friend, a man might hesitate, when he is a corrupted Parisian
+like Lissac.
+
+"His affection for Jose will not carry him to the length of forgetting
+all that I have given him of myself!" Marianne thought.
+
+Then shrugging her shoulders:
+
+"After all, these men have such a freemasonry between them, as _he_
+said!--And they speak of our fraternity, we women!--It is nothing
+compared with theirs!"
+
+Guy did not show any displeasure on hearing Mademoiselle Kayser
+announced. He was waiting for her. As Marianne could not feel free so
+long as he held the proof of her imprudence, some day or other she must
+inevitably seek him to supplicate or threaten him. The letter received
+overnight had apprised him that that moment had arrived.
+
+He had just finished dressing when she entered. His suede gloves were
+laid out flat on a little table beside his hat, his stick and a small
+antique cloisonne vase into which were thrown the many-colored rosettes
+of his foreign decorations, some of them red, amid which a little gold
+cross glistened like some brilliant beetle settled on a deep-hued rose.
+
+"I wager that you are going out!" Marianne remarked abruptly. "Clearly,
+you did not expect me!--Haven't you received my letter?"
+
+"My dear Marianne," he replied, as he slowly finished adjusting the knot
+of his cravat, "that is the very remark you made when you condescended
+to reappear at my house after a lapse of some years. You have too modest
+a way of announcing yourself; I assure you that, for my part, I always
+expect you--and that with impatience. But to-day, more than on any other
+occasion, because of your charming note."
+
+She knew Guy well enough to perceive that his exquisite politeness only
+concealed a warlike irony. She did not reply, but stood smiling in front
+of the fireplace and warmed her toes at the light flames that leapt
+about the logs.
+
+"You are exceedingly polite," she said at last. "On honor, I like you
+very much--you laugh? I say very much--Yes, in spite--In no case, have
+you had aught to complain of me."
+
+She half turned, resting her left hand on the edge of the velvet-covered
+mantel, and cast a furtive, gentle glance at Lissac that recalled a
+multitude of happy incidents.
+
+"I have never complained," said the young man, "and I have frequently
+expressed my thanks!"
+
+Marianne laughed at the discreet manner so ceremoniously adopted by
+Lissac.
+
+"You are silly, come!--We have a great liking for each other, and it is
+in the name of that affection that I come to ask a service."
+
+"You have only to speak, my dear Marianne," Lissac answered, as if he
+had not noticed the intimacy her words expressed.
+
+He affected a cold politeness; Marianne replied to him with apparent
+renewed tenderness. She looked at him for some time as if she hesitated
+and feared, her glance penetrating Lissac's, and begging with a tearful
+petition that wished to kindle a flame in his eyes.
+
+"What I have to say to you will take some time. I am afraid--"
+
+"Of what?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. You are in a hurry? I interfere with you, perhaps!"
+
+"Not the least in the world. I breakfast at the Club, take a turn in the
+Bois, and drop in at the _Mirlitons_ to see the opening. You see that I
+should be entitled to very little merit in sacrificing to you a
+perfectly wasted day."
+
+"Is the present Exposition of the _Mirlitons_ well spoken of?" asked
+Marianne, indifferently.
+
+"Very. It is a collection of things that are to be sold for the benefit
+of a deceased artist. Would you like to go there at four o'clock?"
+
+"No, thanks!--And I repeat, my dear Guy, that I will not hinder you, you
+know, if I have been indiscreet in giving you an appointment!--"
+
+She seemed to be mechanically toying with the silk rosettes in the
+little vase; she picked them up and let them drop from her fingers like
+grains.
+
+"These are yours?" she asked.--"Come near that I may put them on!"
+
+She went to Guy, smilingly, and resting her body against his for its
+entire length, she paused for a moment while she held the lapel of his
+jacket, and from head to foot she gazed at him with a look that seemed
+to impregnate him with odor and turned him pale.
+
+"What an idea, Marianne! I do not wear these ribbons now."
+
+"A childish one. I remember that I was the first to place in this
+buttonhole some foreign decoration that Monsieur de Rosas brought you--"
+
+She pronounced this name boldly, as if she would bring on the battle.
+
+"That suits you well," she continued. "Orders on your coat are like
+diamonds in our ears--they are of no use, but they are pretty."
+
+She had passed a red rosette through the buttonhole, and lowering his
+head, Guy saw her fair brow, her blond locks within reach of his lips.
+They exhaled a perfume--the odor of hay, that he liked so well--and
+those woman's fingers on his breast, the fingers of the woman whom he
+had mocked the previous night at the theatre, caused him a disturbing
+sensation. He gently disengaged himself, while Marianne repeated: "That
+suits you well--" Then her hand fell on his and she pressed his fingers
+in her burning and soft palm and said, as she half lowered her head
+toward him:
+
+"Do you know why I have come? You know that I am silly. Well, naughty
+one, the other evening in that box when you punished me with your irony,
+all my love for you returned!--Ah! how foolish we are, we women! Tell
+me, Guy, do you recall the glorious days we have spent? Those
+recollections retain their place in the heart! Has the idea of living
+again as in the past never occurred to you? It was so sweet!"
+
+Lissac laughed a little nervously and trembled slightly, trying to joke
+but feeling himself suddenly weakening in the presence of this woman
+whose wrath or contemptuous smile he preferred.
+
+He recognized all the vanished perfumes. The sensation of trembling
+delight that years had borne away now returned to him. The silent
+pressure of the hands recalled nights of distraction. He half shut his
+eyes, a sudden madness overcame him, although he was sufficiently calm
+to say to himself that she had an end in view, this woman's coming to
+him, loveless, to speak of love to him, herself unmoved by the senses,
+to awaken vanished feelings, to offer herself with the irresistible
+skill of desire: a dead passion born of caprice.
+
+"Nevertheless, it is you who left me, satiated after taking from me all
+that you were capable of loving," she said. "Do you know one thing,
+however, Guy? There is more than one woman in a woman. There are as many
+as she possesses of passions or joys, and the Marianne of to-day is so
+different from the one who was your mistress formerly!--You would never
+leave me, if you were my lover now!"
+
+She tempted this man whose curiosity was aroused, accustomed as he was
+to casual and easy love adventures. He foresaw danger, but there within
+reach of his lips were experienced kisses, an ardent supplicant, a
+proffered delight, full of burning promise. In a sort of anger, he
+seized the woman who recalled all the past joys, uttered the well-known
+cries, and who suddenly, as in a nervous attack, deliriously plucked the
+covering from her bosom, and bared with the boldness of beauty that
+knows itself to be irresistible, her white arms, her brilliant,
+untrammeled breasts, the sparkling splendor of her flesh, with her
+golden hair unfastened, as she used to appear lying on a pillow of fair
+silk, almost faint and between her kisses, that were as fierce as bites,
+uttering: "I love you--you--I adore you--" And the lovely, imperious
+girl again became, almost without a word having been exchanged, the
+submissive woman carried away by lascivious ardor; and Guy, confused and
+speechless, no longer reasoning, was unable to say whether Marianne
+belonged to him, or he to the mistress of former days, become the
+mistress of to-day.
+
+He held her clasped to him, his hand raising her pale, languishing face
+about which her fair hair fell loosely; to him she looked like one
+asleep, her pink nostrils still dilating with a spasmodic movement, and
+it seemed to him that he had just suffered from the perturbing contact
+of a courtesan in the depths of some luxurious den.
+
+It was an immediate reawakening, enervating but furious. She had given
+herself impulsively. He recovered himself similarly. The sudden contact
+of two bodies resulted in the immediate recoil of two beings.
+
+With more bitter shame, he had had similar morose awakenings after a
+dissipated night, his heart, his brave heart thumping against the
+passionate form, often lean and sallow, of some satiated girl, fearfully
+weary.
+
+What cowardice! Was it Vaudrey's mistress or the future wife of Rosas
+who had clung to his lips?
+
+He felt disgusted at heart.
+
+Yet she was adorable, this still young and lovely Marianne.
+
+With cruel perspicacity, he already foresaw that he would be guilty of
+cowardly conduct in yielding to this sudden weakness, and ashamed of
+himself he disengaged himself from her hysterical embrace, while
+Marianne squatted on his bed, throwing back her hair from her face,
+still smiling as she looked at him and asked:
+
+"Well--what? What is the matter with you, then?"
+
+She rose slowly, slipping upon the carpet while he went to the window to
+look mechanically into the yard. Between these two creatures but a
+moment before clasped together, a sudden icy coldness sprung up as if
+each had divined that the hour was about to sound, terrible as a knell,
+when their affairs must be settled. The kisses of love are to be paid
+for.
+
+Standing before the mirror, half undressed, Marianne was arranging her
+hair. Her white shoulders, her still heaving and oppressed bosom were
+still exposed within the border of her fine chemisette. She felt her
+wrists, instinctively examining her bracelets, and looked toward the bed
+in an absent sort of way as if to see if some charm had not slipped from
+them.
+
+"Guy," she said abruptly, but in a tone which she tried to make
+endearing, "promise me that you will not refuse what I am about to ask
+you."
+
+"I promise."
+
+They now quite naturally substituted for the "thou" of affectionate
+address, the more formal "you," secretly realizing that after the
+intertwining of their bodies, their real individualities independent of
+all surprises or sensual appetite, would find themselves face to face.
+
+"I could wish that our affection--and it is profound, is it not,
+Guy?--dated only from the moment that we have just passed."
+
+"I do not regret the past," he said.
+
+"Nor I! Yet I would like to efface it--yes, by a single stroke!"
+
+She held between her white fingers some rebellious little locks of hair
+that had come out, which she had rolled and twisted, and casting them
+into the clear flame, she said:
+
+"See! to burn it like that!--_Pft!_--"
+
+"Burn it?" Lissac repeated.
+
+He had left the window, returned to Marianne and smiling in his turn, he
+said:
+
+"Why burn it?--Because it is tiresome or because it is dangerous?"
+
+"Both!" she replied.
+
+She paused for a moment before continuing, drew up over her arms the
+lace of her chemisette, then half bending her head, and looking at Guy
+like a creditor of love she said:
+
+"You still have my letters, my dear?"
+
+"Your letters?"
+
+"Those of the old days?"
+
+"That is so," he said. "The past."
+
+He understood everything now.
+
+"You came to ask me to return them?"
+
+"I have been, you must admit, very considerate, not to have claimed
+them--before!"
+
+"You have been--generous!" answered Lissac, with a gracious smile.
+
+He opened his secretaire, one of the drawers of which contained little
+packages folded and tied with bands of silk ribbon, that slept the sleep
+of forgotten things.
+
+"There are your letters, my dear Marianne! But you have nothing to fear;
+they have never left this spot."
+
+The eyes of the young woman sparkled with a joyous light. Slowly as if
+afraid that Guy would not give them to her, she extended her bare arm
+toward the packet of letters and snatched it suddenly.
+
+"My letters!"
+
+"It is an entire romance," said Lissac.
+
+"Less the epilogue!" she said, still enveloping him with her intense
+look.
+
+She placed the packet on the velvet-covered mantelpiece and hastily
+finished dressing. Then taking between her fingers those little letters
+in their old-fashioned envelopes bearing her monogram, and that still
+bore traces of a woman's perfume, she looked at them for a moment and
+said to Lissac:
+
+"You have read them occasionally?"
+
+"I know them by heart!"
+
+"My poor letters!--I was quite sincere, you know, when I wrote you
+them!--They must be very artless! Yours, that I have burned, were too
+clever. I remember that one day you wrote me from Holland: 'I pass my
+life among chefs-d'oeuvre, but my mind is far away from them. I have
+Rembrandt and Ruysdael; but the smallest millet seed would be more to my
+liking: millet is _fair!_' Well, that was very pretty, but much too
+refined. True love has no wit.--All this is to convey to you that
+literature will not lose much by the disappearance of my disconnected
+scrawls."
+
+She suddenly threw the packet into the fire and watched the letters as
+they lightly curled, at first spotted with fair patches, and enveloped
+in light smoke, then bursting into flame that cast its rosy reflection
+on Marianne's face. Little by little all disappeared save a patch of
+black powder on the logs, that danced like a mourning veil fluttering in
+the wind and immediately disappeared up the chimney:--the dust of dead
+love, the ashes of oaths, all black like mourning crepe.
+
+Marianne watched the burning of the letters, bending her forehead, while
+a strange smile played on her lips, and an expression as of triumphant
+joy gleamed in her eyes.
+
+When the work was done, she raised her head and turned toward Guy and in
+a quivering voice, she said proudly and insolently:
+
+"_Requiescat!_ See how everything ends! It is a long time since lovers
+who have ceased to love invented cremation! Nothing is new under the
+sun!"
+
+She was no longer the same woman. A moment before she manifested a sort
+of endearing humility, but now she was ironically boastful, looking at
+Lissac with the air of one triumphing over a dupe. He bit his lips
+slightly, rubbing his hands together, while examining her sidelong,
+without affectation. Marianne's ironical smile told him all that she now
+had to say.
+
+It was not the first time that he had been a witness to such a
+transformation of the feminine countenance before and after the return
+of letters. Guy for some time had ceased to be astonished at anything in
+connection with women.
+
+"Now, my dear," said Marianne, "I hope that you will do me the kindness
+of allowing me to go on in my own way in life, and that I shall not have
+the annoyance of finding you again in the way of my purpose."
+
+"I confess," Lissac replied, "that I should be the worst of ingrates if
+I did not forget many things in consideration of what I owe you, both in
+the present and in the past. Your burned letters still shed their
+fragrance!"
+
+Marianne touched the half-consumed logs with the tip of her foot and the
+debris of the paper fluttered around her shoe like little black
+butterflies.
+
+"I wish I could have destroyed the past as I have made those letters
+flame! It weighs on me, it chokes me! You do not imagine, perhaps," she
+said, "that I have forgiven you for your flight and all that followed
+it?--If, for a moment, I almost stumbled in the mire, the fault was
+yours, for I loved you and you abandoned me, as a man forsakes a
+strumpet.--So, you see, my dear, a woman never forgets it, and I would
+have cried out long before, if I had felt myself free, free as I am now
+that those letters are burned, the poor letters of a stupid mistress,
+confiding in her lover who is overcome with weariness, and who is only
+thinking of deserting her, while she is still intoxicated in yielding to
+him--and because I adored you--yes, truly--because I was your mistress,
+do you arrogate to yourself the right of preventing me from marrying as
+I wish, and of drawing myself out of the bog into which, perhaps, by
+your selfishness, I have fallen? Ah, my dear fellow, really I am
+somewhat surprised at you, I swear!--I said nothing because of those
+scraps of paper, that you would have been cowardly enough, I assert, to
+show Rosas and every line of which told how foolish I had been to love
+you."
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas would never have seen them!" said Lissac severely.
+
+She did not seem to hear him.
+
+"But now, what? Thank God," she continued, "there is nothing, and you
+have delivered those letters to me that you ought never to have
+returned. And I have paid you for them, paid for them with new caresses
+and a last prostitution! Well! that ends it, doesn't it? There is
+nothing more between us, nothing, nothing, nothing!--And these two
+beings, who exchanged here their loveless kisses, the kisses of a
+debauchee and a courtesan, will never recognize each other again, I
+hope--you hear, never recognize each other again--when they meet in
+life. Moreover, I will take care to avoid meetings!"
+
+Guy said nothing.
+
+He twirled his moustache slightly and continued to look at Marianne
+sideways without replying.
+
+This indifference, though doubtless assumed, nevertheless annoyed the
+young woman.
+
+"Go, find Monsieur de Rosas now!" she said. "Tell him that you have been
+my lover, he will not believe you."
+
+"I am satisfied of that," Lissac replied very calmly.
+
+She realized a threat in his very calmness. But what had she to fear
+now?
+
+She fastened her ironical glance on Lissac, the better to defy him, and
+to enjoy his defeat.
+
+With extended hands, he noiselessly tapped his fingers together, the
+gesture of a person who waits, sure of himself and displaying a mocking
+silence.
+
+"Then adieu!" she said abruptly. "I hope that we shall never see each
+other again!"
+
+"How can you help it?" said Lissac, smiling. "In Paris!"
+
+He sat down on a chair, while Marianne stood, putting on her gloves.
+
+"On my word, my dear Marianne, for a clever woman you are outrageously
+sanguine."
+
+"I?"
+
+"And credulous! You credit me with the simplicity of the Age of Gold,
+then?--Is it possible?--Do you think a corrupted Parisian like myself
+would allow himself to be trifled with like a schoolboy by a woman as
+extremely seductive as I confess you are? But, my dear friend, the first
+rule in such matters is only to completely disarm one's self when it is
+duly proved that peace has been definitely signed and that a return to
+offensive tactics is not to be feared. You have shown your little pink
+claws too nimbly, Marianne. Too quickly and too soon. In one of those
+drawers, there are still one or two letters left, I was about to say,
+that belong to the series of letters that are slumbering: exquisite,
+perfumed, eloquent, written in that pretty, fine and firm writing that
+you have just thrown into the fire, and those letters I would only have
+given you on your continuing to act fairly. They were my reserve. It is
+an elementary rule never to use all one's powder at a single shot, and
+one never burns _en bloc_ such delicate autographs. They are too
+valuable! Tell me, will you disdain to recognize me when you meet me,
+Miss Marianne?"
+
+She remained motionless, pale and as if frozen.
+
+"Then you have kept?--" she said.
+
+"A postscriptum, if you like, yes."
+
+"Are you lying now, or did you lie in giving me the packet that has been
+burned?"
+
+"I did not tell you that the packet was complete, and what I now tell
+you is the simple truth! I regret it, but you have compelled me to keep
+my batteries, in too quickly unmasking your own."
+
+Marianne pulled off her gloves in anger.
+
+"If you do not give me everything here that belongs to me, you are a
+coward; you hear, a coward, Monsieur de Lissac!"
+
+"Oh! your insults are of as little importance as your kisses! but they
+are less agreeable!"
+
+She clearly saw that she had thrown off the mask too soon, and that
+Lissac would not now allow himself to be snared by her caresses or
+disarmed by her threats. The game was lost.
+
+Lost, or merely compromised?
+
+She looked about her with an expression of powerless rage, like a very
+graceful wild beast enclosed in a cage. Her letters, her last letters
+must be here, in one of those pieces of furniture whose drawers she
+might open with her nails. She threw her gloves on the floor and
+mechanically tore into shreds--as she always did when in a rage--between
+her nervous fingers, her fine cambric handkerchief reduced to rags.
+
+"Be very careful what you are doing, Guy," she said at last, casting a
+malicious look at him, "I have purchased these letters from you, for I
+hate you, I repeat it, and these letters you owe to me as you would owe
+money promised to a wench. If you do not give them to me, I will have
+them, notwithstanding."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"I promise you I will."
+
+"And suppose I have burned them?"
+
+"You lie, you have them here, you have kept them. You have behaved
+toward me like a thief."
+
+"Nonsense, Marianne," said Lissac coldly, "on my faith, I see I have
+done well to preserve some weapon against you. You are certainly very
+dangerous!"
+
+"More than you imagine," she replied.
+
+He moved slightly backward, seeing that she wished to pass him to reach
+the door.
+
+"You will not give me back my letters?" she asked in a harsh and
+menacing tone as she stood on the threshold of the room.
+
+Guy stooped without heeding her and picked up the gloves that were lying
+on the carpet and handed them to the young woman:
+
+"This is your property, I think?"
+
+This was said with insolently refined politeness.
+
+Marianne took the gloves, and as a last insult, like a blow on the
+cheek, she threw them at Guy's face, who turned aside and the gloves
+fell on the bed where just before these two hatreds had come together in
+kisses of passion.
+
+"Miserable coward!" said Marianne, surveying Lissac from head to foot
+with an expression of scorn, while he stood still, his monocle dangling
+at the end of a fine cord on his breast, near the buttonhole of his
+jacket that bore the red rosette; his face was pale but wore a sly
+expression.
+
+That silk rosette looked there like a vermilion note stamped on a dark
+ground, and it seemed to pierce like a luminous drill into Marianne's
+eyes; and with her head erect, pallid face and trembling lip she passed
+before the domestic who hastened to open the door and went downstairs,
+repeating to herself with all the distracted fury of a fixed idea:
+
+"To be avenged! To be avenged! Oh! to be avenged!"
+
+She jumped into a cab.
+
+"Well?"--said the coachman, looking with blinking eyes at this
+pale-faced, distraught-looking woman.
+
+She remained there as if seeking an idea, a purpose.
+
+"Where shall we go?" repeated the driver.
+
+Suddenly Marianne's face trembled with a joyous expression and she
+abruptly said:
+
+"To the Prefecture of Police!"
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The general rose, grasping his glass as if he would shiver it,
+and while the _parfait_ overflowed on to the plates, he cried
+in a hoarse voice, as if he were at the head of his division:_
+
+_"I love bronze--I love bronze--...."_
+
+[Illustration: THE BANQUET]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+There was a crowd at the _Mirlitons_ Exposition.
+
+A file of waiting carriages lined the kerbstone the whole length of
+Place Vendome. Beneath the arch and within the portal, groups of
+fashionable persons elbowed each other on entering or leaving, and
+exchanged friendly polite greetings; the women quizzing the new hats,
+little hoods of plush or large _Rembranesque_ hats in which the
+delicate Parisian faces were lost as under the roof of a cabriolet. The
+liveried lackeys perfunctorily glanced at the cards of admission that
+the holders hardly took the trouble to present. One was seated at a
+table mechanically handing out catalogues. Through the open door of the
+Club's Theatre could be seen gold frames suspended from the walls, terra
+cottas and marbles on their pedestals, and around the pictures and
+sculptures a dense crowd, masses of black hats inclined toward the
+paintings, side by side with pretty feminine heads crowned with
+Gainsborough hats adorned with plumes. It was impossible to see at close
+quarters the pieces offered for the sale that was for that day the
+engrossing topic of conversation of _All Paris_.
+
+"A veritable salon in miniature!" said Guy aloud to an art critic who
+was taking notes. "But to examine it comfortably one should be quite
+alone. For an hour past I have been trying to get a look at the
+Meissonier, but have not been able to do so. It is stifling here. I will
+return another time."
+
+He quickly grasped the hand that held the pencil, and which was extended
+to him, and tried to make a passage through the crowd to the exit.
+Pushed and pushing, he smiled and apologized for his inability to
+disengage his arms that were held by the crowd as if in a vise, in order
+to salute the friends he recognized. At length he reached, giving vent
+to a grunt of satisfaction, the hall where visitors were sitting on
+divans, chatting, either less eager to view the pictures or satisfied
+in their desires. There, Guy instinctively looked at a mirror and
+examined the knot of his cravat. He did not notice that a gentleman with
+a closely buttoned frock-coat, on seeing him, quietly rose from the
+divan on which he had been sitting, and approached him, mechanically
+pulling the skirts of his coat meanwhile, so as to smooth the creases.
+
+He simply touched Monsieur de Lissac's shoulder with the tip of his
+finger.
+
+Guy turned round, expecting to recognize a friend.
+
+"You are surely Monsieur de Lissac?" said the man in the frock-coat,
+with the refined manners of a gentleman.
+
+"Yes!" said Lissac, somewhat astonished at the coldness of his manner.
+
+"Be good enough to accompany me, monsieur, I am a Commissioner of the
+Judiciary Delegations!"
+
+Lissac thought he misunderstood him.
+
+"I confess that I don't quite understand you," he began, with a rather
+significant smile.
+
+"I am a Commissioner of Police," the other replied, "and I am ordered to
+arrest you."
+
+He suddenly exposed his insignia like the end of a sash, and by a very
+polite gesture, with an amiable and engaging manner, pointed to the way
+out by the side of the archway of the hotel.
+
+"I have two of my men yonder, monsieur, but you will not place me under
+the necessity of--"
+
+"What is this, monsieur?" said Lissac. "I frankly confess that I
+understand nothing of this enigma. I hope you will explain it to me."
+
+All this was said in a conversational tone, _mezzo voce_, and
+accompanied with smiles. No one could have guessed what these two men
+were saying to each other. Only, Guy was very pale and his somewhat
+haughty glance around him seemed to indicate that he was seeking some
+support or witness.
+
+He uttered a slight exclamation of satisfaction on perceiving the
+journalist to whom he had just before spoken a few words before a little
+canvas by Meissonier.
+
+"My dear Brevans," he said in a loud voice, "here is an unpublished item
+for your journal. This gentleman has laid his hand on my collar."
+
+With a sly look he indicated the Commissioner of Police, who did not
+budge.
+
+"What! my dear fellow?"
+
+"They have arrested me, that is all," said Lissac.
+
+"Monsieur," the Commissioner quickly interrupted in a low voice, "no
+commotion, please. For my sake--and for yours."
+
+He lightly touched Lissac's buttonhole with the end of his finger, as if
+to intimate that there was the explanation of his arrest, and Guy
+suddenly became very red and stamped his foot.
+
+"Idiot that I am!--I am at your orders, monsieur," he said, making a
+sign to the Commissioner to pass out.
+
+He again saluted the stupefied journalist, and the Commissioner bowing
+to him, out of politeness or prudence, Guy passed before him, angrily
+twirling his mustache.
+
+Besides Brevans, nobody in all that crowd suspected that a man had just
+been arrested in the midst of the Exposition. Unless the journalist had
+hawked the news from group to group, it would not have been suspected.
+
+Lissac found at the door of the Club on Place Vendome a hired carriage
+which had come up as soon as the driver saw the Commissioner. Two
+agents, having the appearance of good, peaceable bourgeois, were walking
+about, chatting together on the sidewalk, as if on duty. The
+Commissioner said to one of them:
+
+"I have no further need of you, Crabot will do."
+
+Crabot, a little man with the profile of a weasel, slowly mounted the
+box beside the coachman, and the Commissioner of Police took his seat
+next to Lissac, who had nervously plucked the rosette of the Portuguese
+Order of Christ from his buttonhole.
+
+"What!" he said. "Really, then, it is for this? Because I wear this
+ribbon without having paid five or six louis into the Chancellery?--I
+have always intended to do so, but, believe me, I have not had the time.
+But a fiscal question does not warrant publicly insulting--"
+
+"I do not know if it is for that," interrupted the Commissioner; "but it
+is evident that a recent note in the _Officiel_ points directly to the
+illegal wearing of foreign decorations. You do not read the _Officiel_,
+Monsieur de Lissac."
+
+Guy shrugged his shoulders as if he considered the matter perfectly
+ridiculous. It seemed to him that behind the alleged pretext there was
+some secret cause, something like a feminine intrigue. He vaguely
+recalled that he had seen Marianne one evening at Madame de Marsy's
+smile at the Prefect of Police, that Jouvenet who flirted so agreeably
+with that pretty girl in a corner of the salon. And then, too, at the
+theatre, in Marianne's box, the prefect found his way. At the first
+moment, the idea that Marianne had a hand in this arrest took possession
+of his mind. He saw her standing before him at his house, posing her
+little nervous, fidgety hand on his breast at the very spot occupied by
+this rosette; again he saw her smiling mysteriously, accompanying it
+with a caress which seemed to suggest the desire to end in a scratch.
+
+Was it really true that Marianne was sufficiently audacious to have
+brought about this coup de theatre? No, there was some error. The stupid
+zeal of some subordinate officer was manifested in this outrage. Some
+cowardly charge had perhaps been made against him at the prefecture.
+Every man who crosses a street has so many enemies that look at him as
+he passes as if they would spy on him! There are so many undeclared
+hatreds crawling in the rotten depths of this Parisian bog! One fine
+morning one feels one's self stung in the heel. It is nothing: only
+some anonymous gossip; some unknown person taking revenge!
+
+At the prefecture, they would doubtless inform Guy as to the cause of
+the attack: in questioning him, he would himself certainly be permitted
+to interrogate. He was stunned on arriving at the clerk's office to find
+that they took his description, just as they would that of a common
+offender, a night-walker or a rascal. He wished to enter a protest and
+became annoyed. He flew into a rage for a moment, then he reflected that
+there was nothing to be done but to submit to the bites of the iron
+teeth of the police routine in which he was suddenly entangled. They
+searched his pockets and he felt their vile hands graze his skin. He
+experienced a strongly rebellious sentiment and notwithstanding his
+present enforced calm, from time to time he demanded to see the Prefect
+of Police, the Chief of the Municipal Police, the _Juge d'Instruction_,
+he did not know whom, but at least some one who was responsible.
+
+"You have my card, send my card to Monsieur Jouvenet; he knows me!"
+
+They made no reply.
+
+The Commissioner who had arrested him was not there. Guy found himself
+in the presence of what were as pieces of human machinery, working
+silently, without noise of wheels, and caring for his protests no more
+than they did for the wind that blew through the corridors.
+
+"See, on my honor, I am not a rascal!" he said. "What have I done? I
+have stupidly passed this bit of red ribbon into my buttonhole. Well!
+that is an offence, it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that!
+I will pay the fine, if fine there is! You are not going to keep me here
+with thieves?"
+
+In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance as a fashionable
+elegant and an ironical man of the world, treating his misadventure in a
+spirit of haughty disdain; but his overstrained nerves led him to act
+with a sort of cold fury that gave him the desire to openly oppose, as
+in a duel, his many adversaries.
+
+"I beg you to remain calm," one of these men repeated to him from time
+to time in a passionless way.
+
+"Oh! that is easy enough for you to say," cried Lissac. "I ask you once
+more, where is Monsieur Jouvenet?--I wish to see Monsieur Jouvenet!"
+
+"Monsieur le Prefect cannot be seen in this way," was the reply.
+"Moreover, you haven't to see any one; you have only to wait."
+
+"Wait for what?"
+
+They led Guy de Lissac through the passages to the door of a new cell,
+which they opened before him.
+
+"Then," he said, as he tried to force a troubled smile, "I am a
+prisoner? Quite seriously? As in melodrama? This is high comedy!"
+
+He asked if he would soon be examined, at least. They didn't know. They
+hardly replied to him. Could he write, at any rate? Notify any one?
+Protest? What should he do? He heard from the lips of a keeper who had
+the appearance of a very honest man, the information, crushing as a
+verdict: "You are in close confinement, as it is called!"
+
+_In close confinement?_ Were they mocking him? In secret, he, Lissac?
+Evidently, they wanted to make fun; it was absurd, it was unlikely, such
+things only happened in operettas. He would heartily relish it at the
+Cafe Riche presently, when he went to dine. _In close confinement?_ He
+was no longer annoyed at the jest, so amusing had it become. For an old
+Parisian like him, it was a facetious romance and almost amusing.
+
+"A climax!"
+
+Evening passed and night came. They brought Lissac a meal, and the
+_jest_, as he called it, in no way came to an end. He did not close his
+eyes for the whole night. He was stifled, and grew angry within the
+narrow cage in which they had locked him. All sorts of wild projects of
+revenge passed through his brain. He would send his seconds to Monsieur
+Jouvenet, he would protest in the papers. He would have public opinion
+in his favor.
+
+Then his scepticism came to his aid, and shrugging his shoulders, he
+said:
+
+"Bah! public opinion! It will ridicule me, that's all! It will accuse me
+of desiring to make a stir, to cut off my dog's tail. To-day, Alcibiades
+would thus cut off his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Animals would bring an action against him."
+
+He waited for the next morning with the feverish anxiety of those who
+cannot sleep. Certainly he would be examined at the first moment. They
+did so in the case of the vagabonds gathered in during the night and
+dumped into the _lions' den_. The whole day passed without Lissac's
+seeing any other faces than those of his turnkeys, and these men were
+almost mutes. Then his irritation was renewed. He turned his useless
+anger against himself, as he could not insult the walls.
+
+Night came round, and spite of himself, he slept for a short time on the
+wretched prison pallet. He began to find the facetious affair too
+prolonged and too gloomy. They took him just in time, the second day
+after his arrest, before a kind of magistrate or police judge, who,
+after having reminded him that the law was clear in respect of the
+wearing of foreign orders, announced that the matter was settled by a
+decree of _nolle prosequi_.
+
+"That is to say," said Lissac, in anger, "that two nights passed in
+close confinement is regarded as ample punishment? If I am guilty of a
+crime, I deserve much more than that. But, if only a mere peccadillo is
+attributable to me, I consider it too much; and I swear to you that I
+intend, in my turn, to summon to justice for illegal arrest--"
+
+"Keep quiet," curtly interrupted the magistrate. "That is the best thing
+you can do!"
+
+Lissac, meantime, felt a sort of physical delight in leaving those cold
+passages and that stone dwelling.
+
+The fresh breeze of a gray November day appeared to him to be as gentle
+as in spring. It seemed that he had lived in that den for weeks. He
+flung himself into a carriage, had himself driven home, and was received
+by his concierge with stupefied amazement.
+
+"You, monsieur?" he said. "Already!"
+
+This _already_ was pregnant with suggestiveness, and puzzled Lissac. The
+rumor had, in fact, spread throughout the quarter, and probably the
+porter had helped it along--that Guy had been arrested for complicity in
+some political intrigue, though of what nature was unknown.
+Nevertheless, the previous evening, the agents of police had come to the
+apartments in Rue d'Aumale and had searched everything, moved, tried and
+probed everything. Evidently they were in quest of papers.
+
+"Papers?" cried Lissac. "Her letter, _parbleu!_"
+
+He was no longer in doubt. The delicate, dreaded hand of Marianne was at
+the bottom of all that. She had made some bargain with Monsieur
+Jouvenet, as between a woman and a debauchee! The Prefect of Police was
+not the loser: Marianne Kayser had the wherewithal to satisfy him.
+
+"The miserable wench!" Lissac repeated as he went up to his apartment.
+
+He rang and his servant appeared, looking as bewildered as the porter.
+
+The apartment was still topsy-turvy. The valet de chambre had not dared
+to put the things in order, as if there reigned, amid the scattered
+packages and the yawning drawers, the majesty of the official seal.
+
+They had examined everything, forced locks and removed packets of
+letters.
+
+The small Italian cabinet, that contained Marianne's letter, had had its
+drawers turned over, like pockets turned inside out. Marianne's letter
+to Lissac, the scrap of paper which the police hunted, without knowing
+whose will they were obeying, that confession of a crazy mistress to a
+lover who was smitten to his very bones, was no longer there.
+
+"Ah! I will see Vaudrey! I will see him and tell him!" said Lissac
+aloud.
+
+"Will monsieur breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, as quickly as possible. Two eggs and tea, I am in a hurry."
+
+He was anxious to rush off to the ministry. Was the Chamber sitting
+to-day? No. He would perhaps then find Sulpice at his first call. The
+messengers knew him.
+
+He speedily hastened to Place Breda, looking for a carriage. On the way,
+he stumbled against a man who came down on the same side, smoking a
+cigar.
+
+"Oh! Monsieur de Lissac!"
+
+Guy instinctively stepped back one pace; he recognized Uncle Kayser.
+Then, suddenly, his anger, which up to that time he had been able to
+restrain, burst forth, and in a few words energetic and rapid, he told
+Simon, who remained bewildered and somewhat pale, as if one had tried
+to force a quarrel on him, what he thought of Marianne's infamy.
+
+The uncle said nothing, regretted that he had met Lissac, and contented
+himself with stammering from time to time:
+
+"She has done that?--What! she has done that?--Ah! the rogue."
+
+"And what do you say about it, you, Simon Kayser?"
+
+"I?--What do I say about it?--Why--"
+
+Little by little he recovered his sang-froid, looking at matters from
+the lofty heights of his artist's philosophy.
+
+"It is rather too strong. What do you want?--It is not even moral, but
+it has _character!_ And in art, after the moral idea comes _character!_
+Ah! bless me! character, that is something!--Otherwise, I disapprove. It
+is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to symbolize that.
+_Love Avenging Itself Against Love_--_Jealousy Calling the Police to Its
+Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love!_ It is old, it lacks
+originality, it smacks of Prud'hon!--The Correggio of the decollete!--It
+is like Tassaert, it is of the sprightly kind!--I would never paint so,
+that is what I say about it!"
+
+Guy had no reply for this imperturbable moralist and he regretted that
+he had lost time in speaking to him. But his uncontrollable rage choked
+him. Enough remained however to show all his feelings to Vaudrey.
+
+The minister was not in his cabinet. A messenger asked Lissac if he
+would speak to Monsieur Warcolier, the Under Secretary of State.
+
+"I, I," then said a man who rose from the chair in which he had been
+sitting in the antechamber, "I should be glad to see Monsieur
+Warcolier--Monsieur Eugene, you know."
+
+"Very well, Monsieur Eugene, I will announce you." Lissac explained that
+his visit was not official, he called on a personal matter.
+
+"Is the minister in his apartments?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur, but to-day, you know--"
+
+What was going on to-day, then? Lissac had not noticed, in fact, that a
+marquee with red stripes was being erected at the entrance to the hotel,
+and that upholsterers were bringing in wagons benches covered with red
+velvet with which they were blocking the peristyle. There was a
+reception at the ministry.
+
+"That will not prevent Monsieur Vaudrey from seeing me," he said.
+
+One of the messengers opened the doors in front of him and conducted him
+to the floor above, where Monsieur le Ministre was then resting near the
+fire and glancing over the papers after breakfast.
+
+He appeared pleased but a little astonished at seeing Lissac.
+
+"Eh! my dear Guy, what a good idea!--Have you arrived already for the
+soiree? You received your invitation?"
+
+"No," answered Lissac, "I have received nothing, or if the invitation
+arrived, the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet have taken it away with many
+other things."
+
+"The agents! what agents?" asked the minister.
+
+He had risen to receive Guy and remained standing in front of the
+fireplace looking at his friend, who questioned him with his glance to
+discover if Vaudrey could really be in ignorance as to such a matter.
+
+"Ah, so! but," said Lissac with trembling voice and in a tone of angry
+bitterness, "do you not know then, what takes place in Paris?"
+
+"What is happening?" asked Sulpice, who had turned slightly pale.
+
+"They arrest men for nothing, and keep them in close confinement for two
+days in order to have time to search their correspondence for a document
+that compromises certain persons. It is very proper, no doubt; but that
+smacks too much of romanticism and the Bridge of Sighs. It is very
+old-fashioned and worn-out. I would not answer for your long employing
+such methods of government."
+
+"Come, are you mad? What does it all signify?" asked the minister, in
+astonishment.
+
+He appeared as if he really did not understand. It was clear that he did
+not know what Guy meant.
+
+"Don't you read the papers, then?" Lissac asked him.
+
+"I read the reports of the Director of the Press."
+
+"Well, if those reports have not informed you of my arrest in the heart
+of the Exposition des Mirlitons, on Wednesday, they have told you
+nothing!--"
+
+"Arrested! you?"
+
+"By the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet, your Prefect of Police, to gratify
+your mistress, Mademoiselle Kayser!"
+
+"Ah! my dear Guy!" said the minister, whose cheek became flushed in
+spots. "I should be glad if you--"
+
+He paused for a phrase to express clearly and briefly that he required
+Lissac to be silent, but could not frame one. He received, as it were, a
+sudden and violent blow on the head. Beyond question, he did not know a
+word of all that Lissac had informed him. And yet this was the gossip of
+Paris for two days! Either naming in full, or in indicating him
+sufficiently clearly, the newspapers had related the adventure on their
+front page. Moreover, much attention had been attracted to an article in
+a journal with which Lucien Granet was intimately connected, wherein, in
+well-turned but perfidious phrases, a certain Alkibiades--Lissac had
+guessed that this name was applied to him--had been arrested by the
+orders of the archon Sulpicios at the instance of a certain Basilea, one
+of the most charming hetaires of the republic of Perikles. Under this
+Greco-Parisian disguise it was easy for everyone to discover the true
+names and to see behind the masks the faces intended.
+
+At the very moment that Lissac called to ask the minister for an
+explanation of the acts of the Prefect Jouvenet, Madame Vaudrey was
+opening a copy of a journal in which these names travestied by some
+Hellenist of the boulevard were underlined in red pencil. The article
+entitled _The Mistress of an Archon_, had been specially sent to her
+under a cover bearing the address in a woman's handwriting, Sabine Marsy
+or Madame Gerson! Some friend. One always has such.
+
+It was of Adrienne that Vaudrey thought while Lissac was giving vent to
+his ironical, blunt complaint. Was Guy mad to speak of Marianne aloud in
+this way, and in this place, a few feet away from his wife, who could
+hear everything? Yes, Lissac was over-excited, furious and apparently
+crazy. He did not lower his tone, in spite of the sudden terror
+expressed by Vaudrey, who seized his hand and said to him eagerly: "Why,
+keep quiet! Suppose some one is listening?"
+
+He felt himself, moreover, impelled by a violent rage. If what Guy told
+him were correct, Marianne had made use of him and of the title of
+mistress that she ought to have concealed. She had played it in order to
+compel Jouvenet to commit an outrage.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Lissac, sneeringly. "Are you innocent enough to believe
+that she has seduced the Prefect of Police by simply telling him that
+she was your mistress? You don't know her. She only did this in becoming
+his!"
+
+Sulpice had become livid, and he looked at Lissac with a sudden
+expression of hatred, as if this man had been his enemy. Guy had
+directly attacked his vanity and his heart with a knife-thrust, as it
+were, without sparing either his self-love or his passion.
+
+"Ah! yes," said Lissac, "I know very well that that annoys you, but it
+is so! I knew this young lady before you did. Let her commit all the
+follies that she chooses with others and throw me overboard at a pinch,
+as she did three days ago, all is for the best. She is playing her role.
+I am only an imbecile and I am punished for it, and it is well; but, in
+order to attack me, to secure a very tiny paper, which put her very
+nicely at my mercy, that she should commit a foolish and brutal outrage
+against you who answer for the personnel of your administration, I
+cannot forgive. She thought then that I would make use of this note
+against her? She takes me for a rascal? If I wished to commit an act of
+treachery, could I not go this very moment, even without the weapon that
+Jouvenet's agents have taken from me, straight to her Rosas?"
+
+"Rosas?" asked Sulpice, whose countenance contorted, and who feverishly
+twisted his blond beard.
+
+"Eh! _parbleu_, yes, Rosas! On my honor, one would take you for the
+Minister of the Interior of the Moon! Rosas, who perhaps is her lover,
+but will be her husband if she wishes it! and she does!"
+
+Poor Sulpice looked at Lissac with a terrified expression which might
+have been comic, did it not in its depth portray a genuine sorrow. He
+was oblivious to everything now, where he was, if Guy spoke too loudly,
+or if Adrienne could hear. He was only conscious of a terrible strain of
+his mind. This sudden revelation lacerated him--as if his back received
+the blows of a whip. He wished to know all. He questioned Lissac,
+forcing him into a corner, and making him hesitate, for he now feared
+that he would say too much, and limited himself to demanding Jouvenet's
+punishment.
+
+"As to Marianne, one would see to that after," he said.
+
+Ah! yes, certainly, Jouvenet should be punished! How? Vaudrey could not
+say, but from this moment the Prefect of Police was condemned. Guy's
+arrest, which was an act of brutal aggression, was tantamount to a
+dismissal signed by the Prefect himself. And Marianne! she then made a
+sport of Sulpice and took him for a child or a ninny!
+
+"Not at all. For a man who loves, that is enough," replied Lissac.
+
+Vaudrey had flung himself into an armchair, striking his fist upon the
+little table, covered with the journals that he had scarcely opened, and
+absent-mindedly pushing the chair back, the better to give way to his
+excessively violent threats, after the manner of weak natures.
+
+"Do you want my advice?" Lissac abruptly asked him. "You have only what
+you deserve, ah! yes, that is just it! I tell you the sober truth. A
+wife like yours should never be forsaken for a creature like Marianne!"
+
+"I love Adrienne sincerely!" replied Vaudrey eagerly.
+
+"And you deceive her entirely. That is foolish. You deserve that
+Mademoiselle Kayser should have ridiculed, deceived and ruined you
+irretrievably, and that your name should never be uttered again. When
+one has the opportunity to possess a wife like yours, one adores her on
+bended knees, you understand me, and one doesn't destroy her true
+happiness to divert it in favor of the crowd. And what pleasure!
+Jouvenet has had the same dose at a less cost!"
+
+"You abuse the rights of friendship, somewhat," said Sulpice, rising
+suddenly. "I do what pleases me, as it pleases me, and I owe no account
+to any one, I think!"
+
+He stopped suddenly. His feet were, as it were, nailed to the floor and
+his mouth closed. He seized Guy's hand and felt his flesh creep, as he
+saw Adrienne standing pale, and supporting herself against the doorpost,
+as if she had not the strength to proceed, her eyes wide open, like
+those of a sick person.
+
+Assuredly, beyond all possible doubt, she had heard everything.
+
+She was there! she heard!
+
+She said nothing, but moved a step forward, upheld by a terrible effort.
+
+Her look was that of a whipped child, of a poor creature terrified and
+in despair, and expressed not anger but entire collapse. She was so wan,
+so sad-looking, that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak. A chill
+silence fell upon these three persons.
+
+While Adrienne approached the table upon which the journals were piled,
+Guy was the first to force a smile to throw her off the scent; Adrienne
+stopped him with a gesture that was intended to express that to
+undeceive her, that is to say, to deceive her afresh, would be a still
+more cowardly act. She took from among the journals that which she had
+just been reading without at first quite understanding it, the one that
+had been sent to her, underlined as with a venomous nail, and showing to
+Vaudrey the article that spoke of Sulpicios and Basilea, she said gently
+in a feeble voice, crushed by this crumbling of her hopes:
+
+"That is known then, that affair!"
+
+Then she sunk exhausted into the armchair in which Sulpice had been
+sitting, and her breast heaved with a violent sob that tore it as if it
+would rend it.
+
+Sulpice looked at Lissac who was standing half-inclined, as in the
+presence of a misfortune. He instinctively seized the minister by the
+shoulder and gently forced him toward Adrienne, saying to him in a
+whisper, in ill-assured tones:
+
+"Kiss her then! One pardons when one loves!"
+
+With a supplicating cry, Vaudrey threw himself on his knees before
+Adrienne, while Lissac hastily opened the door and left, feeling indeed
+that he could not say a word and that Vaudrey only could obtain
+Vaudrey's pardon.
+
+"I, in my anger," he said, "he, in his jealousy, have allowed ourselves
+to get into a passion. It is stupid. One should speak lower."
+
+He went away, much dissatisfied with himself and but little less with
+Vaudrey. Again he considered this man foolish, adored as he was by such
+a wife, whom he deceived. He was not sure that at the bottom of his own
+heart he did not feel a sentiment of love toward Adrienne. Ah! if he had
+been loved by such a creature, he would have been capable of great
+things!--He would have arranged and utilized his life instead of
+spoiling it. In place of vulgar love, he would have kept this unique
+love intact from the altar to the tomb!
+
+Pale and tottering, and a child once more under her sorrow, as he had
+just seen her, she was so adorably lovely that he had received an
+entirely new impression, one of almost jealousy against Sulpice, and
+therefore, brusquely overcoming this strange, unseemly emotion, he had
+himself thrust Vaudrey toward his wife and had departed hastily, as if
+he felt that he must hurry away and never see them again. But as he
+left, on the contrary, he saw her again with her sad, wretched,
+suffering look and the young wife's sorrowful voice went with him,
+repeating in a tone of broken-hearted grief:
+
+"That is known then!"
+
+"Ah! that miserable fellow, Vaudrey!" thought Guy.
+
+In going out, he had to wait a moment in the antechamber, to admit of
+the passage of some vases of flowers, green shrubs and variegated
+foliage plants that were being brought in to decorate the salons. A
+fete! And this evening! In the arrival of those flowers for decoration,
+at the moment when chance, clumsily or wickedly, so suddenly revealed
+that crushing news, Guy saw so much irony that he could not forbear
+looking at them for a moment, almost insulting in their beauty and their
+hothouse bloom.
+
+Would Adrienne have the courage or strength to undertake the reception
+of the evening, within a few hours? Guy was annoyed at having come.
+
+"I could well have waited and kept my anger to myself. The unhappy woman
+would have known nothing."
+
+"Bah!" he added. "She is kind, she adores Sulpice, it is only a passing
+storm. She will forgive!"
+
+He promised himself, moreover, to return in the evening, to excuse
+himself to Adrienne, to comfort her if he could.
+
+"There is some merit, after all, in that," he thought again. "On my
+word! I believe I love her and yet I am angry with that animal Vaudrey
+for not loving her enough."
+
+She will forgive!--Lissac knew courtesans but he did not know this
+woman, energetic as she was under her frail appearance, a child, a
+little provincial lost in the life of Paris, lost and, as it were,
+absorbed in the hubbub of political circles, smitten with her husband,
+who comprehended in her eyes every seduction and superiority, having
+given herself entirely and wishing to wholly possess the elect being who
+possessed her, in whom she trusted and to whom she gave herself, body
+and soul, with all her confidence, her innocence and her modesty. He did
+not know what such a sensitive, nervously frail nature could feel on the
+first terrible impulses, full of enthusiasm under her exterior coldness,
+of resolution concealed under her timid manners, capable of madness,
+distracted in spite of her reason and calm; this candor of thought, of
+education, and associations that made her, with all her irresistible
+attractiveness, the virtuous woman with all her charm.
+
+Adrienne had at first read the journal that had been sent to her without
+understanding anything about it. Alkibiades, Basilea, the mistress of
+the Archon, what signified that to her? What did it mean? Then suddenly
+her thought rested on the name of Sulpice, travestied in the Greek of
+parody, Sulpicios. Was it of her husband that they intended to speak?
+She immediately felt a bitter anguish at heart, but it was a matter only
+of allowing one's self to be impressed by a journalistic pleasantry, as
+contemptible as an anonymous letter! She would think no more about it.
+She must concentrate her thoughts on the evening's reception. There was
+to be an official repast, followed by a soiree. She had nothing to
+concern herself about in regard to the menu; Chevet undertook that. For
+the ministerial dinners there was a fixed price as in restaurants. Hosts
+and guests live _au cabaret_, they dine at so much a head. Adrienne
+endeavored to occupy herself with the musical soiree, with the
+programmes that they brought her, with the names of comedians and female
+singers, printed on vellum, and with those bouquets with which the vases
+of her little salon were decorated. Ah! well, yes, in spite of the
+feverish activity, she could think only of that article in the journal,
+that miserable article, every line of which flamed before her eyes just
+as when one has looked too long at a fire. She had been seized with the
+temptation there and then to openly ask Sulpice what these veiled
+illusions meant.
+
+"I hope, indeed," she thought, with her contempt of all lying, "that he
+will not charge me with suspecting him. No, certainly, I do not suspect
+him."
+
+She went to the little cabinet where Sulpice sometimes read or worked
+after breakfast, and there, as if she had thrown herself upon an open
+knife, she suddenly heard those sinister words which pierced her very
+flesh like pointed blades.
+
+They were speaking of another woman. Lissac said in a loud tone: Your
+mistress! and Vaudrey allowed it to be said!--
+
+A mistress! what mistress? Marianne Kayser! Oh, that woman of whom
+Sulpice had so often spoken in an indifferent manner, that pretty
+creature, so often seen, seductive, wonderfully beautiful, terrifyingly
+beautiful, it was she! Your mistress! Sulpice had a mistress! He lied,
+he deceived. He? She was betrayed! Was it possible? If it were possible?
+But it was true! Eh! _parbleu_, yes, it was true--And this, then, was
+why they had sent her this horrible article! She knew now.
+
+She had been tempted to enter the room suddenly, to throw herself
+between these men and interrupt their conversation. She had not the
+strength. And then, what Lissac said had the effect of consoling
+her!--Guy's reproaches to Sulpice were such as she would have liked to
+cast at him, if she could have found speech now. But not a word could
+she frame. She was stunned, dumb and like a crushed being. She knew only
+one thing, that she suffered horribly, as she had never before suffered.
+
+At first she allowed Vaudrey, who knelt at her feet, as Lissac had told
+him on going away, to take her hand that hung listlessly down. Then she
+gently withdrew it as if she felt herself seized by an instinctive sense
+of outraged modesty.
+
+Vaudrey tried to speak. At first only confused words, silly excuses,
+clumsy falsehoods, cruelly absurd phrases--_caprices_, _nothing serious_,
+_whim_, _madness_--so many avowals, so many insults, came to his lips. But
+then, before the silence of Adrienne, he could say nothing more, he was
+speechless, overwhelmed, and sought a hand that was refused.
+
+"Will you never forgive me?" he asked at last, not knowing too well what
+he said.
+
+"Never!" she said coldly.
+
+She rose and with as much sudden energy as but a moment before she had
+felt of weakness, she crossed the room.
+
+"Are you going away?" stammered Sulpice.
+
+"Yes, I must be alone--Ah! quite alone," she said, with a sort of
+gesture of disgust as she saw her husband approach her.
+
+He stopped and said, as if by chance:
+
+"You know that--this evening--"
+
+"Yes, yes," she replied, "do not be anxious about anything! I am still
+the minister's wife, if I am Madame Vaudrey no longer."
+
+He tried in vain to reply.
+
+Adrienne had already disappeared.
+
+"There is the end of my happiness!" Sulpice stammered as he suddenly
+confronted an unknown situation dark as an abyss. "Ah! how wretched I
+am! Very wretched! whose fault is it?"
+
+He plunged gladly into the work of examining the bundles of reports from
+the prefects, feverishly inspecting them to deafen and blind his
+conscience, and seized at every moment with a desire to make an appeal
+to Adrienne or to go and insult Marianne. Oh! especially to tell
+Marianne that she had betrayed him, that she was a wretch, that she was
+the mistress of Rosas, the mistress of Jouvenet, a strumpet like any
+other strumpet, yes, a strumpet!
+
+Amid all the disturbance of that day of harsh misfortune, perhaps he
+thought more of the Marianne that he had lost than of the Adrienne that
+he had outraged; while the wife questioned with herself if it were
+really she coming and going, automatically trying on her ball costume,
+abandoning her head to the hair-dresser, feeling that in two hours she
+would be condemned to smile on the minister's guests, the senators and
+the deputies and play the part of a spectre, marching in the land of
+dreams, in a nightmare that choked her, fastened on her throat and heart
+and prompted her to cry and weep, all her poor nerves intensely strained
+and sick, subdued by the energy of a tortured person, imposing on
+herself the task of not appearing to suffer and--a still more atrocious
+thing--of not even suffering in reality and waiting, yes, waiting to
+sob.
+
+In the evening, everything blazed on the facade of the ministry. The
+rows of gas-jets suggested that a public fete was being held in the
+Hotel Beauvau. The naming capital letters R.F. were boldly outlined
+against the dark sky, the three colors of the flags looked bright in the
+ruddy light of the gas. Carriages rolled over the sanded courtyard,
+giving up at the carpeted entrance to the hotel the invited guests
+dressed in correct style, the women wrapped in ample cloaks with gold
+fringe or trimmed with fur, and all poured into the antechamber,
+brushing against the _Gardes de Paris_ in white breeches, with grounded
+arms, forming a row and standing out like Caryatides against the
+shining, large leaved green flowers on which their white helmets shone
+by the light of the lustres. In the dressing-room, the clothing was
+piled up, tied together in haste; the antechamber was quickly crossed,
+the women in passing casting rapid glances at the immense mirrors; a
+servant asked the names of the guests and repeated them to an usher,
+whose loud voice penetrated these salons that for many years had heard
+so many different names, of all parties, under all regimes, and
+proclaimed them in the usual commonplace manner, while murdering the
+most celebrated of them. Upon the threshold of the salon, filled with
+fashionable people and flooded with intense light, stood the minister,
+who had been receiving, greeting, bowing, ever since the opening of the
+soiree, to those who arrived, some of whom he did not know; crowding
+behind him, correctly dressed, stood his secretaries, the members of his
+cabinet appropriating their shares of the greetings extended to the
+Excellency, and at his side stood Madame Vaudrey, pale and smiling as
+the creatures of the other world; she also bowed and from time to time
+extended her gloved hand mechanically; pale she looked in her decollete
+gown of white satin, clasped at the shoulders with two pearl clasps, a
+bouquet of natural roses in her corsage, and standing there like a
+melancholy spectre on the very threshold of the festive salons.
+
+When she perceived Guy enter, she greeted him with a sad smile, and
+Vaudrey eagerly offered his hand to him as if he relied greatly on him
+to arrange matters.
+
+Adrienne's repressed grief had pained Lissac. While to the other guests
+she appeared to be only somewhat fatigued, to him the open wound and
+sorrow were visible. He plunged into the crowd. Beneath the streaming
+light the diamonds on the women's shoulders gleamed like the lustres'
+crystals. Within a frame of gobelins and Beauvais tapestry taken from
+the repository, was an improvised scene that looked like a green and
+pink nest of camellias, dracaenas and palms. The bright toilettes of the
+women already seated before this scenic effect presented a wealth of
+pale blue, white or pink silk, mother-of-pearl shoulders, diamonds, and
+bows of pink or feather headdresses. Guy recognized Madame Marsy in the
+front row, robed in a very low-cut, sea-green satin robe with a bouquet
+of flowers at the tip of the shoulder, who while fanning herself looked
+with haughty impertinence at the pretty Madame Gerson, her former
+friend. Madame Evan was numerously surrounded, she was the most charming
+of all the stylish set and the woman whom all the others tried to copy.
+
+Behind this species of female flower-bed the black coated ranks crowded,
+their sombre hue relieved here and there by the uniform of some French
+officer or foreign military attache. There was a profusion of orders,
+crosses and strange old faces, with red ribbons at the neck, deputies
+evidently in dress, youthful attaches of the ministry or embassy,
+correct in bearing and officious, their crush-hats under their arms and
+holding the satin programme of the _musicale soiree_ in their hands,
+some numbers of which were about to be rendered. Under the ceilings that
+were dappled with painted clouds, surrounded by brilliant lights and a
+wealth of flowers, this crowd presented at once an aspect of luxury and
+oddity, with its living antitheses of old parliamentarians and tyros of
+the Assembly.
+
+Intermingled with strains of music, were whisperings and the confused
+noise of conversations.
+
+Guy watched with curiosity, as a man who has seen much and compares, all
+this gathering of guests. From time to time he greeted some one of his
+acquaintance, but this was a rare occurrence. He was delighted to see
+Ramel whom he had often met at Adrienne's _Wednesdays_, and whom he
+liked. He appeared to him to be fatigued and sick.
+
+"I am not very well, in fact," said Ramel. "I have only come because I
+had something serious to say to Vaudrey."
+
+"What then?" asked Lissac.
+
+"Oh! nothing! some advice to give him as to the course to be followed.
+There is decidedly much underhand work going on about the President."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Most of them are here!"
+
+"His guests?"
+
+"You know very well that when one invites all one's friends, one finds
+that three-quarters of one's enemies will be present."
+
+"At least," said Lissac.
+
+He continued to traverse the salons, always returning instinctively
+toward the door at which Adrienne stood, with pale face and wandering
+look, and scarcely hearing, poor woman, the unfamiliar names that the
+usher uttered at equal intervals, like a speaking machine.
+
+"Monsieur Durosoi!--Monsieur and Madame Brechet!--Monsieur the Minister
+of Public Works!--Monsieur the Prefect of the Aube!--Monsieur the Count
+de Grigny!--Monsieur Henri de Prangins!--Monsieur the General
+d'Herbecourt!--Monsieur the Doctor Vilandry!--Monsieur and Madame
+Tochard!"
+
+She had vowed that she would be strong, and allow nothing to be seen of
+the despair that was wringing her heart. She compelled herself to smile.
+In nightmares and hours of feverish unrest, she had suffered the same
+vague, morbid feeling that she now experienced. All that passed about
+her seemed to be unreal. These white-cravatted men, these gaily-dressed
+women, the file of guests saluting her at the same spot in the salon,
+with the same expression of assumed respect and trite politeness,
+appeared to her but a succession of phantoms. Neither a name nor an
+association did she attach to those countenances that beamed on her with
+an official smile or gravely assumed a correct seriousness. She felt
+weary, overwhelmed and heavy-headed at the sight of this continued
+procession of strangers on whom it was incumbent that she should smile
+and to whom she must bow out of politeness, in virtue of that duty of
+state which she wished to fulfil to the last degree, poor soul!
+
+The distant music of Fahrbach's polkas or Strauss's waltzes seemed like
+an added accompaniment that mocked the sadness of her unwholesome dream.
+
+"And yet, in all that crowd of women who salute her, there are some who
+are jealous of her! Many envy her!" thought Guy, who was looking on.
+
+Adrienne did not look at Vaudrey. She was afraid that if her eyes met
+her husband's fixed on her own, she would lose her sang-froid and
+suddenly burst into sobs, there before the guests. That would have been
+ridiculous. This blonde, so feebly gentle, isolated herself, therefore,
+with surprising determination and seemed to see nothing save her own
+thought, the unique thought: "Be strong. You shall weep at your ease
+when you are alone, far away from these people, far away from this
+crowd, alone with yourself, entirely alone, entirely alone!"
+
+Vaudrey was very pale, but carried away, in spite of himself, by the joy
+which he felt in receiving all the illustrious and powerful men of the
+state, foreign ambassadors, the Presidents of the Senate and the
+Chamber, the ministers, his colleagues, deputies, wealthy financiers,
+renowned publicists, in fact, everything that counts and has a name in
+Paris,--this minister, happy to see the crowd running to him, at his
+house, bowing, paying homage to him, for a moment forgot the crushing
+events of that day, the sudden thunderbolt falling on him and perhaps,
+as he had said, crushing his hearthstone.
+
+He no longer thought of anything but what he saw: salutations, bowed
+heads, inclinations that succeeded each other with the regularity of a
+clock, that succession of homages to the little Grenoble advocate, now
+become Prime Minister.
+
+Oblivious of everything else, he had lost the recollection of his
+mistress, and he suddenly grew pale and looked instinctively with terror
+at Adrienne, who was as pale as a corpse.--A visitor had just been
+announced by the usher, in his metallic voice, and the name that he
+cried mechanically, as he had uttered all the others, echoed there like
+an insult.
+
+Guy de Lissac shook through his entire frame, as he too heard it.
+
+"Monsieur Simon Kayser and Mademoiselle Kayser!"--cried the usher.
+
+Still another name rang out from that clarion voice:
+
+"Monsieur le Duc de Rosas!"
+
+Neither Vaudrey nor Adrienne heard this name. Sulpice felt urged to rush
+toward Marianne to entreat her to leave. It is true, he had invited her.
+In spite of Jouvenet who knew all, and in spite of so many others who
+suspected the truth, she desired to be present at that fete at the
+ministry and to show herself to all. Vaudrey had warned her, however. He
+had written to her a few hours before, entreating her, nay, almost
+commanding, her, not to come, and she was there. She entered, advancing
+with head erect, leaning on the arm of her uncle, his white cravat
+hidden by his artist's beard and on his lips a disdainful smile.
+
+Adrienne asked herself whether she was really dreaming now. Approaching
+her, she saw, crossing the salon with a queenly step, that lovely,
+insolent creature, trailing a long black satin skirt, her superb bosom
+imprisoned in a corsage trimmed with jet, and crossed, as it were, with
+a blood-red stripe formed by a cordon of roses. Marianne's fawn-colored
+head seemed to imperiously defy from afar the pale woman who stood with
+her two hands falling at her side as if overwhelmed.
+
+The vision, for vision it was, approached like one of the nightmares
+that haunt people's dreams. Adrienne's first glance encountered the
+direct gaze of Marianne's gray eyes. Behind Mademoiselle Kayser came De
+Rosas, his ruddy Castilian face that was ordinarily pensive beamed
+to-day, but Madame Vaudrey did not perceive him. She saw only this
+woman, the woman who was approaching her, in her own house, insolently,
+impudently, to defy her after having outraged her, to insult her after
+having deceived her!
+
+Adrienne felt a violent wrath rising within her and suddenly her entire
+being seemed longing to bound toward Marianne, to drive her out after
+casting her name in her teeth.
+
+Instinctively she looked around her with the wild glance of a wretched
+woman who no longer knows what to do, as if seeking for some assistance
+or advice.
+
+Vaudrey's wan pallor and Lissac's supplicating gesture appealed to her
+and at once restored her to herself. It was true! she had no right to
+cause a scandal. She was within the walls of the ministry, in a common
+salon into which this girl had almost a right to enter, just like so
+many others lost in the crowd of guests. For Adrienne, it was not merely
+a question of personal vanity or honor that was at stake, but also
+Vaudrey's reputation. She felt herself _in view_, ah! what a word:--in
+view, that it to say, she was like an actress to whom neither a false
+step nor a false note is permitted; compelled to smile while death was
+at her heart, to parade while her entrails were torn with grief, forced
+to feign and to wear a mask in the presence of all who were there, and
+to lie to all the invited guests, indifferent and inimical, as Ramel
+said, and who were looking about ready at any moment to sneer and to
+hiss.
+
+She recovered, by an effort that swelled her heart, strength to show
+nothing of the feeling of indignant rebellion that was stifling her.
+
+She closed her eyes.
+
+Marianne Kayser passed onward, losing herself with Simon and De Rosas in
+the human furrow that opened before her and immediately closed upon her,
+and followed by a murmur of admiration.
+
+Adrienne had not however seen the pale, insolent countenance of the
+young woman so closely approach her suffering and disconsolate face.
+Above all, she had not seen the jealous, rapid glance that flashed
+unconsciously in Vaudrey's eyes when he saw Jose de Rosas triumphantly
+following the imperious Marianne. Ah! that look of sorrowful anger would
+have penetrated like a red-hot iron into Adrienne's soul. That glance
+that Guy caught a glimpse of told eloquently of wounded love and bruised
+vanity on the part of that man who, placed here between these two women,
+his mistress and the other, suffered less from the sorrow caused to
+Adrienne than from Marianne's treason in deserting him for this
+Spaniard.
+
+Lissac was exasperated. He felt prompted to rush between Marianne and
+Rosas and say to him:
+
+"You are mad to accompany this woman! Mad and ridiculous! She is
+deceiving you as she has deceived Vaudrey, as she has deceived me, and
+as she will deceive everybody."
+
+He purposely placed himself in Mademoiselle Kayser's way. She had
+appeared scarcely to recognize him and had brushed against him without
+apparent emotion, but with a disdainful pout. Her arm had sought that
+of Rosas, as if she now were sure of her duke.
+
+Guy too, felt that he could not cause a scene at the ball, for this
+would have brought a scandal on Vaudrey. He had just before repeated to
+Adrienne: "Courage." This was now his own watchword, and yet he sought
+out Jouvenet to whisper to the Prefect of Police what he thought of his
+conduct. Jouvenet had come and gone. Granet, as if he had divined
+Lissac's preoccupation, looked at him sneeringly as he whispered to the
+fat Molina who was seated near him:
+
+"Alkibiades!"
+
+The soiree, moreover, was terribly wearisome to Lissac. He wandered from
+group to group to find some one with whom to exchange ideas but he
+hardly found anyone besides Denis Ramel. The same political commonplaces
+retailed everywhere, at Madame Gerson's or at Madame Marsy's, as in the
+corridors of the Chamber, were re-decocted and reproduced in the corners
+of the salon of the Ministry, and around the besieged buffet attacked by
+the most ferocious gluttony. _Interpellation_, _Majority_, _New
+Cabinet_, _Homogeneous_, _Ministry of the Elections_, _Ballot_, _One Man
+Ballot_. Guy went, weary of the conflict, to the room in which the
+concert was given and listened to some operatic piece, or watched
+between the heads, the hidden profile of some female singer or an actor
+and heard the bursts of laughter that greeted the new monologue _The
+Telephone_, rendered in a clear voice with the coolness of an English
+clown, by a gentleman in a dress coat: _See! I am Monsieur Durand--you
+know, Durand--of Meaux?--Exactly--A woman deceives me--How did I learn
+it?--By the telephone. My friend Durand--Durand--of Etampes--We are not
+related--Emile Durand said to me: Durand, why haven't you a
+telephone?--It is true, I hadn't one--Durand--the other
+Durand--Durand--of Etampes--has one--Then--_And Lissac, somewhat
+listless, left this corner of the salon and stumbled against a group of
+men who surrounded an old gentleman much decorated, wearing the _grand
+cordon rouge_ crosswise, a yellow ribbon at his neck, who, with the
+gravity of an English statesman, said, thrusting his tongue slightly
+forward to secure his false teeth from falling:
+
+"I like monologues less than chansonnettes!--I, who address you, have
+taken lessons from Levassor."
+
+"Levassor, Your Excellency?" answered in chorus a lot of little
+bald-headed young men--diplomats.
+
+"Levassor," replied the old gentleman who was the very celebrated
+ambassador of a great foreign power. "Oh! I was famous in the song: _The
+Englishman Who Was Seasick_!"
+
+While the little young men smiled, approved and loudly applauded, the
+old ambassador to whom the interests of a people were entrusted, hummed
+in a low tone, amid the noise of the reception:
+
+    "Aoh! aoh! Je suis _melede_,
+    Bien _melede_! Tres _melede_!"
+
+Guy de Lissac shrugged his shoulders. He had heard a great deal of this
+man. This diplomat of the chansonnette evoked his pity. Where was he
+then? At Paris or at Brives-la-Gaillarde? At a ball at the Hotel Beauvau
+or in some provincial sub-prefecture?
+
+Just before, he had heard Warcolier utter this epic expression:
+
+"If I were minister, I would give fireworks. They are warlike and
+inoffensive at the same time!"
+
+The voice of a young man with a Russian accent who talked politics in a
+corner, pleased him:
+
+"I am," he said aloud, "from a singular country: the Baltic provinces,
+where society is governed by deputies who, by birth, have the right to
+make laws, and I consider politics so tiresome, fatiguing and full of
+disgust and weariness as an occupation, that one ought to consider one's
+self most fortunate that there are people condemned to take hold of this
+rancid pie, while others pass their lives in thinking, reading, talking
+and loving."
+
+"That is good," thought Lissac. "There is one, at least, who is not so
+stupid. It is true, perhaps because I think just the same."
+
+Nevertheless, he went and listened, mixing with the crowd, haphazard.
+His preoccupation was not there. In reality, he thought only of
+Adrienne. How the poor woman must suffer!
+
+With a feeling of physical and moral overthrow, she had left the
+threshold of the salon, where she had been standing since the
+commencement of the soiree. She was mixing with the crowd in her desire
+to forget her sorrows amid the deafening of the music, the songs, the
+laughter, and the murmur of the human billows that filled her salons.
+She had taken her place in front of the little improvised theatre,
+beside all those ladies who dissected her toilette, scanned her pallid
+face, analyzed and examined her piece by piece, body and soul. But
+there, seated near the stage, exactly in front of her, exposing, as in a
+stall, her blonde beauty, and radiant as a Titian, was that Marianne
+whose gleaming white shoulders appeared above her black satin corsage.
+Again she saw her, as but a little while before, unavoidable, haughty
+and bold, smiling with insolence.
+
+At every minute she was attracted by a movement of a head, or fan, or a
+laugh from this pretty creature, who leaned toward Sabine Marsy, then
+raised her brow and showed, in all the brilliancy of fatal beauty, her
+black corsage, striped with those fine red roses. And now Adrienne's
+anger, the grief that she had trampled under for some hours, increased
+from moment to moment, heightened and stung by the sight of this
+creature, by all kinds of bitter thoughts and by visions of treason and
+baffled love. She felt that she was becoming literally mad at the
+thought that, upon those red and painted lips, Sulpice had rested his,
+that his hands had stroked those shoulders, unwound that hair, that
+this woman's body had been folded in his arms. Ah! it was enough to make
+her rise and cry out to that creature: "You are a wretch. Get you gone!
+Get you gone, I say!"
+
+And if she did so?
+
+Why not? Had they the right to scorn her thus in public because she
+owned an official title and position? Was not this vulgar salon of a
+furnished mansion _her_ salon then?
+
+Now it seemed to her that they were whispering about her; that they were
+sneering behind their fans, and that all these women knew her secret and
+her history.
+
+Why should they not know them? All Paris must have read that mocking,
+offensive and singular article: _The Mistress of an Archon_! All these
+people had, perhaps, learned it by heart. There were people here who
+frequented the salons and who probably kept the article in their
+pockets.
+
+Yes, that would be to commit a folly, to brave everything and to destroy
+all!
+
+Sulpice, then, did not know her; he believed her to be insignificant
+because she was gentle, resigned to everything because she was devoted
+to his love and his glory?--Ah! devoted even to the point of killing
+herself, devoted to the extent of dying, or living poor, working with
+her own hands, if only he loved her, if only he never lied to her!
+
+"And here was his mistress!"
+
+His mistress! His mistress!
+
+She repeated this name with increasing rage, reiterating it, inwardly
+digesting it, as if it were something terribly bitter. His mistress,
+that lovely, insolent creature! Yes, very lovely, but manifestly
+terrible and capable of driving a feeble being like Vaudrey to commit
+every folly, nay, worse, infamy.
+
+"And it is such women that are loved! Ah! Idiots! idiots that we are!"
+
+The first part of the concert was terminating. Happily, too, for
+Adrienne was choking. The minister must, as a matter of politeness,
+express his thanks to the cantatrices from the Opera, and to the
+actresses from the Comedie Francaise, the artistes whose names appeared
+on the programme. Vaudrey was obliged to pass the rows of chairs in
+order to reach the little salon behind the stage, which served as a
+foyer. Adrienne saw him coming to her side, and looking very pale,
+though he made an effort to smile. He was uncomfortable and anxious. In
+passing before Marianne, he tried to look aside, but Mademoiselle Kayser
+stopped him in spite of himself, by slightly extending her foot and
+smiling at him, when he turned toward her, with a prolonged, interested
+and strange expression.
+
+Adrienne felt that she was about to faint. She took a few tottering
+steps out of the salon, then she stopped as if her head were swimming.
+Some one was on hand to support her. She felt that a hand was holding
+her arm, she heard some one whisper in her ear:
+
+"It is too much, is it not?"
+
+She recognized Lissac's voice.
+
+Guy looked at her for a moment, quite prepared for this great increase
+of suffering.
+
+"Take me away," she murmured. "I can bear no more!--I can bear no more!"
+
+She was longing to escape from all that noise, that atmosphere that
+lacked air, and from Marianne's look and smile that pierced her. She
+went, as if by chance, instinctively guiding Lissac, led by him to a
+little, salon far from the reception rooms, and which was reserved for
+her and protected by a door guarded by an usher. It might have been
+thought that she expected this solitude would be necessary to her as an
+escape from the fright of that reception, to which her overstrained and
+sick nerves made her a prey.
+
+In passing, Lissac had whispered to Ramel, who was at his elbow:
+
+"Tell Sulpice that Madame Vaudrey is ill!"
+
+"Ill?"
+
+"You see that she is!"
+
+When Adrienne was within the little salon hung with garnet silk
+draperies, in which the candelabras and sconces were lighted, she sank
+into an armchair, entirely exhausted and overwhelmed by the fearful
+resistance she had made to her feelings. She remained there motionless,
+her eye fixed, her face pale, and both hands resting on the arms of her
+chair, abstractedly looking at the pattern of the carpet.
+
+Guy stood near, biting his lips as he thought of the madman Vaudrey and
+that wretched Marianne.
+
+"She at least obeys her instincts! But he!"
+
+"Ah! it is too much; yes, it is too much!" repeated Adrienne, as if
+Lissac were again repeating that phrase.
+
+It seemed to her that she had been thrust into some cowardly situation;
+that she had been subjected to a shower of filth! It was hideous,
+repugnant. She now saw, in the depths of her life, events that she had
+never before seen; her vision had suddenly become clear. Dark details
+she could now explain. Vaudrey's falsehoods were suddenly manifested.
+
+"He lied! Ah! how he had lied!"
+
+She recalled his anxiety to hide the journals from her, his oft-repeated
+suggestions, his precautions, the increasing number of his
+night-sessions that made him pale. Pale from debauchery! And she pitied
+him! She begged him not to kill himself for the politics that was eating
+his life. Again she saw on the lips of her _Wednesday's_ guests the
+furtive smiles that were hidden behind muffs when she spoke of those
+nocturnal sessions of the Chamber, which were only nights passed in
+Marianne's bed! How those Parisians must have laughed at her and
+ridiculed the credulity of the woman who believes herself loved, but who
+is deceived and mocked at! Madame Gerson, Sabine! How overjoyed they
+must have been when, in their salons, they referred to the little,
+stupid Provincial who was ignorant of these tricks!
+
+She felt ridiculed and tortured, more tortured than baffled, for her
+vanity was nothing in comparison with her love, her poor, artless and
+trusting love!
+
+"Sulpice, I should never have believed--Never!--"
+
+Why had they left Grenoble, their little house on the banks of the
+Isere? They loved each other there, it was Paris that had snatched him
+away! Paris! She hated it now. She hated that reputation that had
+carried Vaudrey into office, the politics that had robbed her of a kind
+and loving husband,--for he had loved her, she was sure of that,--and
+which had made him the lover of a courtesan, the liar and coward that he
+was!
+
+"Do you see?" she said to Lissac suddenly. "I detest these walls!"
+
+She pointed to the gilded ceilings with an angry gesture.
+
+"Since I entered here, my life has come to a close!--It is that, that
+which has taken him from me!--Ah! this society, this politics, these
+meannesses, this life exposed to every one and everything, to temptation
+and to fall, I am entirely sick of, I am disgusted with. Let me be
+snatched from it, let me be taken away! Everywhere here, one might say,
+there is an atmosphere of lying!"
+
+"Do you hear? She laughs, she is happy! She! And I, ah! I!"
+
+She had risen to her feet, suddenly recovering all her energy, as if
+stirred by the air of a Hungarian dance, whose strains dimly reached
+them from the distant, warm salons, where Marianne was disporting her
+beauty--
+
+"Ah! I hate this hotel, the noise and the women!" said Adrienne. "This
+horde ranged about the buffet, this salon turned into a restaurant, the
+false salutations, the commonplace protestations,--this society, all
+this society, I detest it!--I will have no more of it!--It seems to me
+that it all is mocking me, and that its smiles are only for that
+courtesan!--But if I had driven her out?--Who brought her?"
+
+"Her uncle and Monsieur de Rosas!"
+
+"Monsieur de Rosas?"
+
+"Who marries her!"
+
+Adrienne nervously uttered a loud, harsh laugh, as painful as if it were
+caused by a spasm.
+
+"Who marries her! Then these creatures are married?--Ah! they are
+married--They are honored, too, are they not? And because they are more
+easy of approach, they are thought more beautiful and more agreeable
+than those who are merely honest wives? Ah! it is too silly!--Rosas! I
+took him for a man of sense!--If I were to tell him myself that she is
+my husband's mistress, what would the duke answer?"
+
+"He would not believe you, and you would not do that, madame!" said
+Lissac.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it would be an act of cowardice, and because you are the best,
+the noblest of women!"
+
+Instinctively he drew near her, lowering his voice, embracing with his
+glance that fine, charming beauty, that grief heightened by a burning
+brilliancy.
+
+She raised her fine, clear eyes to Lissac, whose look troubled her, and
+said:
+
+"And how have these served me?--Kindness, trickery!--Trickery,
+chastity!--Ask all these men! All of them will go to Mademoiselle Kayser
+and not to me!"
+
+"To you, madame," murmured Guy, "all that there is of devotion and
+earnestness, yes, all of the tenderest and the truest will go to you as
+respectful homage."
+
+"Respect?--Yes, respect to us!--And with it goes the home! But to her!
+Ah! to her, love! And what if I wish to be loved myself?"
+
+"Loved by him!" said Lissac in a low tone, as if he did not know what he
+said; and his hands instinctively sought Adrienne's. They trembled.
+
+A woman's perfume and something like the keen odor of flowers assailed
+his nostrils. He had never felt the impulse of burning compassion which
+at a sign from this saint, would have driven him to attempt the
+impossible, to affront the noisy throng yonder.
+
+"Loved by him, yes, by him!" answered Adrienne, with the mournful shake
+of the head of one who sees her joy vanish in the distance like a
+sinking bark.
+
+She had been so happy! She had thought herself so dearly loved! Ah!
+those many cowardly lies uttered by Sulpice!
+
+"Do not speak to me of him!" she suddenly said. "I hate him, too!--I do
+more than that! I despise him! I never wish to see him again!--never.
+You hear! never!"
+
+"What will you do?" Lissac asked.
+
+"I know nothing about it!--I wish to leave! Now, I have no more parading
+to make in this ball, I think, I have no longer to receive the guests
+whose insulting smiles were like blows! I will go, go!"
+
+"Adrienne!"
+
+"Will go at once!"
+
+She felt no astonishment at hearing the name Adrienne spoken suddenly
+and unreflectingly by Guy de Lissac.
+
+She looked at him with a glance that reached his soul, not knowing what
+she said:
+
+"Leave now! While the ball is in progress. To leave solitude to him,
+suddenly--here! And that woman, if he wishes her, and if the other who
+is marrying her will yield her to him!"
+
+She was carried away, her mind wandered, as if unbalanced by her grief,
+all her efforts at self-control ending in a relaxation of her strained
+nerves.
+
+"I will leave!--I do not wish to see him again!"
+
+"Leave to-night?"
+
+"For Grenoble--I don't know where!--But to fly from him; ah! yes; to
+escape from him! Take me away, Monsieur de Lissac!" she said
+distractedly, as she seized his hand. "I should go mad here!"
+
+She had unconsciously taken refuge, as it were, in the arms of the man
+who loved her, and Lissac felt the exquisite grace of the body abandoned
+to him, without the woman's reflecting upon it, without loving him,
+lost--
+
+It is quite certain that in her nervous, heart-broken condition,
+Adrienne was not considering whether his affection for her sprung from
+friendship or from love.
+
+For a moment this master skeptic, Guy, felt that he was committing the
+greatest folly of his life.
+
+The young woman did not understand; nevertheless, even without love, he
+clearly felt that this chasteness and grace, all that there was
+exquisitely seductive about her, belonged to him--if he dared--
+
+"You are feverish, Adrienne," he said, as he took her hands as he would
+a child's.
+
+"I am choking here!--I wish to leave!--take me away!"
+
+"Nonsense," said Lissac. "What are you thinking about? They are calling
+for you, yonder."
+
+"It is because they call for me that I wish to escape. Don't you see
+that I abhor all those people; that I detest them as much as I despise
+them? Take me away!"
+
+Lissac had become very pale. He tried to smile at Adrienne--the heroic
+smile of a wounded man undergoing amputation--and he whispered:
+
+"Don't you know very well, madame, that you would not have taken two
+steps in the street, on my arm, before you would become a lost woman?"
+
+"Well," she said, "what of that, since it is they who are loved!--"
+
+"No, madame," Guy replied, "I love you. I may say so, because you are a
+virtuous woman, and I have no right to take you away, do you understand?
+because I love you."
+
+He, too, had summoned all his strength to impart to his confession,
+which he would have expressed with ardor, the cold tone of a phrase.
+
+But that was enough. Adrienne recoiled before this avowal.
+
+He loved her. He told her so!
+
+It is true, she could not leave the mansion on his arm.
+
+She rested her glance on Lissac and extended her hand to him, saying, as
+she felt suddenly recalled to herself:
+
+"You are an honest man!"
+
+"According to my moods," said Guy, with a sad smile.
+
+The door of the little salon opened, and Ramel entered.
+
+"I have called in a doctor," he said.
+
+"For me?" asked Adrienne. "Thanks! I am quite strong!"
+
+Then boldly going to Ramel:
+
+"Will you have the goodness to take me to Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin,
+Monsieur Ramel?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I will not remain one hour longer in a house where my husband
+has the right to receive his mistress!--Monsieur de Lissac refuses to
+accompany me. Your arm, Ramel!"
+
+"Madame," Ramel answered gently, "I knew that Monsieur de Lissac was a
+man of intelligence. It seems to me that he is a man of heart. You
+should remain here for your own sake, for your name's sake, for your
+husband's. It is your duty. As to Mademoiselle Kayser, you can return to
+the salons, for she has just left with Monsieur de Rosas."
+
+Adrienne remained for a moment with her sad eyes fixed on Ramel; then
+shaking her head:
+
+"You knew it also? Everybody knew it then, except me?"
+
+"Well!" said Ramel, a good-natured smile playing in his white mustache,
+"now it is necessary to forget."
+
+"Never!" replied Adrienne.
+
+Then proudly drawing herself up, she took Denis's arm and without even
+glancing in her mirror, she went off toward the salons.
+
+"Your bouquet, madame," said Lissac, who was still pale and his voice
+trembled.
+
+"True!" said Adrienne.
+
+She fastened her bouquet of drooping roses to her corsage and without
+daring to look at Lissac again, she re-entered, leaning on Ramel's arm.
+
+Left alone in the salon, Guy remained a moment to shake his head.
+
+"Poor, dear creature!" he said. "If I had been young enough not to
+understand the position in which her madness placed me, or base enough
+to profit by it, what a pretty little preface to a great folly she was
+about to commit this evening! Well! this attack of morality will perhaps
+count in my favor some day."
+
+He stooped down and picked up a rose that had fallen from Adrienne's
+bouquet to the carpet.
+
+He smiled as he took up the flower and looked at it.
+
+"One learns at any age!" he thought, as he put the flower in his coat.
+"That, at least, is a love souvenir that they will not send the police
+to rob me of."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+On rising the following morning, after a feverish night, Sulpice
+realized a feeling of absolute moral destruction. It seemed to him that
+he had lost a dear being. In that huge, silent hotel one would have
+thought that a corpse was lying. He did not dare to present himself to
+Adrienne. He could not tell what to say to her. He went downstairs
+slowly, crossing the salons that were still decorated with the now
+fading flowers, to reach his cabinet. The carpet was littered with the
+broken leaves of dracaenas and petals that had fallen from the azaleas,
+and presented the gloomy, forsaken aspect peculiar to the morrow of a
+fete. The furniture, stripped of its coverings, offered the faded tint
+of old maids at their rising. With heavy head, he sat at his desk and
+looked at the piled-up documents with a vague expression. Always the
+eternal pile of despatches, optimistic reports, and banal summaries of
+the daily press. Nothing new, nothing interesting, all was going well.
+This tired world had no history.
+
+The minister still remained there, absorbed as after an unhealthy
+insomnia, when Warcolier entered, ever serious, with his splendid,
+redundant phrases and his usual attitude of a pedantic rhetor. He came
+to inform the minister that a matter of importance, perhaps of a
+troublesome nature, loomed on the horizon. Granet was preparing an
+interpellation. Oh! upon a matter without any real importance. An affair
+of a procession that had taken place at Tarbes, accompanied by some
+little disturbance. It was only a pretext, but it was sufficient,
+perhaps, to rally a majority around the _minister of to-morrow_. Old
+Henri de Prangins, with his eye on a portfolio, and always thirsting for
+power, was keeping Granet company: the man who would never be a minister
+with the man who was sure to be.
+
+"Well, what has this to do with me?" asked Vaudrey indifferently.
+
+Granet! Prangins! He was thinking of a very different matter. Adrienne
+knew all and Marianne deceived him. She was to marry Rosas.
+
+The very serious Warcolier manifested much surprise at the little energy
+displayed by Monsieur le Ministre. He expected to see him bound, in
+order to rebound, as he said, believing himself witty. Was Vaudrey
+himself giving up the game? Was Granet then sure of the game? He
+surmised it and had already taken the necessary measures in that
+direction. But surely if Granet were the rising sun, Vaudrey was himself
+abandoning his character of the setting sun. He was not setting, he was
+falling. A sovereign contempt for this man entered Warcolier's lofty
+soul, Warcolier the friend of success.
+
+"Then you do not understand, Monsieur le President?"
+
+Vaudrey drew himself up with a sudden movement that was frequent with
+him. He struck the table on which his open portfolio rested, and said:
+
+"I understand that Granet wants that portfolio! Well, be it so! I set
+little store by it, but he does not have it yet!"
+
+"That is something like it! It is worthy of a brave man to show a
+resolute front to his enemies! It is in battle that talent is
+retempered, as formerly in the Styx were tempered--"
+
+"I know," said Sulpice.
+
+Warcolier's intelligent smile was not understood by the minister.
+
+Sulpice, who was in despair over his shattered domestic joys, had no
+wish to enter on a struggle except to bring about a reaction on himself.
+To hold his own against Granet, was to divert his own present sadness.
+
+"All right," he said to Warcolier. "Let Granet interpellate us when he
+pleases--In eight days, to-morrow, yes, to-day even, I am ready!"
+
+"Interpellate _us_!" thought Warcolier. "You should say, interpellate
+_you_."
+
+He had already got out of the scrape himself.
+
+Vaudrey debated with himself as to whether he would try to see Adrienne.
+No? What should he say to her? It would be better to let a little time
+shed its balm upon the wound. Then, too, if he wished to bar the way to
+Granet, he had not too much time before him. The shrewd person should
+act promptly.
+
+"I shall see him on the Budget Committee!" thought Vaudrey.
+
+He found it necessary now to force an interest in the struggle which a
+few months before would have found him eagerly panting to enter on. The
+honeymoon of his love of power had passed. He had too keenly felt, one
+after another, the discouragements of the office that he sought in order
+to _do good_, to reform, to act, in the pursuit of which he found
+himself, from the first moment, clashing with routine, old-fashioned
+ideas, petty ambitions, the general welfare, all the brood of selfish
+interests. It had been his to dream a sort of Chimera bearing the
+country toward Progress on outstretched wings: he found himself
+entangled in the musty mechanism of a worn-out and rancid-smelling
+engine, that dragged the State as a broken-winded horse might have done.
+Then, little by little, weariness and disgust had penetrated the heart
+of this visionary who desired to live, to assert himself in putting an
+end to so many abuses, and whom his colleagues, his chiefs of division,
+his chief of service, the chief of the State himself cautiously advised:
+"Make no innovations! Let things go! That has gone on so for so long!
+What is the use of changing? It will still do very well!"
+
+Ah! it was to throw off the shackles and to try the impossible! Vaudrey
+found himself hemmed in between his dearest hopes and the most
+disheartening realities. He was asked for offices, not reforms. The men
+charged with the fate of the country were not straggling after progress,
+they were looking after their own interests, their landed and
+shopkeeping interests. He felt nauseated by all this. He held those
+deputies in contempt who besieged his cabinet and filled his antechamber
+in order to beg, claim and demand. All of them sought something, and
+they were almost strangled by the solicitations of their own
+constituents. They appeared to Sulpice to be rather the commissionaires
+of universal suffrage than the servants. This abasement before the
+manipulators of the votes made Vaudrey indignant. He felt that France
+was becoming by degrees a vast market for favors, a nation in which
+everyone asked office from those who to keep their own promised
+everything, and the thought filled him with terror. The ministers,
+wedded to their positions, became the mere servants of the deputies,
+while the latter obeyed the orders of their constituents. All was kept
+within a vast network of office-seeking and trafficking. And with it
+all, a hatred of genuine talent, bitter selfishness and the crushing
+narrowness of ideas!
+
+Vaudrey recalled a story that had been told him, how during the Empire,
+the Emperor, terrified, feeling himself isolated, asked and searched for
+a man, and how a certain little bell in the Tuileries was especially
+provided to warn the chamberlains of the entry into the chateau of a new
+face, of the visit of a stranger, in order that the camarilla, warned by
+the particular ring, would have time to place themselves on their guard,
+and to send the newcomer to the right about if he might become an aid to
+the master and a danger to the servants. Well! Sulpice did not hear that
+invisible and secret bell, but he guessed its presence, he divined its
+presence around him, warning the interested, always ready to chase away
+the stranger; he felt that its secret thread was everywhere thrown
+around the powerful, the mighty of four days or a quarter of a century
+and that, so long as influence existed in the world, there would be
+courtiers and that these courtiers, eager for a crumb, would prevent the
+stranger, that is to say, truth, from reaching the light, fearing that
+this stranger might play the part of the lion and chase the flies away
+from the honeycomb.
+
+Thus, how much nausea and contempt he felt for that transient power
+which in spite of himself was rendered useless! A power that placed him
+at the mercy of the bawling of a colleague or an enemy, and even at the
+mercy of that all-powerful master so readily dissatisfied: everybody. He
+had seen, at too close quarters, the vile intrigues, the depressing
+chafferings, the grinding of that political kitchen in which so many
+people,--this Warcolier with his voluble rhetoric, this Granet with his
+conceited smile of superiority,--were hungering to hold the handle of
+the saucepan. He recalled a remark that Denis Ramel had often repeated
+to him: "What is the use of putting one's self out in order to bask in
+the sunshine? The best are in the shade."
+
+He was seized with lawful indignation against his own ambitions, against
+the lack of energy that prevented him from sweeping away all
+obstacles,--men, and routine,--and he recalled with afflicting
+bitterness his entry on public life, in the blaze of divine light, and
+his dreams, his poor noble dreams! "A great minister! I will be a great
+minister!"
+
+"Ah! yes, indeed! one is a minister, that is all! And that is enough! It
+is often too much! We shall see indeed what he will do, that Granet who
+ought to do so much!"
+
+Vaudrey laughed nervously.
+
+"What he will do? Nothing! Nothing! Still nothing! That is very easy! To
+do anything, one should be a great man and not a politician captivated
+with the idea of reaching the summit of power. Ah! _parbleu!_ to be a
+great man! 'That is the question.'"
+
+He grew very excited over the proud rebellion of his old faith and
+shattered hopes against the negative success he had obtained. Besides,
+there was no reason for giving up the struggle. There was a council to
+be held at the Elysee. He went there, but at this moment of disgust,
+disgust of everything and himself, this palace like all the rest, seemed
+to him to be gloomy and mean. An usher in black coat and white cravat,
+wearing a chain around his neck, wandered up and down the antechamber,
+according to custom, his shoes covered with the dust from the carpet
+trodden upon by so many people, either applicants or functionaries. The
+gaslight burning in broad day as in the offices in London was reflected
+on the cold walls that shone like marble. Doors ornamented with gilt
+nails and round, ivory knobs and without locks, were noiselessly
+swinging to and fro. Wearied office-seekers with tired countenances were
+spread out upon the garnet-colored velvet chairs, which were like those
+of a middle-class, furnished house.
+
+From time to time, the tiresome silence was broken by the sound of near
+or distant electric bells. Vaudrey, who arrived before his colleagues,
+studiously contemplated the surroundings ironically. An estafette, a
+gendarme, arrived with a telegram; the usher signed a receipt for it.
+That was all the life that animated this silent palace. A man with a
+military air, tall, handsome and in tightly-buttoned frock-coat, passed
+and saluted the President of the Council; then, Jouvenet, the Prefect of
+Police, looking like a notary's senior clerk, his abundant black hair
+plastered on his head, a large, black portfolio under his arm,
+approached the minister and bowed. Vaudrey, having Lissac in mind,
+returned his salutation coldly.
+
+"I will speak to you presently, Monsieur le Prefet."
+
+"Good! Monsieur le Ministre!"
+
+In spite of the foot-soldier and the Parisian guard on duty at the door
+of the palace, all that now seemed to Vaudrey to lack official
+solemnity, and resembled rather a temporary and melancholy occupation.
+
+"Bah! And if I should never set my foot in this place again," he
+thought, as he remembered Granet's interpellation, "what would it matter
+to me?"
+
+He was informed first at the Council and then at the Chamber, that
+Granet would not introduce his question until the next day. Vaudrey had
+the desired time to prepare himself. In the Budget Committee, where he
+met Granet, the _minister of to-morrow_ asked him an inopportune
+question concerning the expenses of the administration. Vaudrey was
+angered and felt inclined to treat it as a personal question. It now
+only remained for his adversaries to begin to suspect him! To appear so
+was even now too much. Sulpice took Granet up promptly, the latter
+assured him that "his colleague and friend, the President of the
+Council," had entirely misconstrued the meaning of his words.
+
+"Well and good!" said Vaudrey.
+
+He was not sorry that the interpellation was not to take place at once.
+Before to-morrow, he would have placed his batteries. And then he would
+think of quieting Adrienne, of regaining her, perhaps. On returning to
+the ministry, he caused some inquiries to be made as to whether Madame
+were not sick. Madame had gone out. She had gone out as if she were
+making a pilgrimage to a cemetery, to the apartment in Rue de la
+Chaussee-d'Antin, whereon might have been written: _Here lies_. It was
+like the tomb of her happiness.
+
+She would not see Sulpice again. In the evening, however, she consented
+to speak to him.
+
+Her poor, gentle face was extremely pale, and as if distorted by some
+violent pain.
+
+"You will find some excuse," she said, "for announcing that I am ill. I
+am leaving for Grenoble. I have written to my uncle, the Doctor expects
+me, and all that now remains to me is a place in his house."
+
+"Adrienne!" murmured Sulpice.
+
+She closed her eyes, for this suppliant voice doubtless caused her a
+new grief, but neither gesture nor word escaped her. She was like a
+walking automaton. Even her eyes expressed neither reproach nor anger,
+they seemed dim.
+
+There was something of death in her aspect.
+
+After a few moments, she said: "I hope that my resolve will not work any
+prejudice to your political position. In that direction I will still do
+my duty to the full extent of my strength. But people will not trouble
+themselves to inquire whether I am at Grenoble or Paris. They trouble
+themselves very little about me."
+
+By a gesture, he sought to retain her. She had already entered her room,
+and Vaudrey felt that between this woman and him there stood something
+like a wall. He had now only to love Marianne.
+
+To love Marianne, ah! yes, the unhappy man, he still loved her. When he
+thought of Marianne, it was more in wrath, when he thought of Adrienne,
+it was more in pity; but, certainly, his wife's determination to leave
+Paris caused him less emotion than the thought that his mistress was to
+wed Rosas.
+
+That very evening he went to Marianne's.
+
+They told him that Madame was at the theatre. Where? With whom? Neither
+Jean nor Justine knew.
+
+Vaudrey despised himself for jealously questioning the servants who,
+when together, would burst with laughter in speaking of him.
+
+"Oh! miserable fool!" he said to himself. "There was only one woman who
+loved you:--Adrienne!"
+
+Nevertheless, he recalled Marianne in the hours of past love, and the
+recollection of her kisses and sobs still made his flesh creep. The
+tawny tints that played in her hair as it strayed unfastened over the
+pillow, the endearing caresses of her bare arms, he wished to see and
+feel again. He calculated in his ferocious egotism that Adrienne's wrath
+would afford him more complete liberty for a time, and that he would
+have Marianne more to himself, if she were willing.
+
+He had written to Mademoiselle Kayser, but his letter had remained
+unanswered. He thought that he would go to Mademoiselle Vanda's house
+the next day, after the Chamber was up. Very late, he added, since the
+sitting would be prolonged. Long and decisive, as the fate of his
+ministry was at stake.
+
+Granet's interpellation did not make him unusually uneasy. He had
+acquainted himself in the morning with a resume of the journals. Public
+opinion seemed favorable to the Vaudrey ministry, _except in the case of
+some insufferable radical organs, and with which he need not in anyway
+concern himself_, read the report. Vaudrey did not remember that it was
+in almost these very terms that the daily resume of the press expressed
+itself on the eve of Pichereau's fall, to the Minister of the Interior,
+in speaking of Pichereau's cabinet.
+
+"I shall have a majority of sixty votes," he said to himself.
+"Everything will be carried--save honor!"
+
+He thought of Adrienne as he thus wished.
+
+The session of the Chamber was to furnish him the most cruel deception.
+Granet had most skilfully prepared his plan of attack. Vaudrey's
+ministry was threatened on all sides by lines of approach laid out
+without Sulpice's knowledge. Granet had promised, here and there, new
+situations, or had undertaken to confirm the old. He came to the assault
+of the ministry with a compact battalion of clients entirely devoted to
+his fortunes, which were their own. They did not reproach Vaudrey too
+strongly with anything, unless it was that these impatient ones
+considered that he had given away all that he had to give, prefectures,
+sub-prefectures, councillors' appointments, crosses of the Legion of
+Honor, and especially for having lasted too long. Vaudrey would fall
+less because he had forfeited esteem than because others were impatient
+to succeed him. Granet was tired of being only the _minister of
+to-morrow_, he wished to have his day. He had just affirmed his policy,
+he asserted that the whole country, weary of Vaudrey's compromises,
+demanded a more homogeneous ministry. Homogeneity! Nothing could be said
+against such a word. Granet favored the policy of homogeneity. This
+vocable comprehended his entire programme. The Vaudrey Cabinet lacked
+homogeneity! The President of the Republic decidedly ought to form a
+homogeneous cabinet.
+
+"Granet is then homogeneous?" said Sulpice, with a forced laugh, as he
+sat on the ministerial bench while Lucien Granet was speaking from the
+tribune, his right hand thrust into his frock-coat.
+
+The _bon mot_ uttered by the President of the Council, although spoken
+loudly enough, did not enliven any one, neither his colleagues who felt
+themselves threatened nor his usual _claqueurs_ who felt themselves
+vanquished. Navarrot, the ministerial claqueur, was already applauding
+Granet most enthusiastically. _Monsieur le Ministre_ felt himself about
+to become an ex-minister. He vaguely felt as if he were in the vacuum of
+an air-pump.
+
+The order of the day of distrust, smoothed over by Granet with the
+formulas of perfidious politeness--castor-oil in orange-juice, as
+Sulpice himself called it, trying to pluck up courage and wit in the
+face of misfortune,--that order of the day that the Vaudrey Cabinet
+would not accept, was adopted by a considerable majority: one hundred
+and twenty-two votes.
+
+For Sulpice, it was a crushing defeat.
+
+"One hundred and twenty-two deputies," he said, still speaking in a loud
+voice in the corridors, "to whom I have refused the appointment of some
+mayor or the removal of some rural guard!"
+
+Warcolier, ever dignified, remarked in his usual style, that this manner
+of defending himself probably lacked some of that nobility which becomes
+a defeat bravely endured.
+
+Vaudrey had only one course open, to send in his resignation. He was
+beaten, thoroughly beaten. He returned to the Hotel Beauvau and after
+preparing his letter he took it himself to the President at the Elysee.
+
+The President accepted it without betraying any feeling, as an employe
+at the registry office receives any deed of declaration. Two or three
+commonplace expressions of regret, a diplomatic shake of the hand,
+expressive of official sympathy, that was all. Vaudrey returned to the
+ministry and ordered his servants to prepare everything for leaving the
+ministerial mansion.
+
+"When is that to be, Monsieur le Ministre?"
+
+"To-morrow," answered Vaudrey, to whom the title seemed ironical and
+grated on his nerves.
+
+He caused himself to be announced to Adrienne.
+
+Adrienne, weary looking, was seated before a small desk writing, and
+beneath her fair hair, her face still looked as white as that of a
+corpse.
+
+"There is some news," Vaudrey said to her abruptly. "I am no longer
+minister!"
+
+"Ah!" she said.
+
+Not a tremor, not a word of consolation. Three days previously, she
+would have leaped to his neck and said: "How happy we shall be! I have
+you back; I have found you again! What joy!"
+
+Again, she would have tried to console him had he been suffering.
+
+Now, she remained passive, frozen, indifferent to that news.
+
+"We shall leave the Hotel Beauvau!" said Sulpice.
+
+"I am already preparing to leave," she replied. "My trunks are packed."
+
+"Will you do me the kindness of leaving here with me and of going back
+to Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin with me?--After that, you can set out at
+once for Grenoble. But let us have no sign of scandal. The world must be
+considered."
+
+She had listened to him coldly, unmoved by his trembling voice.
+
+"That is proper," she said ironically. "The world must be thought of. I
+will wait then before leaving."
+
+He was stupefied to find so much coldness and so unswerving a
+determination in this woman, as gentle as a child--my _wife-child_, he
+so frequently said to her of old. In her presence he felt ill at ease,
+discontented, hesitating whether he should throw himself at her feet and
+wring pardon from her, or fly from her and be with Marianne, perhaps
+forever. But no, it was Adrienne, his poor, his dear Adrienne that he
+would keep and love! Ah! if she pardoned him! If he had dared to kneel
+at her feet, to plead and to weep! But this living corpse froze him, he
+was afraid of her, of that gentle and devoted creature.
+
+He went downstairs again, saying to himself that he would take a hurried
+dinner and then go to Rue Prony.
+
+He was, however, obliged to occupy himself in despatching the last
+current business. He must hand over his official duties to his
+successor. There was a mocking expression in these words: _his
+successor!_
+
+"After all, he will have one also!"
+
+He still had unexpected heartbreakings to experience. People to whom he
+had promised appointments and decorations came, almost breathless,
+suddenly stirred by the news, to entreat him to sign the nominations and
+to prepare the decrees while he was _still_ minister. The ravens were
+about the corpse. _Monsieur Eugene_, still bowing low, although not
+quite so low as heretofore, endeavored to dismember Vaudrey the
+Minister. He wanted a little piece, only one piece! A sub-prefecture of
+the third class!
+
+He had already been informed at the Elysee that Granet was to be his
+successor. _Parbleu!_ he expected it! But the realization of his fears
+annoyed him. And who would Granet keep for his Secretary of State?
+Warcolier, yes Warcolier, with the promise of giving him the first
+vacant portfolio.
+
+"How correct was Ramel's judgment?" thought Sulpice.
+
+Vaudrey, with a sort of rage urging him, immediately set himself about a
+task as mournful as a funeral: packing up. It now seemed to him that he
+had just suffered a total overthrow. Books and papers were being packed
+in baskets. Before he was certain of his fall, he thought it was
+delightful to escape from so much daily bother, but now he felt as if he
+were being discrowned and ruined. Ruin! It truly threatened him indeed
+and held him by the throat. He had realized on many pieces of property
+within the past year for Marianne!
+
+Adrienne, on the contrary, left this great cold hotel of Place Beauvau,
+as if she were leaving a prison, with a comforting sense of deliverance.
+A bad dream was ended. She could lay down her official mask, weep at
+ease, complain at will, fly to that Dauphiny where her youth was left.
+She would leave to-morrow. Doctor Reboux awaited her in ignorance.
+
+After having given his first orders and arranged his most important
+documents, Sulpice went out to walk to Marianne's. At first he wandered
+along mechanically without realizing that he was going toward the quays,
+almost fearing the interview with his mistress, now that he was only a
+defeated man. He had nearly reached the Seine before he was aware of it.
+He looked at his watch.
+
+Eleven o'clock.
+
+Marianne had been awaiting him for some time.
+
+He now followed, with the slow march of persons oppressed with a sense
+of weariness, these deserted quays, that terrace on the bank of the
+river, whose balustrades permitted glimpses of the silhouettes of
+slender trees. He met no one. Upon the Place de la Concorde, still wet
+with the scarce dried rain of this November night, as mild as an evening
+in spring, permeated by a warm mist, he looked for a moment at the
+Palace of the Corps Legislatif, gloomy-looking and outlining its roofs
+against the misty sky, whose gleams fell on the horizon with a bluish
+tint, while upon the broad sidewalks, the jets of gas magnified the
+reddened reflections with their own ruddy hues. Along the grand avenue
+of the Champs-Elysees there were only two immense parallel rows of
+gas-lamps and here and there, moving, luminous points that looked like
+glow-worms. Vaudrey mechanically stopped a moment to contemplate the
+scene.
+
+That did not interest him, but something within him controlled him. He
+continued to walk unwittingly in the direction of Parc Monceau. The
+solitude of the Champs-Elysees pleased him. While passing before an
+important club with its windows lighted, he instinctively shuddered.
+Through the lace-like branches of the trees, he looked at the green
+shades, the lustres, the unpolished sconces, with the backgrounds of red
+and gold hangings, and the great, gold frames, and he imagined that they
+were discussing the causes of his defeat and the success of Granet.
+
+"They are speaking of me, in there! They are talking about my fall! He
+is fallen! Fallen! Beaten!--They are laughing, they are making jokes!
+There are some there who yesterday were asking me for places."
+
+He continued on his way without quickening his pace; the deserted cafe
+concerts, as melancholy-looking as empty stages, the wreaths of
+suspended pearl-like lamps illuminated during the summer months but now
+colorless, seemed ironical amid the clumps of bare trees as gloomy as
+cemetery yews, exhaling a sinister, forsaken spirit as if this solitude
+were full of extinct songs, defunct graces, phantoms, and last year's
+mirth. And Vaudrey felt a strangely delicious sensation even in his
+bitterness at this impression of solitude, as if he might have been
+lost, forgotten forever, in the very emptiness of this silent corner.
+
+Going on, he passed before the Elysee.
+
+A _sergent de ville_ who was slowly pacing up and down in front of an
+empty sentry-box, his two hands ensconced in the sleeves of his coat,
+the hood of which he had turned up, cast a sidelong glance at him,
+almost suspiciously, as if wondering what a prowler could want to do
+there, at such an hour.
+
+"He does not know whom he has looked at," he said. "And yesterday, only
+yesterday, he would have saluted me subserviently!"
+
+The windows of the Elysee facing the street were still lighted up and
+Vaudrey thought that shadows were moving behind the white curtains.
+
+"The President has not yet retired! He has probably received Granet! And
+Warcolier!--Warcolier!"
+
+Before the large door opening on Faubourg Saint-Honore, four lamps were
+burning over the head of a Parisian guard on duty, with his musket on
+his shoulder, the light shining on the leather of his shako. Some
+weary-looking guardians of the peace were chatting together. At the end
+of the court before the perron, a small, red carpet was laid upon the
+steps and in front of the marquee faint lights gleamed. Vaudrey recalled
+that joyous morning when he entered there, arriving and descending from
+his carriage with his portfolio under his arm.
+
+He hurried his steps and found himself on Place Beauvau. His glance was
+attracted by the grille, the hotel, the grand court at the end of the
+avenue. Sulpice experienced a feeling of sudden anger as he passed in
+front of the Ministry of the Interior whose high grille, now closed, he
+had many times passed through, leaning back in his coupe. He pictured
+himself entering there, where he would never again return except as a
+place-seeker like those eternal beggars who blocked its antechambers. He
+still heard the cry of the lackey when the coachman crushed the sand of
+the courtyard under the wheels of the carriage: "Monsieur le Ministre's
+carriage!"--He went upstairs, the lackeys saluted him, the coupe rolled
+off toward the Bois.
+
+Now, here in that vulgar mansion another was displaying himself, seated
+on the same seats, eating at the same table, sleeping in the same bed
+and giving his orders to the same servants. He experienced a strange
+sensation, as of a theft, of some undue influence, of suffering an
+ejectment by a stranger from some personal property, and this Granet,
+the man sent there as he had been, by a vote, seemed to him to be a
+smart fellow, a filibuster and an intruder.
+
+"How one becomes accustomed to thinking one's self at home everywhere!"
+thought Vaudrey.
+
+He partially forgot the keen wound given to his self-love by the time
+that he found himself close to Parc Monceau approaching Rue Prony. In
+Marianne's windows the lights were shining. To see that woman and hold
+her again in his arms, overjoyed, that happiness would console him for
+all his mortifications. Marianne's love was worth a hundred times more
+than the delights of power.
+
+Marianne Kayser was evidently waiting for Sulpice. She received him in
+her little, brilliantly-lighted salon, superb amid these lights, in a
+red satin robe de chambre that lent a strange seductiveness to her bare
+arms and neck which shone with a pale and pearly lustre beneath the
+light.
+
+Vaudrey felt infinitely moved, almost painfully though deliciously
+stirred, as he always did when in the presence of this lovely creature.
+
+She extended her hand to him, saying in a singular tone that astonished
+him:
+
+"_Bonjour, vous!_"
+
+"Well!" she said at once, pointing to a journal which was lying on the
+carpet, "is there anything new?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "But what is that to me? I don't think of that when I am
+near you!"
+
+"Oh! besides, my dear," Marianne continued, "your darling sin has not
+been to think of two things at one time! I don't understand anything of
+politics, it bothers me. I have been advised, however, that you have
+been thrashed by that Granet!"
+
+"Thrashed, yes," said Sulpice, laughing, "you use peculiar phrases!--"
+
+"Topical ones. I am of the times! But it appears that one must read the
+journals to learn about you. I am going to tell you some news however,
+before it appears in print."
+
+"That interests me?"
+
+"Perhaps, but it most assuredly interests me!"
+
+"Important news?" asked Sulpice.
+
+"Important or great, as you will!"
+
+He nibbled his blond moustache nervously.
+
+Guy had not deceived him.
+
+"Then I think I know your news, my dear Marianne!"
+
+"Tell me!" she said, as she stretched herself on a divan, her arms
+crossed, looking ravishingly lovely in her red gown.
+
+He sought some forcible phrase that would crush her, but he could find
+none. His only desire was to take that fair face in his hands and to
+fasten his lips thereon.
+
+Marianne smiled maliciously.
+
+"It is true then," Vaudrey exclaimed, "that you love Monsieur de
+Rosas?"
+
+"There, you are well-informed! It is strange! Perhaps that is because
+you are no longer a minister!"
+
+"You love Rosas?"
+
+"Yes, and I am marrying him. I have the honor to announce to you my
+marriage to Monsieur le Duc Jose de Rosas, Marquis de Fuentecarral. It
+surprises me, but it is so!--I have known days when I have not had six
+sous to take the omnibus, and now I am to be a duchess! This does not
+seem to please you? Are you selfish, then?"
+
+Stretched on her divan, her neck and arms sparkling under the light of
+the sconces, she appeared to make sport of Vaudrey's stupefaction as he
+looked at her almost with fright.
+
+"Now, my dear," she said curtly, but politely, as she toyed with a ring
+on her finger, "this is why I desired to see you to-day. It is to tell
+you that if you care to remain friendly on terms that forbid sensual
+enjoyment, which is not objectionable in putting a lock on the past, you
+may visit the Duchesse de Rosas just as you have Mademoiselle Kayser.
+But if you are bent on finding in the Duchesse de Rosas the good-natured
+girl that I have been toward you, and you are quite capable of it, for
+you are a sentimental fellow, then it will be useless to even appear to
+have ever known each other. I am turning the key on my life. _Crac!
+Bonsoir_, Sulpice!"
+
+The unhappy man! He had cherished the thought of still visiting his
+mistress, but he found there an unlooked-for being, a new creature, who
+was unmistakably determined, in spite of her cunning charm, and she
+spoke to him in stupefying, ironical language.
+
+"You would have me go mad, Marianne?"
+
+"Why! what an idea! The phrase is decidedly romantic.--You should
+dispense with the blue in love as well as the exaggeration in politics."
+
+"Marianne," Vaudrey said abruptly, "do you know that for your sake I
+have destroyed my home and mortally wounded my wife?"
+
+"Well," she replied, "did I ask you to do so? I pleased you, you pleased
+me; that was quite enough. I desire no one's death and if you have
+allowed everything to be known, it is because you have acted
+indiscreetly or stupidly! But I who do not wish to mortally wound," she
+emphasized these words with a smile--"my husband, I expect him to
+suspect nothing, know nothing, and as you are incapable of possessing
+enough intelligence not to play Antony with him, let us stop here.
+Adieu, then, my dear Vaudrey!"
+
+She extended her hand to him, that soft hand that imparted an electrical
+influence when he touched it.
+
+"Well, what!--You are pouting?"
+
+"I love you," he replied distractedly. "I love you, you hear, and I wish
+to keep you!"
+
+"Ah! no, no! no roughness," she said with a laugh, as he, taking a seat
+near her, tried to draw her to him in his arms.
+
+"To keep you, although belonging to another," whispered Vaudrey slowly.
+
+"For whom do you take me?" said Marianne, proudly drawing herself up.
+"If I have a husband, I require that he be respected. A man who gives
+his name to a woman is clearly entitled to be dealt with truthfully!"
+
+"Then," stammered Sulpice, "what?--Must we never see each other again?"
+
+"We shall recognize each other."
+
+"You drive me away?"
+
+"As a lover!"
+
+"Ah! stay," said Vaudrey, as, pale with anger, he walked across the
+room, "you are a miserable woman, a courtesan, you understand, a
+courtesan!--Guy has told me everything! You gave yourself to Jouvenet to
+avenge yourself on Lissac, you made a tool of me and you are making a
+sport of Rosas who is marrying you!--What have I not done for you!--I
+have ruined myself! yes, ruined myself!"
+
+"My dear," interrupted Marianne, "see the difference between a gentleman
+like Monsieur de Rosas and a little bourgeois like yourself. The duke
+might have ruined himself for me but he would never have reproached me.
+One never speaks of money to a woman. You are a very honest, domestic
+man and you were born to worship your wife! You should stick to her! You
+are not made of the stuff of a true-born lover. What you have just told
+me is the remark of a loon!"
+
+"Ah! if I had only known you!"
+
+"Or anything! But I am better than you, you see. I was better advised
+than you. The bill of exchange that you owe to the Dujarrier or to
+Gochard,--whichever you like--it inconveniences you, I know!"
+
+"Yes," said Vaudrey, "but--"
+
+"You would not, I think, desire me to pay it with the duke's money, that
+Monsieur de Rosas should pay your debts?"
+
+"Marianne," cried Sulpice, livid with rage.
+
+"Bless me! you speak to me of money? You chant your ruin to me! The _De
+Profundis_ of your money-box, should I know that? I question with myself
+as to what it means!--However, knowing you to be financially
+embarrassed, I have myself found you help--Yes, I told someone who
+understands how to extricate business men, that you were embarrassed!"
+
+"I?"
+
+"There is nothing to blush about. I told Molina the _Tumbler_--You know
+him?"
+
+Did he know him! At that very moment he saw the ruddy gold moon that
+represented the banker's face amid all the expanse of his shining flesh.
+He trembled as if in the face of temptation.
+
+"Molina is a man of means," said Marianne. "If you need money, you can
+have it there! And now, once more, leave me to my new life! The past is
+as if it had never been!--_Bonjour, Bonsoir!_--and adieu, go!--Give me
+your hand!"
+
+She smiled so strangely, half lying on the divan, and stretched out her
+white hand, which he covered with kisses, murmuring:
+
+"Well, yes, adieu! Yes, adieu!--But once more--once!--this evening--I
+love you so dearly!--Will you?"
+
+She quietly reached out her bare arm toward a silk bell-rope that she
+jerked suddenly and Vaudrey rose enraged and humiliated.
+
+"Show Monsieur Vaudrey out," Marianne said to Justine, as she appeared
+at the door. "Then you may go to bed, my girl!"
+
+Vaudrey left this woman's house in a fit of frenzy. She had just treated
+him who had paid for the divan on which she was reclining as a genuine
+duchess might have treated a man who had been insolently disrespectful
+toward her. He was almost inclined to laugh at it.
+
+"It is well done! well done for you! Ah! the dolt! To trust a wanton! To
+trust Warcolier! To trust everybody! To trust everybody except
+Adrienne!--"
+
+He, mechanically and without thought, resumed the way to Place Beauvau,
+forgetting that the ministerial home was no longer his. The porter--who
+knows? might not have opened the gate to him. The lackeys would have
+driven him off as the girl had done whom he had paid, yes, paid, paid!
+For she was a harlot, nothing more!
+
+Gradually, the thought of that debt swelled by successive bills of
+exchange, and almost forgotten during the recent days of feverish
+excitement, took possession of his mind, he remembered that it must be
+discharged on the first day of December, in five days, and the thought
+troubled him like an impending danger. The prospect had often, during
+the last few weeks, made him anxious. He saw the months pass, the days
+flit with extraordinary rapidity, and the maturity, the inevitable due
+date draw near with the mathematical regularity of a clock. So long as
+months were ahead he felt no anxiety. Like gamblers he counted on
+chance. Besides, he still had some farms in Dauphiny. In short, a word
+to his notary and he could speedily get out of danger. Then, too, the
+date of payment was far away. He calculated that by economy as to his
+personal income and his official salary he could meet the bill to
+Gochard, whose very name sometimes made him laugh. But Marianne's
+exactions, unforeseen outlays, the eternal _leakage_ of Parisian life
+had quite prevented saving, and had dissipated in a thousand little
+streams the money that he wished to pay out in a lump in December. He
+soon grew alarmed by degrees at the approach of the maturity of the
+debt. He had written to his notary at Grenoble, and this old friend had
+replied that the farms of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, mortgaged and cut up
+one after another, now represented only a ridiculous value, but that
+after all, Vaudrey had nothing to be concerned about, seeing that
+Madame Vaudrey's fortune was intact.
+
+Adrienne's fortune! That then was all that remained to Vaudrey, and that
+might be his salvation. A fortune that was not very considerable, but
+still solid and creditable. But even if he were strangled by debt,
+dunned and driven into a corner, could he pay the debts he had
+contracted for his mistress by means of his wife's fortune? He was
+disgusted at the thought. It was impossible.
+
+Vaudrey felt his head turn under the humiliation of his double defeat,
+the loss of parliamentary confidence, and Marianne's insulting laugh,
+and urged by the anxiety he felt about the obligation to be met in eight
+days, in his bewilderment he thought of writing to Gochard of Rue des
+Marais, to ask for time. This Gochard must be a half-usurer. Certain of
+being paid, some day, he would perhaps be delighted to renew the bill of
+exchange in inordinately swelling the amount. The letter was written and
+Vaudrey mailed it himself the following morning.
+
+That very evening Adrienne was to leave. He endeavored to dissuade her
+from her plan. She did not even reply to him. She stood looking at a
+crystal vase on the chimney-piece in which were some winter roses,
+Christmas roses, fresh and milk-white, that had been sent as a souvenir
+from yonder Dauphiny. Her glance rested fixedly on that fair bouquet
+that seemed like a bursting cloud of whiteness.
+
+"Then," said Vaudrey, "it is settled--quite settled--you are going?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"In three hours?"
+
+"In three hours!"
+
+"I know where those roses were gathered," said Sulpice tenderly. "It was
+at the foot of the window where we leaned elbow to elbow and dreamed."
+
+"Yes," Adrienne answered, in a broken voice whose sound was like that
+which might have been given out by the vase had it been struck and
+shattered. "We had lovely dreams! The reality has indeed belied them!"
+
+"Adrienne!" he murmured.
+
+She made no reply.
+
+He tried to approach her, feeling ashamed as he thought that he had
+similarly wished to approach Marianne.
+
+She instinctively drew back.
+
+"You remember," she said coldly, "that one day when we were speaking
+about divorce, I told you that there was a very simple way of divorce?
+It was never to see each other again, never, to be nothing more to each
+other from the day on which confidence should die?--You have deceived
+me, it is done. I am a stranger to you! If I were a mother, I should
+have duties to fulfil. I would not have failed therein. I would have
+endured everything for a son!--Nothing is left to me. I have not even
+the joy of caressing a child that would have consoled me. I am your
+widow while you yet live. Well, be it so. You have willed it, there,
+then, is divorce!"
+
+For the third time since Adrienne had learned everything, he tried to
+stammer the word _pardon_. He felt it was useless. This sensitive being
+had withdrawn within herself and wrapped herself, as with a cloak, in
+all her outraged chastity. He could only humiliate himself without
+softening her. All Adrienne's deceived trustfulness and insulted love
+strengthened her in her determination never to forgive.
+
+She would go.
+
+Vaudrey in despair returned to his study, where the books that had been
+sent from the ministry were piled upon the carpet in all the confusion
+attending an entry into occupation. The servant at once brought him his
+lamp and handed him a package of cards in envelopes,--cards of
+condolence as for a death--and a large card, saying: "That gentleman is
+here!"
+
+"Molina!" said Vaudrey, becoming very pale. "Show him in!"
+
+The fat Salomon entered puffing and smiling, and spread himself out on
+an armchair as he said to the former minister:
+
+"Well, how goes it?--Not too badly crushed, eh?--Bah! what is it after
+all to quit office?--Only a means for returning to it, sometimes!"
+
+"All the same," he said with his cackling laugh that sounded like the
+jingling of a money-bag, "there are too many changes of ministers! They
+change them like shirts! It puts me out. I get used to one Excellency
+and he is put aside! So it is settled, henceforth I will not say
+Excellency save to the usher or an office-boy!"
+
+He accompanied his clumsy jests with a loud laugh, then, changing his
+tone:
+
+"Come, that is not all. I came to speak of business to you."
+
+He looked Vaudrey full in the face with his piercing glance, took from
+his pocketbook a printed sheet and said in a precise tone:
+
+"Here is an opportunity where your title of former minister will serve
+you better than that of minister. So much is being said of Algeria, its
+mines and its fibre. Well, read that!"
+
+Vaudrey took the paper. It was the prospectus, very skilfully drawn, of
+a company established to introduce gas into Algeria, almost as far as
+the Sahara. They promised the subscribers wonders and miracles: acres
+upon acres of land as a bonus. There was a fortune to be made. Meantime,
+they would issue six thousand shares of five hundred francs. It was
+three millions they were asking from the public. A mere trifle.
+
+"They might ask ten," said Molina, smiling. "They would give it!"
+
+"And you wish me to subscribe to your Algerian gas?" asked Vaudrey.
+
+The fat Molina burst out into loud laughter this time.
+
+"I? I simply wish to give you the opportunity to make a fortune!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"That is one scheme. I will bring you four, five, ten of them! I have
+another, the Luxemburg coal. A deposit equal to that of Charleroi. You
+have only to allow me to print in the list of directors: Monsieur
+Sulpice Vaudrey, former President of the Council."
+
+Vaudrey looked the fat man squarely in the face.
+
+"Besides you will be in good company!" said the banker as he read over
+the names of deputies, senators, statesmen, coupled with those of
+financiers.
+
+Sulpice knew most of them.
+
+He despised nearly all of them. It was such that Molina styled _good
+company!_
+
+"And those mines, are you certain they will produce what you promise?"
+
+"Ah!" said Salomon, "that is the engineers' matter! Here is the report
+of a mining engineer who is perhaps straining after effect and doing a
+little puffing up! But one must go with the times! He who ventures
+nothing, has nothing. In war, one risks one's skin; in business, one
+risks one's money. That is war."
+
+Vaudrey debated with himself whether he should tear the prospectus in
+pieces and throw them in the face of the fat man.
+
+"My dear Vaudrey," said the _Tumbler_, "you have a vein that is
+entirely your own. A former minister remains always a former minister.
+Well, such a title as that is turned to account. It is quoted, like any
+other commodity. You are not rich, that fact proves your honesty,
+although in America, and we are Americanizing ourselves devilishly much,
+that would only be the measure of your stupidity. You can become rich, I
+have the means of making myself agreeable to you and you have the
+opportunity of becoming useful to us."
+
+"In a word, you buy my name?"
+
+"I hire it from you! Very dearly," said Molina, still laughing.
+
+"Certainly," said Vaudrey, "you did not understand me on the first
+occasion that you called on me to speak about money, and when I
+questioned with myself whether I should ask you not to call again."
+
+Molina interrupted him abruptly by rising. He felt that an insult was
+about to be uttered. He parried it by anticipating it.
+
+"Stupidity!" he said. "Here is the prospectus. There are the names of
+the directors. You will consider. It has never injured any one to take
+advantage of his position. The puritans, in an age of trickery, are
+idiots; I say so. What I propose to you surprises you. To place your
+name beside that of Monsieur Pichereau or Monsieur Numa de Baranville!
+It is as simple as saying good-day. Perhaps you think then that you will
+be the only one? They all do it, all those who are extravagant and
+shrewd. It is a matter of coquetting in these days over a hundred-sou
+piece! Come, I will wager that Monsieur Montyon would not mince
+matters--especially if he had transferable paper in circulation!"
+
+"You know that?" said Vaudrey, turning pale.
+
+"Ah! I know many others in like condition! Come, no false modesty! It is
+a matter of business only! I tell you again, I have many other cases.
+All this is in order to have the pleasure of offering you certificates
+for attendance fees. I will open a credit for you of two hundred
+thousand francs, if you wish. We will arrange matters afterwards."
+
+"I will leave you these declarations of faith!" added Molina, showing
+the prospectus of the gas undertaking. "Fear nothing! It is not more
+untruthful than the others! It is unnecessary to show me out. _A la
+revista!_"
+
+He disappeared abruptly, Vaudrey hearing the floor of the hall creak
+under this man's hippopotamus feet, and the unhappy Sulpice who had spun
+so many, such glorious and grand dreams, dreams of liberty, freedom and
+virtue, civic regeneration, reconstructed national morals and character,
+the sacredness of the hearth and the education of the conscience; this
+Vaudrey, bruised by life, overthrown by his vices, was there under the
+soft light of his lamp, looking with staring eye, as a being who wishes
+to die contemplates the edge of an abyss, looking at that printed paper
+soliciting subscriptions, beating the big drum of the _promoter_ in
+order to entrap the vast and ever-credulous horde.
+
+His name! To put his name there! The name of Vaudrey that he had dreamed
+of reading at the foot of so many noble, eternal and reforming laws, to
+inscribe it upon that paper beneath so many cunning names, jugglers,
+habitual drainers of the public cash-box. To fall to that! To do that!
+
+To lend himself?
+
+To sell himself!
+
+And why not sell himself? Who would discharge this bill of exchange? The
+Gochard paper! The debt of the past! The price of the nights spent with
+Marianne! The hundred thousand francs for that girl's kisses!
+
+Sulpice felt in the weakness increased by a growing fever, that his
+self-possession was leaving him. All his ideas clashed confusedly. Amid
+the chaos, only one clear idea remained; a hundred and sixty thousand
+francs had to be found. Where were they to be found? Yes, where? Through
+Molina, who offered him two hundred thousand! This open credit seemed to
+him like an opened-up placer in which he had only to dig with his nails.
+The cunning and thick voice of the Hebrew banker echoed in Sulpice's
+ears: "They all do it!" It was not so difficult to give his name, or to
+_hire_ it, as Salomon said. Who the devil would notice it at a time when
+indifference passes over scandals as the sea covers the putrid
+substances on the shore and washes them with its very scum?
+
+"They all do it!"
+
+No, despite the irony of the handler of money, there are some
+consciences that refuse to yield: and then, what then?--Vaudrey had
+desired virtue of a different kind and other morals! Ah! how he had
+suffered the poison to penetrate him; even to his bones! How Marianne
+had deformed and moulded him at her fancy, and he still thought of her
+only with unsatisfied longings for her kisses and ardor! Ah! women!
+Woman! Yes, indeed, yes, woman was the great source of moral weakness
+and inactivity. She used politics in her own way, in destroying
+politicians. If he had only left office with head erect and not dragging
+the chain-shot of debt! But that bill of exchange! Who would pay that?
+
+"Eh! Molina, _parbleu!_ Molina! Molina!"
+
+He was right, too, that triumphant Jew with his insolent good humor. It
+is an absurd thing, after all, to be prudish and to thrust away the dish
+that is offered you. To be rich is, in fact, quite as good as to be
+powerful! Money remains! That is the only real thing in the world! It
+would be a fine sight to see a man refuse the opportunity to make a
+fortune, and to refuse it--why? For a silly, conscientious scruple. And
+after all, business was the very life of modern society. This Molina,
+circulating his money, was as useful as many others who circulate
+ideas.
+
+"His Algerian gas is a work of civilization just like any other!"
+
+Urged by the necessity of escaping from that debt that strangled him
+like a running noose, Sulpice gradually arrived at argumentative
+sophistries, which were but capitulations to his own probity, cowardly
+arrangements with his own conscience. His name? Well, he would turn it
+into money since it was worth a gold ingot! The journalist who sells his
+thought, the artist who sells his marble, the writer who sells his
+experiences and his recollections, equally sell their names and for
+money, the flesh of their flesh. Like a living answer and a remorse, he
+saw the lean face and white moustache of Ramel, who was seated at the
+window, breathing the warm rays of the sun, in the little room on Rue
+Boursault, but he answered, speaking aloud:
+
+"Well, what?--Ramel is a saint, a hero!--But I am no saint. I am a man
+and I will live!"
+
+Somewhat angered, he took the prospectus that Molina had left him and
+rereading it again and again, he relapsed into a sitting posture and
+with haggard eyes scanned the loud-swelling lines of that commercial
+announcement, seeking therein some pretext for accepting. For he would
+accept, that was done. Nothing more was to be said, his conscience
+yielded. He was inclined to laugh.
+
+"Still another victim caught and floored by Molina the _Tumbler!_"
+
+He remained there, terrified at the prospect of the quasi-association he
+had determined on and by his complicity with a jobber of questionable
+business.
+
+With his eye fixed upon this solicitation for capital, wherein were the
+words which would formerly have repelled him: _joint stock company_,
+_capital stock_, _public subscription_, _subscription certificate_, and at
+the head of which he was about to inscribe his name as one of the
+directors, at the foot of a capitulation, as it were, Sulpice had not
+seen, standing in the doorway of his half-lighted study, a woman in
+travelling costume, who stopped for a moment to look at the unfortunate,
+dejected man within the shade of the lamp which made him look more bald
+than he was, then advanced gently toward him, coughing slightly--for she
+did not dare to call him by his name or touch him with her gloved
+hand--to warn him that she was there.
+
+Vaudrey turned round abruptly, instinctively pushing aside Molina's
+prospectus, as if he already felt some shame in holding it in his hands.
+
+He flushed as he recognized Adrienne.
+
+The young woman's reserved attitude showed absolute firmness. She came
+to say adieu, she was about to leave.
+
+He had not even the energy to keep her. He was afraid of an unbending
+reply that would have been an outrage.
+
+"Do you intend to become associated with Molina?" Adrienne asked in a
+clear voice, as she looked at Sulpice, who had risen.
+
+"What! Molina?" he stammered.
+
+"Yes, oh! he understands business. On leaving, he called on me. He
+thought that I had still sufficient influence over you to urge you, as
+he says, to make your fortune. He told me that you were in want of
+money, and after having been sharp enough to try the husband, he offered
+me, as you might give a commission to a courtesan, I do not know what
+emerald ornament, if I would advise you to accept his proposals!--That
+gentleman does not know the people with whom he is dealing!"
+
+"Wretch!" said Vaudrey. "He did that?"
+
+"And I thanked him," Adrienne replied calmly. "I did not know that you
+had debts and that, in order to pay them, you had come so near accepting
+the patronage of such a man. He told me so and he rendered me and you a
+service."
+
+"Me?"
+
+Vaudrey snatched up the prospectus of the Algerian gas and angrily tore
+it in pieces.
+
+"We shall probably not see each other again," said Adrienne, in a firm
+voice that contrasted strangely with her gentle grace; "but I shall
+never forget that I bear your name and that being mine, I will ever
+honor it."
+
+She handed Sulpice a document.
+
+"Here is a power of attorney to Monsieur Beauvais, my notary. All that
+you need of my dowry to free yourself from liabilities is yours. I do
+not wish to know why you have incurred debts, I am anxious only to know
+that you have paid them, and my signature provides you with the means to
+do so."
+
+Dejected, his heart burning, and his sobs rising, Sulpice uttered a loud
+cry as he rushed toward her:
+
+"Adrienne!"
+
+She withdrew her hand slowly while he was trying to seize it.
+
+"You have nothing to thank me for," she said. "I am a partner, saving,
+as I best can, the honor of the house. That association is better than
+Molina's."
+
+"Adieu," she added bitterly.
+
+"Are you going--? Going away?" asked Sulpice, trying to give to his
+entreaty something like an echo of the love of the former days.
+
+"Whose fault is it?" replied the young woman, in a voice as chilly as
+steel.
+
+She was no longer the Adrienne of old, the little timid provincial with
+blushing cheek and trembling gesture. Sorrow, the most terrible of
+disillusions, had hardened and, as it were, petrified her. Vaudrey felt
+that to ask forgiveness would be in vain. Time only could soften that
+poor woman, obstinately unbending in her grief. He needed but to observe
+her attitude and cutting tones to fully realize that.
+
+"It is quite understood," she continued, treating this question of her
+happiness as if she were cutting deep into her flesh and severing the
+tenderest fibres of her being, but without trembling,--"it is quite
+understood, is it not, that we shall make no scene or scandal? We are
+separated neither judicially nor even in appearance. We live apart by
+mutual consent, far from each other, without anything being known by
+outsiders of this definitive rupture."
+
+"Adrienne!" Sulpice repeated, "it is impossible, you will not leave!"
+
+"Oh!" she said. "I gave myself and I have taken myself back. Your
+entreaties will not now alter my determination. I am eager to leave
+Paris. It seems to me that I have regained myself and that I escape from
+falsity, lies, and infamy, and from a swarm of insects that crawl over
+my body!--I bid you farewell, and farewell it is!"
+
+"Well, let it be so!" exclaimed Vaudrey. "Go! But if it is a stranger
+who leaves me, I will accept nothing from her. Here is the authority.
+Will you take it back?"
+
+"I? No, I will not take it back! If you desire me to be worthy of the
+name that you have given me, keep it honored, at least, in the sight of
+the world, since to betray a woman, to mock and insult her, is not
+dishonoring. I alone have the right to save you from shame. Do not deny
+me the privilege that I claim. I do not desire that the man who has been
+my husband should descend to the questionable intrigues of a Molina.
+You have outraged me enough, do not impose this last insult on me!"
+
+"For the last time, adieu!"
+
+She went out, and he allowed her to disappear, overwhelmed by this
+living mourning of a faith. She fled and he allowed her to descend the
+stairway, followed by her femme de chambre. She entered the carriage
+that was waiting for her below, in Rue Chaussee-d'Antin, but he had not
+the courage, hopeless as he was, to follow the carriage whose rumbling
+he heard above the noise of the street as it rolled away more quickly
+and more heavily than the others, and it seemed to him that its wheels
+had crushed his bosom.
+
+"Ah! what a wretch I have been!" he said as he struck his knee with his
+closed fist. "How unhappy I am! Adrienne!"
+
+He rose abruptly, as if moved by a spring, and bounded toward a window
+which he threw wide open to admit the cold wind of this November
+evening, and tried to distinguish among the many carriages that rolled
+through the brownish mud, with their lighted lamps shining like so many
+eyes, to discover, to imagine the carriage that was bearing Adrienne
+away. He believed that he recognized it in a vehicle that was threading
+its way, loaded with trunks, almost out of sight yonder.
+
+He leaned upon the window-sill, and like a shipwrecked sailor who sees a
+receding ship, he called out, with a loud cry lost in the tempest of
+that bustling and busy street:
+
+"Adrienne! Adrienne!"
+
+No reply! The carriage had disappeared in the distance, in the fog.
+
+For a moment, Sulpice remained there crushed but drawn by the noise of
+the street, as if by some whirlpool in the deep sea. Had he been thrown
+out and been dashed upon the pavements, he would have been happy. Only a
+void seemed about him, and before him that black hollow in which moved
+confusedly only strangers who in no way formed part of his life.
+
+This isolation terrified him. At last, he went downstairs in haste,
+threw himself into a carriage and had himself driven to the railway,
+intending to see Adrienne again.
+
+"Quickly! quickly! at your best speed!"
+
+The driver whipped up his horses and the carriage-windows clattered with
+the noise of old iron.
+
+Vaudrey arrived too late. The train had left twenty minutes before. He
+had reflected too long at his window.
+
+"Besides," he said to himself sadly, "she would not have forgiven me!
+She will never forget!"
+
+Buried in the corner of the coach that took her away, and closing her
+eyes, recalling all her past life, so cruelly ironical to-day, Adrienne,
+disturbed by the noise and rolling of the train that increased her
+feverish condition, felt her heart swell, and poor, broken creature
+that she was, called all her strength to her aid to refrain from
+weeping, from crying out in her grief. She was taking away, back to the
+country, the half-withered Christmas roses received from Grenoble, and
+in the morbid confusion of the ideas that clashed in her poor brain, she
+saw once more Lissac's blanched face and heard Guy tell her again: "It
+is because you are a virtuous woman that I love you!"
+
+"A virtuous woman! Does he know how to love as well as the others?" she
+murmured, as she thought of Vaudrey whom she would never see again, and
+whom she no longer loved.
+
+"See! I am a widow now, and a widow who will never love anyone, and who
+will never marry again."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Alone in Paris now, a body without a soul, distracted, and the prey of
+ennui, with sad and bitter regret for his wasted life, repeating to
+himself that Adrienne, far away from him, would never forgive, and was
+doubtless, at this moment, saying and saying again to herself in her
+solitude at Grenoble, that these politicians, at least, owed her
+divorce, Vaudrey, not knowing what to do after a weary day of troubled
+rest, mechanically entered the Opera House to distract his eyes if not
+his mind.
+
+They were rendering _Aida_ that evening, and a debutante had been
+announced as a star.
+
+Sulpice Vaudrey, since Adrienne's departure,--already two weeks!--had
+wandered about Paris like a damned soul when he did not attend the
+Chamber, where he experienced the discomforts and the weakness of a
+fallen man. Weary, disgusted and melancholy, Vaudrey took his seat in
+the theatre to kill an evening.
+
+There was what was called in the language of a Paris editor, a _swell
+house_. In front of the stage there was literally a shower of diamonds
+and the boxes were gaily adorned. The _fauteuils_ were occupied by
+Parisian glories and foreign celebrities. Not a stall in the
+amphitheatre without its _celebrity_. Chance had placed in this
+All-Paris gathering, Madame Sabine Marsy and Madame Gerson, the two
+friends who detested each other. The pretty little Madame Gerson
+occupied and filled with her prattle, the box of the Prefect of
+Police--No. 30, in which Monsieur Jouvenet showed his churchwarden's
+profile. She was talking aloud about her salon, her receptions, her
+acquaintances. She was eclipsing Madame Marsy with her triumphs. At the
+back of the box, Monsieur Gerson was sleeping, overcome by fatigue.
+Madame Gerson laughed on observing Sulpice in the orchestra-stalls.
+
+"See! there is Monsieur Vaudrey! He still looks a little _beaten!_" she
+said.
+
+And she told her friends, crowded in the box, leaning over her and
+looking at the pretty, plump bosom of this little, well-made brunette,
+how Vaudrey was to dine at her house on the very evening when he fell
+from power.
+
+"Of course, he did not come!" she said. "I remember what Madame Marsy
+advised me, one day,--she has passed through that in her time: one
+should think of the invitations to dinner before dismissing a ministry!
+Oh! it is tiresome; think of it!--One invites the Secretary of the
+President of the Council to dinner. He is named on the card. He comes.
+It is all over; he is no longer Secretary of the President, the
+President of the Council is no longer President, there is no longer a
+President, perhaps not even a Council; one should be certain of one's
+titles and rank before accepting an invitation to dinner!"
+
+She laughed heartily and loud, and Madame Marsy, who was half dethroned,
+fanned herself nervously in her box, or levelled her glass at some one
+in the audience, affecting a little disdainful manner toward her fair
+neighbor. A friendship turned to acid.
+
+Vaudrey, looking fatigued and abstracted, sat in his stall during the
+entr'acte. He looked unconsciously about the theatre and still felt
+surprised at not receiving salutations and bows, as formerly. He felt
+that he was becoming a waif. Bah! he consoled himself with the thought
+that the human race is thus constructed: everything is in success, he
+gets most who offers most. Why then trouble about it?
+
+His eyes followed the movement of his glass and one after another he saw
+Madame Marsy, Jouvenet, Madame Gerson, so many living and exceedingly
+taunting recollections, when suddenly Sulpice trembled, shaken by a
+keener and almost angry feeling as his glance was directed to a box
+against the dark-red of which two faces were boldly outlined: those of
+Rosas and Marianne.
+
+He was excited and unpleasantly piqued.
+
+There before him he saw, between two large pillars, bearing gigantic,
+gilded masts that seemed to mock at him, the woman whom he had adored
+and the sight of whom still tore his heart. Pale and dressed in a white
+gown, she was leaning toward Rosas in a most adorable attitude, with her
+fair hair half-falling on her white shoulders--those shoulders that he
+still saw trembling under his kisses, those shoulders on which he might
+have pressed his burning lips and his teeth.
+
+That livid beauty, strangely adorable, with her hair and ears dazzling
+with jewels, stood clearly out against the background of the box in
+which, like an enormous Cyclopean eye, appeared the round, ground glass
+let into the door, forming a nimbus of light around Marianne's brow.
+Paler than her, with a sickly but smiling countenance, Rosas showed his
+bloodless, pale, Spanish face beside that of Marianne, as tragic looking
+as a portrait by Coello. His tired-looking, pensive, thin face was
+resting on his hand, which through the opera-glass looked a transparent
+hand of wax, on which an enormous emerald ring flashed under the
+gaslight. Monsieur de Rosas did not move.
+
+She, on the contrary, at times inclined toward him, bringing her mouth
+close to the Castilian's ear, standing out against his reddish beard as
+if detached therefrom, and she whispered to Rosas words that Vaudrey
+surmised, and which caused a spark of feverish delight to lighten up
+Jose's sad eyes. As she leaned back tilting her chair, her satin corsage
+below the bust was hidden from Sulpice by the edge of the box and he saw
+only her face, neck and white shoulders, and she seemed to him to be
+quite naked, the lines of her serpentine body sharply marked by the red
+line of the velvet border. And with his greedy glance he continued to
+trace the curves of that exquisite torso, the back that he had pressed,
+all the being moulded by voluptuousness, that had been his.
+
+This was the vanishing of his last dream! This love gone, this deception
+driven into his heart like a knife, his last faith mocked at, insulted,
+and branded with its true name, _folly_, he felt as if a yawning chasm
+had been opened in him. Life was over! He was old now and he had wasted,
+yes, wasted his happiness in playing at youth. He had believed himself
+loved! Loved! Imbecile that he was!
+
+He felt himself urged by a strong temptation to go to that box and open
+its door and cry out to that man who had not yet given his name to that
+woman:
+
+"You do not know her! She is debauchery and falsehood itself!"
+
+It seemed to Vaudrey that at times a bearded face, surmounting a white
+cravat, appeared behind Rosas and Marianne: the haughty face of Uncle
+Simon.
+
+While the throng of Egyptians filed on the stage, Sulpice endeavored to
+turn away his thoughts and remove his glances from that group that
+attracted him. He still, however, looked at it, in spite of himself, and
+voluntarily wounded his own heart.
+
+Marianne did not seem to have even noticed him.
+
+The curtain fell and he wandered into the wings, less to be there than
+to escape that irritating sight. In breathing that atmosphere of a
+theatre, he experienced a strange sensation that pained and consoled him
+at the same time. The scene-shifters were rolling back the illuminating
+apparatus pierced with light, and dragged to the rear the huge white
+sphinxes and the immense canvas on which the palm-trees were outlined
+upon a blue sky. Sulpice felt the cruelly ironical sensation of finding
+himself, disheartened and defeated, once more on the very boards where
+he had entered the first time, smiling, swelling with joy, saluting and
+saluted and hearing on every side the same murmur, sweet as a May
+zephyr:
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre."
+
+It was the same scene, the same dress-coats upon the same luminous
+boards, the same electric rays that fell around him in the hour of his
+accession, creating the same vulgar aureole. Some firemen crossed the
+stage slowly and with a wearied expression made their examinations; some
+water-carriers were sprinkling the parquet, while others were brushing
+away the dust. And as if these common duties interested Sulpice, he
+looked on with a vacant expression, as if his thoughts had taken wing.
+
+Suddenly, in the centre of a group, with his hat on, escorted by bending
+men, whose lips expressed flattery, Sulpice recognized Lucien Granet,
+who in the dazzling triumph of his new kingdom, crossed and recrossed
+the stage, distributing here and there patronizing bows.
+
+The coarse Molina accompanied the new minister, laughing in a loud tone
+like the sound of a well-filled cash-box suddenly shaken.
+
+Vaudrey felt just as if he had received a blow full in the chest.
+
+He recalled his own meeting as a successful man with Pichereau the
+beaten one, on these very boards and almost in the same place, and in
+order to avoid having to endure the friendly ironical hand-shake that
+Pichereau was approaching him to give--the hand-shake formerly given to
+Pichereau--he quickly hid himself behind a wing, receiving as he did so,
+a blow, accompanied with a: _Pardon, monsieur_, from a workman who was
+pushing along a piece of scenery, and a: _What a clumsy fellow!_ from a
+little danseuse, the tip of whose pink slipper he had unwittingly grazed
+with his heel.
+
+He turned to the danseuse to apologize, when he perceived a young girl,
+all in pink, whose blue eyes looked frightened and her cheeks reddened
+when she recognized Vaudrey. It was Marie Launay, whom he had seen in
+the greenroom the previous year, who had not yet scored a _success_,
+while he was _retired_.
+
+"Oh! I did not recognize you," she said. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur le
+Ministre!"
+
+He wished to make some reply; but this title used by the young girl,
+ignorant of the political change, grated on his heart like the
+scratching of a nail and he saw on the other side of the stage, reaching
+the house by the communicating door, Lucien Granet, surrounded by his
+staff, and followed by the eternal cortege of powerful ones, among whom
+Warcolier was talking loudly, and Molina the Tumbler was recognizable by
+his enormous paunch and loud laugh.
+
+"Perhaps Madame Marsy has asked that this Granet be presented to her,"
+thought Vaudrey as he mockingly recalled how Guy de Lissac ran after him
+there in order to conduct him to the fashionable woman's box.
+
+How long it was since then!
+
+Sabine Marsy was dethroned. And he!--
+
+He felt a friendly tap on the shoulder as he was moving away, and
+turning around he saw Warcolier who, having seen him in the distance,
+doubtless came to him to enjoy the simple pleasure of treating him
+patronizingly, he who had so long called him _Monsieur le Ministre_.
+
+"Well, my dear Vaudrey, what is the news?" said Warcolier, bearing his
+head high and smiling with a silly, but an aggressively benign
+expression, with the superior tone of satisfied fools.
+
+"Nothing!" said Sulpice. "I think Verdi's music is superb!"
+
+"Oh! a little Wagnerian," Warcolier replied, repeating what he had
+heard. "But what of politics?"
+
+"Ah! politics concerns you now!"
+
+"Well! why," Warcolier replied, "that goes on well. There is a little
+relaxation! a ministry more--more--"
+
+"More homogeneous!" said Vaudrey, in a slightly mocking tone.
+
+"Exactly. And, after all, the duty of every good citizen is to defend
+the government under which we live."
+
+Ah! assuredly, Vaudrey considered that his former Secretary of State,
+now become the vassal of Granet, displayed a rather ridiculous
+assurance. He smiled as if he would have laughed in his face and turned
+his back upon him.
+
+Warcolier was not annoyed, for he felt certain that he had angered the
+former minister, and he was delighted. It was a kick from an ass. The
+witticism of a fool.
+
+Vaudrey regained his place, much dissatisfied at having come and furious
+at this pretentious imbecile, when, on leaving the wings, he ran against
+Lissac who was entering a sort of hall where Louis sat writing the names
+of the entrances on the sheet.
+
+Guy flushed slightly on seeing him.
+
+"In order to see you, one has to meet you here," said Sulpice. "Why have
+you not called on me? Is it because I am no longer a minister?"
+
+"That would be a reason for seeing me more frequently," said Lissac.
+"But it is not that. What do you want me to tell you? You know my
+sentiments. I don't care to become a bore, as it is called, or a
+ceaseless prater of morality, which is the same thing. Besides, morality
+to me is something like the Montyon prize to a harlot! Then, too, I am
+keeping in my corner and I shall stick to it hereafter closer than ever.
+I have put the brake on. I am getting old, and I shall bury myself in
+some suburb and look after my rheumatism."
+
+In Lissac's tone there was an unexpected melancholy.
+
+"Then you will not call on me again?"
+
+"What is the use of worrying you?--Reflect for yourself, my good man!
+You don't need me to emphasize your blunders. By the way, you know, our
+mad mistress?--She is in the theatre."
+
+"I have seen her!" said Vaudrey, turning very pale.
+
+"She is not yet a duchess, but that will be patched up in four days. If
+one were only a rascal, how one could punish the hussy! But what is the
+use? And this devilish Rosas, who is mad enough over her to tie himself
+to her and to overlook everything he ought to know, would be capable of
+marrying her all the same! Much good may it do him!"
+
+"But, tell me," continued Lissac, whose cutting tone suddenly became
+serious, "have you read the paper?"
+
+"No! What is there in it?"
+
+They were then in the corridor of the Opera, and heard the prelude to
+the curtain-raising. Guy took the _Soir_ from his pocket and handed it
+to Vaudrey:
+
+"Here, see!--That poor Ramel!--You were very fond of him, were you not?"
+
+"Ramel!"
+
+Vaudrey had no need to read. He knew everything as soon as Guy showed
+him the paper and mentioned Denis's name in a mournful tone.
+
+Dead!--He died peacefully in his armchair near the window, as if falling
+asleep.--"The death is announced," so read the paragraph, "of one of the
+oldest members of the Parisian press, Monsieur Denis Ramel, who was
+formerly a celebrated man and for a long time directed the _Nation
+Francaise_, once an important journal, now no longer in existence."--Not
+a word beyond the brief details of his death. No word of praise or
+regret, merely the commonplace statement of a fact. Vaudrey thought it
+was a trifling notice for a man who had held so large a place in the
+public eye.
+
+"What do you think of it?" he said to Lissac. "People are ungrateful."
+
+"Why, what would you have? Why didn't he write operettas?"
+
+They parted after exchanging almost an ordinary grasp of the hand,
+though, perhaps, somewhat sad. Sulpice wished to cast a last look at
+Rosas's box. Marianne was standing, her outline clearly defined against
+the brightly-lighted background of the box. She was holding a saucer in
+her hand, eating an ice. He saw her once more as she stood near the
+buffet at Madame Marsy's, stirring her sherbet, a silver-gilt spoon
+smoothly gliding over her tongue. He closed his eyes, and with a nervous
+start quickly descended the grand stairway, where he found himself
+alone.
+
+In order to forget Marianne, he turned his thoughts to Ramel.
+
+Denis had been suffering for a long time. He smiled as he felt the hour
+of his departure draw near. He wished to disappear without stir, and in
+a civil way as he said, without attracting attention, _a l'Anglaise_.
+Poor man! his wish was accomplished.
+
+Vaudrey threw himself into a carriage and was driven to Batignolles. On
+the way he thought of the eternal antitheses of Parisian life: the news
+of the death of a friend communicated to him at the Opera while a
+waltz-tune was being played!
+
+And thinking to himself:
+
+"_From the Opera to the Opera!_ That, moreover, is the history of my
+ministry--and that of the Granet administration, probably!"
+
+The portress at Rue Boursault led him to Denis Ramel's apartment. Lying
+on his bed with a kindly smile on his face, the old journalist seemed
+as if asleep. The cold majesty of death gave a look of power to his
+face. One might almost believe at times, from the scintillating light
+placed near his bony brow, that its rigid muscles moved.
+
+Denis Ramel! the sure guide of his youth and his counsellor through
+life! He recalled his entry on public life, his arrival in Paris, the
+first articles brought into the old editorial rooms of the _Nation
+Francaise_! If for a moment he had been one of the heads of the State,
+it was due to the man stretched out before him now!
+
+He gently stooped over the corpse and pressed a farewell kiss on the
+dead man's brow.
+
+As he turned round, he saw a man whom he had not at first seen and who
+had risen.
+
+The man was very pale and greeted him with a timid air.
+
+Vaudrey recognized Garnier, the man whom he had seen previously at
+Ramel's, a cough-racked, patient, dying man.
+
+The consumptive had nevertheless outlived the old man.
+
+"It is good of you to have come, monsieur," said the workman. "He loved
+you dearly."
+
+"He died suddenly then?"
+
+"Yes, and quite alone, while reading a book. He was found thus. They
+thought he was sleeping. It is all over, he is to be buried to-morrow.
+Will you come, monsieur?--I did not know who you were when--you know--I
+said--In fact, it is kind--let us say no more about it--I beg your
+pardon--There will be a vast gathering at Denis Ramel's funeral, if
+there are present only a quarter of those whom he has obliged."
+
+Vaudrey was heartbroken the next day. Behind Ramel's coffin, not a
+person followed. Himself, Garnier, and one or two old women from the
+house on Rue Boursault, who did not go all the way to the cemetery of
+Saint-Ouen because it was too far, were all that were present. At the
+grave Sulpice Vaudrey stood alone with the grave-digger and the workman
+Garnier. They buried Ramel in a newly-opened part close to the foot of a
+railway embankment.
+
+For years Ramel had been forgotten, had even forgotten himself, he had
+let ambitious men pass beyond him, ingrates succeed and selfish men get
+to the top! He no longer existed! And those very men who had entreated
+him and called him _dear master_ in the old days, soliciting and
+flattering him, now no longer knew his name. Had he disappeared, or did
+he still live, that forerunner, a sort of Japanese idol, an ancient, a
+useless being who had known neither how to make his fortune nor his
+position, while building up that of others? Nobody knew or cared.
+Occasionally when circumstances called for it, they laughed at this
+romantic figure in politics, living like a porter, poor, lost, and
+buried under a mass of unknown individuals, after having made ministers
+and unmade governments. Yet, at the news of his death, not one of those
+who were indebted to him for everything, not a single politician who was
+well in the saddle, and for whom he had held the stirrup, not a comedian
+of the Chambers or the theatre who had pleaded with him, urged and
+flattered him, was to be found there to pay the most ordinary respects
+of memory to the man who had disappeared. That fateful solitude, added
+to a keen winter's wind, appeared to Sulpice to be a cruel abandonment
+and an act of cowardice. Two men followed the cortege of that maker of
+men!
+
+"Follow journalism and you make the fame of others," said Vaudrey,
+shaking his head.
+
+"After all," answered Garnier, "there are dupes in every trade, and they
+are necessarily the most honest."
+
+When this man, who had been a minister, left the grave above which the
+whistling trains passed, a freezing rain was falling and he passed out
+of the cemetery in the company of the poor devil who coughed so sadly
+within the collar of his overcoat that was tightly drawn up over his
+comforter.
+
+Before leaving him, Vaudrey, with a feeling of timidity, desired to ask
+him if work was at least fairly good.
+
+"Thanks!" replied Garnier. "I have found a situation--And then--" he
+shook his head as he pointed out behind the black trees and the white
+graves, the spot where they had lowered Ramel--"One has always a place
+when all is over, and that perhaps is the best of all!"
+
+He bowed and Vaudrey left in a gloomy mood. It seemed to him that his
+life was crumbling away, that he was sowing, shred by shred, his flesh
+on the road. The black hangings of Ramel's coffin--and he smiled sadly
+at this new irony--recalled to him the bills of the upholsterers that he
+still owed for the furnishing of that fete at the ministry on the last
+day of his power and his happiness. The official decorations of Belloir
+and the Gobelins were not sufficient for him. He had desired more modern
+decorations. He gave the coachman the upholsterer's address, Boulevard
+des Capucins. He hardly dared to enter and say: "I have come to pay the
+account of the furnishing supplied at the ministry!" It still seemed
+like a funeral bill he was paying. This upholsterer's account, paid for
+forgotten display, seemed to him a sort of mortuary transaction.
+
+When he paid the upholsterer, the latter seemed to wear a cunning smile.
+
+On finding himself again outside, he felt a sensation of relief; being
+cold, he was inclined to walk with a view to warming his chill blood.
+
+On hearing his name spoken by some one, he turned round and perceived
+before him his compatriot Jeliotte, the friend of his childhood, the
+comrade, who, with a smile, cordially extended his hands toward him.
+
+"I told you that you would always find me when I should not appear
+before you as a courtier! Well, then, here I am," said Jeliotte. "Now
+you may see me as much as you please!"
+
+"Ah!" said Vaudrey.
+
+Jeliotte took his arm.
+
+"Probably you are going to the Chamber?"
+
+"Yes, exactly."
+
+"Well, I will accompany you!--Ah, since you are no longer minister, my
+dear friend, and that one does not appear to be a flatterer or a seeker
+of patronage, one can speak to you--You have faults enough!--You are too
+confident, too moderate--It is necessary to have a firm hand--And then
+that could not last. Those situations are all very fine but they are too
+easily destroyed!--They are like glass, my old friend!--A place is
+wanted for everybody, is it not?--Bah! must I tell you?--Why, you are
+happier! I like you better as it is!"
+
+Vaudrey felt strongly inclined to shake off this pretentious ninny who
+was clinging to his arm.
+
+"That is like me!" continued Jeliotte. "I like my friends better when
+they are down! What would you have? It is my generous nature. By the
+way, do you know that the reason I have not seen you before is because I
+have not been in Paris! I have returned from Isere!"
+
+"Ah!" said Vaudrey, thinking of Adrienne.
+
+"Well, you know, I have still some good news for you. If you have had
+enough of politics, you can retire at the approaching election!"
+
+"How?" asked Sulpice.
+
+"Why, Thibaudier is stirring up Grenoble. He has got the whole city with
+him. He is very much liked and is a model mayor. He is a very
+_mere_--mother--that mayor!--Jeliotte laughed heartily, believing that
+he was funny.--If there is a list balloted for, and there certainly will
+be, Thibaudier will head the list. If they had maintained the _scrutin
+d'arrondissement_, he would have been capable of passing muster, all the
+same!"
+
+"Against me?"
+
+"Against you. Thibaudier is very popular!--And as firm as a rock!--He
+thinks you moderate, too moderate, as everybody else does!"
+
+"He?--He was a member of the Plebiscite Committee under the Empire!"
+
+"Exactly! He is an extreme Republican, just as he was an extreme
+Bonapartist. Oh! Thibaudier is a man, there is no concession with him.
+Never! He is always the same. He will beat you. Moreover, in Isere, they
+want a homogeneous representation--"
+
+"Again!" said Vaudrey, who felt that he was pursued by this word.
+
+After all, what did Thibaudier matter to him, or the deputation, the
+election or politics? Denis Ramel had sounded its depths in his grave in
+the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.
+
+"Let us drop Thibaudier. By the way," said Jeliotte, "I saw your wife at
+Grenoble."
+
+Vaudrey grew pale.
+
+He again repeated: "Ah!"
+
+"She is greatly changed. She doesn't leave the house of her uncle, the
+doctor, nor does she receive any one."
+
+"Is she sick, then?"
+
+"Yes, slightly."
+
+"And you are separated, then?"
+
+"No," replied Sulpice.
+
+Jeliotte smiled.
+
+"Ah! joker, I understand!--Your wife was too strict!--Bless me, a
+provincial! Bah! that will come right! And if it doesn't, why, you will
+be free, that's all! But, say, then, if you are not re-elected, you will
+rejoin her at Grenoble. Oh! your clients will return to you. You are
+highly esteemed as an advocate, but as a minister, I ought to say--"
+
+"I shall be re-elected," said Vaudrey, in a decisive tone, so as to cut
+short Jeliotte's interminable phrases.
+
+He was exceedingly unnerved. This man's stupidity would exasperate him.
+He would never come across any but subjects of irritation or
+disheartenment. He felt inclined to seek a quarrel with some one. He
+would have liked to wrench Marianne's wrist with his fingers.
+
+As he entered the hall leading to the assembly, he unwittingly stumbled
+against a gentleman who was walking rapidly and without saluting him,
+although he thought that he recognized him.
+
+"Yet I know him!"
+
+He had not gone three steps before he perfectly recalled this eternal
+lobbyist, always bending before him and clinging to the armchairs of the
+antechambers, like an oyster to a rock, and whom the messengers,
+accustomed to his soliciting, bowing and scraping for years past, called
+_Monsieur Eugene_--out of courtesy.
+
+It was too much! And, in truth, this strange fellow's impoliteness was
+ill-timed.
+
+Sulpice suddenly turned round, approached Renaudin, and said to him
+sharply:
+
+"You bowed more obsequiously to me a short time since, monsieur! It
+seems to me that you were in the ministerial antechambers every
+morning!"
+
+He expected a haughty reply from Renaudin, and that this man would have
+compensated him for the others.
+
+_Monsieur Eugene_ smiled as he answered:
+
+"Why, I am still there, monsieur!"
+
+Vaudrey looked at him with a stupefied air, then in an outburst of
+anger, as if he conveyed in the reply that he hurled at this
+contemptible fellow, all the projects of his future revenge upon the
+fools, the knaves, the dull valets and the ungrateful horde, he said,
+boldly:
+
+"Well, you will salute me again, for I shall return there."
+
+He turned on his heels away from this worthless fellow, and entered the
+Chamber.
+
+He heard an outburst of bravos; a perfect tempest of enthusiasm reached
+him. He looked on and bit his lips.
+
+Lucien Granet was in the tribune, and the majority were applauding him.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Marianne Kayser had the good taste, and perhaps the good sense not to
+desire a solemnized marriage. It mattered little to her if she entered
+her duchy surreptitiously, provided she was sovereign there. She would
+have time later to assume a lofty air under her ducal coronet;
+meanwhile, she would act with humility while wearing the wreath of
+orange blossoms. She had discharged Jean and Justine with considerable
+presents, thinking it undesirable to keep any longer about her people
+who knew Vaudrey. She had advised Justine to marry Jean.
+
+"Marriage is amusing!" she had said.
+
+"Madame is very kind," answered Justine, "but she sees, herself, that it
+is better to wait sometimes. There is no hurry, one does not know what
+may happen."
+
+The future duchess showed that she was but little flattered by the
+girl's reflections. It was scarcely worth while not to put on airs even
+with servants, to meet such fools who become over-familiar with you
+immediately. So, in future, she would strive to be not such a
+kind-hearted girl. She would keep servants at a distance. They would
+see. Meanwhile, she was delighted to have made a clean sweep in the
+house, she could now lie to Rosas as much as she pleased.
+
+Besides, the duke, who was madly in love and whose desire was daily
+whetted by Marianne, would have been capable, as Lissac said, of
+accepting everything and forgetting all, so that he might clasp the
+woman in his arms. She held him entirely in her grasp, under the
+domination of her intoxicating seductiveness, skilfully granting by a
+kiss that kindled the blood in Jose's veins the promise of more ardent
+caresses. In this very exercise, she assumed a passionate tenderness
+like a courtesan accustomed to easy defeat who resists her very
+disposition so that she may not be too soon vanquished. She had
+ungovernable impulses that carried her toward Rosas as to an unknown
+pleasure.
+
+The ivory-like pallor of this red-haired man with sunken eyes and
+trembling lips, almost cold when she sought them under his tawny
+moustache, pleased her. She sometimes said to him that under his gentle
+manner he had the appearance of a tiger. "Or of a cat, and that pleases
+me, for I am myself of that nature. Ah! how I love you!" She felt
+herself tremble with fear of that being whom she felt that she had
+conquered and who was entirely hers, but she was strangely troubled in
+divining some of his secret thoughts.
+
+She was in a hurry to have the marriage concluded. Secretly if it were
+desired, but legally and positively. She dreaded Jose's reawakening, as
+it were. She did not know how, perhaps an anonymous letter, a chance
+meeting with Guy, an explanation, who knows?
+
+"Although, after all," she thought, "I have been foolish to trouble
+myself about this Guy. Word threats, that's all!"
+
+The duke had treated her as a virtuous girl, requiring her to declare
+that she had never loved any but him, or that, at least, no living
+person had the right to say that he had possessed her. She had sworn all
+that he desired, saying to Uncle Kayser: "Oaths like that are like
+political promises, they bind one to nothing!"
+
+The uncle began to entertain an extravagant admiration for his "little
+Marianne." There is a woman, sure enough! Wonderful elegance! She had
+promised to have a studio built for him, in which he could, instead of
+painting, take his ease, stretched on a divan, smoking his pipe, and
+pass his days in floating to the ceiling his theories of high and moral
+art! An ideal picture!
+
+He also was in favor of prompt action in respect to the marriage. As
+little noise as possible. The least hitch and all was lost. What a pity!
+
+"Do you wish me to tell you? It seems to me that you are walking to the
+mayor's office on eggs!"
+
+"Be easy," Marianne replied, laughing heartily, "there will be none
+broken."
+
+The marriage was celebrated. At last! as Kayser said. It was a formality
+rather than a ceremony. Marianne, ravishingly beautiful, was exultant at
+realizing her dream. Her pale complexion took on tints of the bloom of
+the azalea pierced by the rays of the sun. Never had Rosas seen her so
+lovely. How stupidly he had acted formerly in yielding to appearances
+and flying from her, instead of telling her that he loved her. He had
+lost whole years of love that he would never recover, even in the
+blissful fever of this union. Those joys, formerly disdained, were,
+alas! never to be restored.
+
+Ah! how he would love her now, adore her and keep her with him as his
+living delight! They would travel; in three days they would set out for
+Italy. The baggage already filled the house in the Avenue Montaigne,
+their nuptial mansion. Marianne would take away all the souvenirs that
+she had preserved in the grisette's little room at Rue Cuvier, where
+Rosas had so often seen her and where he had said to her: "I love you!"
+
+"People took their penates," she said, "but I take my fetishes!"
+
+Rosas was wild with joy. The possession of this woman, sought after as
+mistress, but more intensely ardent than a mistress, with her outbursts
+of tears and kisses, threw him into ecstasies and possessed him with
+distracting joy. Something within him whispered, as in the days of early
+manhood, at the ecstatic hour of sunrise. Already he wished to be on
+the way to Italy with Marianne, far from the mire and mists of Paris.
+
+"These rain-soaked sidewalks on which the gaslight is reflected seem
+gloomy to me," he said. "Let us seek the blue skies, Marianne, the
+orange groves of Nice, the stars of Naples."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"The _blue_ again!" she thought. "They all desire it, then?"
+
+She desired to remain a few days longer in Paris, delighted to proclaim
+her new name in its streets, its Bois and its theatres, where she had
+been known in her sadness, displaying her desperate melancholy. It
+seemed to her that, in her present triumph, she crushed both men and
+things. What was Naples to her? She had not miserably dragged her
+disillusions and her angers along the Chiaja. Florence might take her
+for a duchess, as well as any other, but Paris, every corner of which
+was familiar to her, and where every scene had been, as it were, a frame
+for her follies, her hopes, her failures, her heartbreaks, her
+deceptions, all her sorrows of an ambitious woman, which had made her
+the daring woman that she was,--those boulevards, those paths about the
+Lake, those proscenium boxes at the theatre, she would see them in her
+triumph, as she had seen them in her untrammelled follies or in the
+moments of her ruin and abandonment.
+
+"Two days more! One day more," she said. "After the first
+representation at the Varietes, we will leave, are you willing?"
+
+"Ah! you Parisienne! Hungry Parisienne!" Jose replied.
+
+She looked at him with her gray eyes sparkling, and smiling.
+
+"The Varietes?--Don't you know the old rondel?--The one you hummed when
+you were sick, you know?--It seems to me that I can hear it yet:
+
+    Do you see yonder
+    That white house,
+    Where every Sunday
+    Under the sweet lilacs--"
+
+Uncle Kayser, ever prudent, advised a speedy departure. He feared he
+scarcely knew what. He feared everything, "like Abner, and feared only
+that." Every morning he dreaded seeing some indiscreet articles in the
+papers respecting the Duke and the Duchesse de Rosas.
+
+"These journalists disregard, without scruple, the wall of private life!
+It is a moral wall, however!"
+
+At last, they would leave in two days, so it was determined. Rosas had
+wished to see Guy again for the last time. At Rue d'Aumale they informed
+him that Monsieur de Lissac was travelling. The shutters of the
+apartment were not, however, closed. The duke had for a moment been
+tempted to insist on entering; then he withdrew and returned home
+without analyzing too closely the feeling of annoyance that came over
+him. The weather was splendid and dry. He returned on foot to Avenue
+Montaigne, where he expected to find Marianne superintending her trunks.
+
+On entering the house, the doors of which were open, as at the hour of
+packing and removing, giving the whole house the appearance of neglect
+and flight, he was astonished to hear a man's voice, which was neither
+that of Simon Kayser nor that of the valet, and evidently answering in a
+violent tone the equally evident angry voice of Marianne.
+
+He did not know this voice, and the noise of a bell-rope hastily pulled,
+in a fit of manifest anger, made him quicken his steps, as if he
+instinctively felt that the duchess was in danger.
+
+In the shadow of a dull December evening, the house, with its disordered
+appearance that resembled a sacking, assumed a sinister aspect. Jose
+suddenly felt a sentiment of anguish.
+
+He quickly reached the salon, where Marianne was in a robe de chambre of
+black satin, and was standing near the chimney with an expression of
+anger in her eyes, holding the bell-rope, whose iron chain had struck
+against the wall.
+
+Before her stood a young man with a heavy moustache, his hat tilted over
+his ear, whom Monsieur de Rosas did not know.
+
+His manner was insolent and he looked thick-set in his black,
+close-buttoned frock-coat. His style was vulgar, and, with his hands in
+his pockets, he appeared both low and threatening.
+
+Marianne rang for a servant. She was flushed with rage. She became livid
+on seeing Jose.
+
+"What is the matter, then?" asked Rosas coldly, as he stepped between
+the duchess and the man.
+
+The man looked at him, took off his hat, and in a loud voice that was
+itself odoriferous, said:
+
+"You are Monsieur le Duc de Rosas, doubtless?"
+
+"Yes," said Jose, "and may I know--?"
+
+"Nothing! it is nothing!" cried Marianne, running hastily to Jose and
+taking his hands as if she desired to drag him away.
+
+"How, nothing?" the man then said, as he took a seat, holding his hat in
+his hand and placing his fist on his left hip, in the attitude of a
+fencing-master posing for an elegant effect. "To treat a gentleman as
+you have just treated me; you call that nothing?"
+
+He turned to Rosas and said, as he saluted him with the airs of a _sub.
+off._ on the stage:
+
+"Adolphe Gochard! You do not know me, Monsieur le duc?"
+
+"No," said Jose.
+
+"What do you want?--"
+
+"Ah! pardon me," said Gochard, as he interrupted Marianne. "You rang,
+you wished to have the presence of the servants. You threatened to have
+me pitched out of the door by the shoulders. Since you have called,
+they shall hear me."
+
+The servants, hurrying to the spot, now appeared in the indistinct
+shadow of the doorway.
+
+"Be off!" cried Marianne.
+
+"Why?" asked the duke severely, and astonished.
+
+"Because madame prefers that I should only tell you what I have to say
+to you," said Gochard. "Ah! you claimed that I wanted to extort
+blackmail. I, an old brigadier, extort blackmail? Well, so let it be!
+Let us sing our little song!"
+
+"Monsieur," said the duke, who had become pallid and whose clenched
+teeth showed beneath his red beard, "I do not know what Madame la
+Duchesse de Rosas has said to you, or what you have dared to say to her,
+but you will leave this place instanter!"
+
+"Is that so?" said the man, as he shrugged his shoulders, which were
+like those of a suburban bully.
+
+"Just so!"
+
+"That would surprise me!" said Gochard. "But, _saperlipopette_, you are
+not very polite in your set!"
+
+"Not very polite with boors! You are in my house!"
+
+"Oh! you can't teach me where I am!" said the Dujarrier's lover, with a
+wink of his eye. "But, madame has been perching at my cost for a long
+time at Rue Prony and it is upon my signature, yes, my own signature, if
+you please, that she has obtained the means of renting the Hotel Vanda.
+She has not so much to be impudent about!"
+
+"Your signature?--The Hotel Vanda?"
+
+The duke looked at Marianne, who, as white as a corpse, instead of
+becoming indignant, entreated and tried to lead her husband away from
+this man, as if they were in the presence of grave danger.
+
+"Ah! bless me!" cried Jose, "you will explain to me--!"
+
+"That is very easy!--I was in want of money. The Dujarrier furnished me
+with a little for that affair. She is too niggardly. I ask madame for
+some. She assumes a haughty tone, and, instead of comprehending that I
+come as a friend, she threatens to have me put out of doors. Blackmail!
+I?--I?--What nonsense!"
+
+A friend! This man dared to say before her who bore the name of Duchesse
+de Rosas that he came to her as an intimate. This alcoholic braggart had
+assisted Marianne in sub-renting, he knew not what hotel, from a
+wanton!--Rue Prony!--Vanda!--What was there in common between these
+names and that of the duchess? And the Dujarrier, that Dujarrier whose
+manner of living was known to the Castilian, how had she become
+associated with Marianne's life?
+
+Ah! since he had commenced, this Gochard would make an end of it. He
+would tell everything! Even if he did not wish it, he would speak now.
+Rosas, frightened himself, and terrified at the prospect of some
+unknown baseness and doubtful transaction, felt Marianne's hand tremble
+in his, and by degrees, as Gochard proceeded, the duke realized that
+Marianne wished to get away and it was he who now retained her; holding
+the young woman's wrist tightly within his fingers, he forcibly
+prevented her from escaping, insisting that she should listen and hear
+everything.
+
+"Ah! if you think that I am afraid of speaking," said Gochard, "you will
+soon see!"
+
+And then with a sort of swaggering air like that of a fencing-master or
+tippler, searching for some droll expressions, cowardly avenging himself
+by jests ejected like so many streams of tobacco, against this woman who
+had just insulted him, who spoke of blackmail and the police, and of
+thrusting the miserable fellow out of doors, he told everything that he
+knew; Marianne's neediness, her weariness, her loves, the Dujarrier
+connection, the renting of the Hotel Vanda, the Vaudrey paper and its
+renewals, his own foolishness as a too artless and tender, good sort of
+fellow, relying on Claire Dujarrier's word, and not reserving to himself
+so much per cent in the affair!
+
+Rosas listened open-mouthed, his ears tingling and his blood rushing to
+his temples, while he sunk his fingers into Marianne's arms, she,
+meanwhile, glaring at Gochard.
+
+When he had finished, she disengaged herself from Rosas's clutch by an
+extreme effort, and ran to the rascal and spat in his face.
+
+He lifted his hand to her and said:
+
+"Ah! but!--"
+
+"Begone!" said the duke. "You wish to be paid?"
+
+"The money is not all. I demand respect!" replied Gochard, as he wiped
+his cheek.
+
+He placed his card on the mantelpiece.
+
+"Adolphe Gochard! there is my address. Besides, Madame knows it. With
+the pistol, the sabre, or the espadon, as you please! I am afraid of no
+one."
+
+"You will be paid, you have been told, you shall be paid!" cried
+Marianne, absolutely crazy and ready to tear him with her nails. "Be
+off! ruffian! begone, thief!"
+
+"Fiddle-faddle!" replied Adolphe, as he replaced his hat on the side of
+his bald head. "I have said what I have to say. I do not like to be made
+a fool of!"
+
+He disappeared, waddling away like a strolling player uncertain of his
+exit.
+
+Rosas did not even see him go.
+
+He had seized Marianne by both hands and was dragging her toward the
+window, through which the daylight still entered, and convulsed with
+rage he penetrated her eyes with his glance, his face looking still more
+pallid, in contrast with his red beard.
+
+She was terrified. She believed herself at the point of death. She felt
+that he was going to kill her.
+
+She suddenly fell on her knees.
+
+He still looked at her, leaning over her with the appearance of a
+madman.
+
+"Vaudrey?--Vaudrey? The man whom I saw at your uncle's?--The man whom I
+have elbowed with you?--Vaudrey?--This man was your lover, then?"
+
+She was so alarmed that she did not reply.
+
+"You have lied to me, then? But, tell me, wretched woman, have you not
+lied to me?"
+
+"I loved you and I desired you!" said Marianne.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Rosas, in a strident, deep-chested voice. "You wanted
+what that rascal wanted: money! You should have asked me for it! I would
+have given you everything, all my fortune, all! But not my name! Not my
+name!"
+
+He roughly repelled her.
+
+She remained on her knees. Her hands hung down and rested on the carpet.
+She looked at it stupefied, hardly distinguishing its rose pattern.
+
+She was certain that she was about to die. Jose's sudden anger had the
+fitfulness of a wild beast's. He crushed her with a terrible glance from
+his bloodshot eyes.
+
+Then he began to laugh hysterically, like a young girl.
+
+"Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!--In a wanton's house yonder in Rue Prony, at
+Vanda's! Vanda's! At Vanda's, in a harlot's bed, she gave herself, sold
+herself!--A Rosas, for she is a Rosas! A Duchesse de Rosas now! Idiot!
+Idiot that I am!"
+
+Marianne would have spoken, entreated, but fear froze her, coming over
+her flesh and through her veins. She realized that an implacable
+resolution possessed this trusting man. She found a master this time.
+
+"Jose!" said Marianne softly, in a timid voice.
+
+He drew himself up as if the mention of this name were an insult.
+
+"Come!" he said calmly, "so let it be. What is done, is done. So much
+the worse for the fools! But listen carefully."
+
+This little, pale, blond man seemed, in the growing darkness, like a
+portrait of former days stepped forth from its frame.
+
+His hand of steel again seized Marianne's wrists.
+
+"You are called the Duchesse de Rosas?--You were ambitious for that
+name, you eagerly desired and struggled hard for that title, did you
+not? Well, I will not, at least, suffer you to drag it like so many
+others into intruders' salons, under ironical glances, before mocking
+smiles and lorgnettes, in view of the papers, and into the gossip of the
+Paris whose gutter-odor tempts you so strongly that you have not yet
+been able to leave it. _Parbleu!_ you have another lover in it, I
+wager!--Vaudrey!--Or Lissac and many others!--Is it as I say?"
+
+"I swear to you--"
+
+"Ah! you have lied to me, do not swear! We are about to leave. Not for
+Italy. It is good for those who love each other. You do not know
+Fuentecarral?--You are about to make its acquaintance. It is your
+chateau now. Yours, yours, since you are a Rosas!"
+
+He again broke into laughter, such as a judge might indulge in who
+should mock at a condemned man.
+
+"We are about to leave for Toledo. You asked me, one day, about the
+castle in which I was born. It is a prison, simply a prison. It is
+habitable nevertheless. But when one enters it, one rarely leaves it.
+The device that you will bear is not very cheerful, but it is eloquent,
+you know it: _Hasta la muerte!_--"Until death!"--What do you say about
+it?--We shall be at Toledo in three days. There are Duchesses de Rosas
+who will look on you, as you pass, over their plaited collars, and as
+there were neither adulteresses nor courtesans among them, they will
+probably ask what the Parisian is doing among them. Well, I will answer
+them myself, that she is there to live out her life, you understand,
+there, face to face with me, as you have _desired_, as you said, and no
+one will have the right to sneer before the Duc de Rosas, who will see
+no one. Oh! yes, I know that I belong to another period! I am
+ridiculous, romantic!--I am just that!--You have awakened the half-Arab
+that lurks in the Castilian. So much the worse for you if you have made
+me remember that I am a Rosas!"
+
+She remained there, thunderstruck, hearing the duke come and go, his
+heels ringing in spite of the muffling of the carpet, like the heels of
+an armed man.
+
+At times, when he passed quite close to her, his attenuated shadow was
+cast at full length over her and she was filled with terror.
+
+She experienced a feeling of fear, as if she were before an open tomb,
+or that a puff of damp air chilled her face, or that she was suddenly
+enveloped by the odor of a cellar. She shuddered and wished to plead
+with him, murmuring:
+
+"Pity!--Pardon!--"
+
+"Madame la duchesse," Rosas replied coldly, "I am one of those who may
+be deceived, no one is beyond the reach of treason; but I am not one of
+those who pardon. I have been extremely foolish, ridiculous, credulous!
+So much the worse for me! So much the worse for you! Rosas you are,
+Rosas you will be! I have been your victim, eh? Exactly, that is
+admitted: you shall be mine! Nothing could be juster, I think! I wish no
+scandal resulting from a lawsuit or the notoriety of one or more duels.
+I should become ridiculous in the eyes of others. But in my own and your
+eyes, I do not propose to be! I did not desire to be your lover, I have
+hardly been your husband. Now I am your companion forever. _Hasta la
+muerte!_ For me, the cold of an Escurial has no terror. I am accustomed
+to it. If it makes you quake, whose fault is it? You willed it. A double
+suicide! We leave this evening!"
+
+"This evening!" repeated Rosas, terribly, while Marianne, terrified,
+felt stifled under the crushing weight of that name: _Duchesse de
+Rosas!_
+
+Simon Kayser came to dine. He was deeply moved when he learned that the
+housekeeping was upset.
+
+What! the devilish duke knew all then?
+
+And he has taken the matter up in a dramatic fashion?
+
+"Folly!"
+
+"It is a serious matter, all the same!" said the uncle, after debating
+with himself as to where he should dine. "He will break her heart as he
+said, immured yonder within his four walls!--Ah! it was hardly worth
+while to handle her affairs so cleverly for a Gochard to come on the
+scenes and spoil everything, the rascal! For myself, I pity the little
+Marianne!--Her plan of battle was excellently arranged, well disposed
+and admirably put together! It was superb! And it failed!--Come, it
+amounts to this in everything: it is said that the pursuit of a great
+art is to ply the trade of a dupe! Destiny lacks morality! We should
+perhaps be happier, both, if she were simply a _cocotte_ and I engaged
+in photography!--But!" the brave fellow added: "one has lofty ideas,
+as-pi-ra-tions, or one has not!--One cannot remake one's self when one
+is an artist!"
+
+PARIS, 1880-1881.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_This little, pale, blond man seemed, in the growing darkness, like a
+portrait of former days stepped forth from its frame._
+
+_His hand of steel again seized Marianne's wrists._
+
+[Illustration: MARIANNE HEARS HER SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT]
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+                                                 PAGE
+
+IN THE GREENROOM OF THE OPERA              _Fronts._
+
+VAUDREY MEETS MARIANNE IN THE BOIS                216
+
+SULPICE BECOMES SURETY FOR MARIANNE               272
+
+THE BANQUET                                       376
+
+MARIANNE HEARS HER SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT         544
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Illustrations have been moved to appropriate
+positions.]
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The following apparent misprints have been
+corrected for this electronic edition:
+
+"antechamber"--from "ante-chamber"
+"knickknacks"--from "knick-knacks"
+"of the Opera house"--from "of the Opera house"
+"wings of the Opera"--from "wings of the Opera"
+"wrote Monsieur J.-J. Weiss in the Journal des Debats"--from "Debats"
+"The President awaited at the Elysee"--from "Elysee"
+"above all, my dear Vaudrey, do not fear to appear"--from
+    "Vaudrey, "do not fear"
+"He shut his eyes to picture Marianne."--from ""He shut his eyes"
+"asserting the virginity of his efforts"--from "assertting"
+"There was a council to be held at the Elysee"--from "Elysee"
+"he took it himself to the President at the Elysee."--from "Elysee"
+"He had already been informed at the Elysee"--from "Elysee"
+"Along the grand avenue of the Champs-Elysees"--from
+    "Champs-Elysees"
+"The solitude of the Champs-Elysees pleased him."--from
+    "Champs-Elysees"]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's His Excellency the Minister, by Jules Claretie
+
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