garden, from which, on this rainy evening of the close of April, issued a sensation of damp despite the great logs burning on the hearth. The sun never shone down into the THE COUNTESS SABINE, as it had become customary room; in the daytime it was dimly lit up by a faint greenish to call Mme Muffat de Beuville in order to distin light, but at night, when the lamps and the chandelier were guish her from the count’s mother, who had died burning, it looked merely a serious old chamber with its the year before, was wont to receive every Tuesday in her massive mahogany First Empire furniture, its hangings and house in the Rue Miromesnil at the corner of the Rue de chair coverings of yellow velvet, stamped with a large de-Pentievre. It was a great square building, and the Muffats sign. Entering it, one was in an atmosphere of cold dignity, had lived in it for a hundred years or more. On the side of of ancient manners, of a vanished age, the air of which the street its frontage seemed to slumber, so lofty was it seemed devotional.
and dark, so sad and conventlike, with its great outer shut-Opposite the armchair, however, in which the count’s ters, which were nearly always closed. And at the back in a mother had died—a square armchair of formal design and little dark garden some trees had grown up and were strain-inhospitable padding, which stood by the hearthside—the ing toward the sunlight with such long slender branches Countess Sabine was seated in a deep and cozy lounge, that their tips were visible above the roof.
the red silk upholsteries of which were soft as eider down.
This particular Tuesday, toward ten o’clock in the It was the only piece of modern furniture there, a fanciful evening, there were scarcely a dozen people in the draw-item introduced amid the prevailing severity and clashing ing room. When she was only expecting intimate friends with it.
the countess opened neither the little drawing room nor
“So we shall have the shah of Persia,” the young woman the dining room. One felt more at home on such occasions was saying.
and chatted round the fire. The drawing room was very They were talking of the crowned heads who were com-large and very lofty; its four windows looked out upon the ing to Paris for the exhibition. Several ladies had formed a 52
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circle round the hearth, and Mme du Joncquoy, whose Behind her seat her husband, a magistrate, stood listening brother, a diplomat, had just fulfilled a mission in the East, with serious air. It was rumored that she deceived him quite was giving some details about the court of Nazr-ed-Din.
openly, but people pardoned her offense and received her
“Are you out of sorts, my dear?” asked Mme Chantereau, just the same, because, they said, “she’s not answerable for the wife of an ironmaster, seeing the countess shivering her actions.”
slightly and growing pale as she did so.
“Oh that Leonide!” the Countess Sabine contented her-
“Oh no, not at all,” replied the latter, smiling. “I felt a self by murmuring, smiling her faint smile the while.
little cold. This drawing room takes so long to warm.” With a languid movement she eked out the thought that And with that she raised her melancholy eyes and was in her. After having lived there seventeen years she scanned the walls from floor to ceiling. Her daughter certainly would not alter her drawing room now. It would Estelle, a slight, insignificant-looking girl of sixteen, the henceforth remain just such as her mother-in-law had thankless period of life, quitted the large footstool on wished to preserve it during her lifetime. Then returning to which she was sitting and silently came and propped up the subject of conversation:
one of the logs which had rolled from its place. But Mme
“I have been assured,” she said, “that we shall also have de Chezelles, a convent friend of Sabine’s and her junior the king of Prussia and the emperor of Russia.” by five years, exclaimed:
‘Yes, some very fine fetes are promised,” said Mme du
“Dear me, I would gladly be possessed of a drawing room Joncquoy.
such as yours! At any rate, you are able to receive visitors.
The banker Steiner, not long since introduced into this They only build boxes nowadays. Oh, if I were in your circle by Leonide de Chezelles, who was acquainted with place!”
the whole of Parisian society, was sitting chatting on a sofa She ran giddily on and with lively gestures explained how between two of the windows. He was questioning a deputy, she would alter the hangings, the seats—everything, in fact.
from whom he was endeavoring with much adroitness to Then she would give balls to which all Paris should run.
elicit news about a movement on the stock exchange of 53
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which he had his suspicions, while the Count Muffat, stand-of arable land or forest, which amounted, in fact, to quite a ing in front of them, was silently listening to their talk, respectable slice of his vast estates in Picardy.
looking, as he did so, even grayer than was his wont.
“I advise you to call other people skeptics! Why, you Four or five young men formed another group near the don’t believe a thing yourself,” said Leonide, making shift door round the Count Xavier de Vandeuvres, who in a low to find him a little space in which to sit down at her side.
tone was telling them an anecdote. It was doubtless a very
“It’s you who spoil your own pleasures.” risky one, for they were choking with laughter.
“Exactly,” he replied. “I wish to make others benefit by Companionless in the center of the room, a stout man, a my experience.”
chief clerk at the Ministry of the Interior, sat heavily in an But the company imposed silence on him: he was scan-armchair, dozing with his eyes open. But when one of the dalizing M. Venot. And, the ladies having changed their young men appeared to doubt the truth of the anecdote positions, a little old man of sixty, with bad teeth and a Vandeuvres raised his voice.
subtle smile, became visible in the depths of an easy chair.
“You are too much of a skeptic, Foucarmont; you’ll spoil There he sat as comfortably as in his own house, listening all your pleasures that way.”
to everybody’s remarks and making none himself. With a And he returned to the ladies with a laugh. Last scion of slight gesture he announced himself by no means scandal-a great family, of feminine manners and witty tongue, he ized. Vandeuvres once more assumed his dignified bearing was at that time running through a fortune with a rage of and added gravely:
life and appetite which nothing could appease. His racing
“Monsieur Venot is fully aware that I believe what it is stable, which was one of the best known in Paris, cost him one’s duty to believe.”
a fabulous amount of money; his betting losses at the Im-It was an act of faith, and even Leonide appeared satis-perial Club amounted monthly to an alarming number of fied. The young men at the end of the room no longer pounds, while taking one year with another, his mistresses laughed; the company were old fogies, and amusement was would be always devouring now a farm, now some acres not to be found there. A cold breath of wind had passed 54
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over them, and amid the ensuing silence Steiner’s nasal
“Madame,” he said, “I have not forgotten your extremely voice became audible. The deputy’s discreet answers were kind invitation.”
at last driving him to desperation. For a second or two the She smiled and made a pretty little speech. The journal-Countess Sabine looked at the fire; then she resumed the ist, after bowing to the count, stood for some moments in conversation.
the middle of the drawing room. He only recognized Steiner
“I saw the king of Prussia at Baden-Baden last year. He’s and accordingly looked rather out of his element. But still full of vigor for his age.” Vandeuvres turned and came and shook hands with him.
“Count Bismarck is to accompany him,” said Mme du And forthwith, in his delight at the meeting and with a sud-Joncquoy. “Do you know the count? I lunched with him at den desire to be confidential, Fauchery buttonholed him my brother’s ages ago, when he was representative of and said in a low voice:
Prussia in Paris. There’s a man now whose latest successes
“It’s tomorrow. Are you going?”
I cannot in the least understand.”
“Egad, yes.”
“But why?” asked Mme Chantereau.
“At midnight, at her house.
“Good gracious, how am I to explain? He doesn’t please
“I know, I know. I’m going with Blanche.” me. His appearance is boorish and underbred. Besides, so He wanted to escape and return to the ladies in order to far as I am concerned, I find him stupid.” urge yet another reason in M. de Bismarck’s favor. But With that the whole room spoke of Count Bismarck, Fauchery detained him.
and opinions differed considerably. Vandeuvres knew him
“You never will guess whom she has charged me to and assured the company that he was great in his cups invite.”
and at play. But when the discussion was at its height the And with a slight nod he indicated Count Muffat, who door was opened, and Hector de la Falois made his ap-was just then discussing a knotty point in the budget with pearance. Fauchery, who followed in his wake, ap-Steiner and the deputy.
proached the countess and, bowing:
“It’s impossible,” said Vandeuvres, stupefaction and mer-55
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riment in his tones. “My word on it! I had to swear that I old town house. Fauchery scrutinized her and yet hesitated.
would bring him to her. Indeed, that’s one of my reasons One of his friends, a captain who had recently died in for coming here.”
Mexico, had, on the very eve of his departure, made him Both laughed silently, and Vandeuvres, hurriedly rejoin-one of those gross postprandial confessions, of which even ing the circle of ladies, cried out: the most prudent among men are occasionally guilty. But
“I declare that on the contrary Monsieur de Bismarck is of this he only retained a vague recollection; they had dined exceedingly witty. For instance, one evening he said a not wisely but too well that evening, and when he saw the charmingly epigrammatic thing in my presence.” countess, in her black dress and with her quiet smile, seated La Faloise meanwhile had heard the few rapid sentences in that Old World drawing room, he certainly had his doubts.
thus whisperingly interchanged, and he gazed at Fauchery A lamp which had been placed behind her threw into clear in hopes of an explanation which was not vouchsafed him.
relief her dark, delicate, plump side face, wherein a certain Of whom were they talking, and what were they going to heaviness in the contours of the mouth alone indicated a do at midnight tomorrow? He did not leave his cousin’s species of imperious sensuality.
side again. The latter had gone and seated himself. He was
“What do they want with their Bismarck?” muttered La especially interested by the Countess Sabine. Her name had Faloise, whose constant pretense it was to be bored in good often been mentioned in his presence, and he knew that, society. “One’s ready to kick the bucket here. A pretty idea having been married at the age of seventeen, she must now of yours it was to want to come!” be thirty-four and that since her marriage she had passed a Fauchery questioned him abruptly.
cloistered existence with her husband and her mother-in-
“Now tell me, does the countess admit someone to her law. In society some spoke of her as a woman of religious embraces?”
chastity, while others pitied her and recalled to memory
“Oh dear, no, no! My dear fellow!” he stammered, mani-her charming bursts of laughter and the burning glances of festly taken aback and quite forgetting his pose. “Where her great eyes in the days prior to her imprisonment in this d’you think we are?”
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After which he was conscious of a want of up-to-dateness naturally he had found himself in favor after the second of in this outburst of indignation and, throwing himself back December. He hadn’t much gaiety of manner either, but he on a great sofa, he added:
passed for a very honest man of straightforward intentions
“Gad! I say no! But I don’t know much about it. There’s and understanding. Add to these a code of old aristocratic a little chap out there, Foucarmont they call him, who’s to ideas and such a lofty conception of his duties at court, of be met with everywhere and at every turn. One’s seen faster his dignities and of his virtues, that he behaved like a god men than that, though, you bet. However, it doesn’t con-on wheels. It was the Mamma Muffat who had given him cern me, and indeed, all I know is that if the countess in-this precious education with its daily visits to the confes-dulges in high jinks she’s still pretty sly about it, for the sional, its complete absence of escapades and of all that is thing never gets about—nobody talks.” meant by youth. He was a practicing Christian and had Then although Fauchery did not take the trouble to ques-attacks of faith of such fiery violence that they might be tion him, he told him all he knew about the Muffats. Amid likened to accesses of burning fever. Finally, in order to the conversation of the ladies, which still continued in front add a last touch to the picture, La Faloise whispered some-of the hearth, they both spoke in subdued tones, and, see-thing in his cousin’s ear.
ing them there with their white cravats and gloves, one
“You don’t say so!” said the latter.
might have supposed them to be discussing in chosen
“On my word of honor, they swore it was true! He was phraseology some really serious topic. Old Mme Muffat still like that when he married.” then, whom La Faloise had been well acquainted with, was Fauchery chuckled as he looked at the count, whose face, an insufferable old lady, always hand in glove with the with its fringe of whiskers and absence of mustaches, priests. She had the grand manner, besides, and an authori-seemed to have grown squarer and harder now that he was tative way of comporting herself, which bent everybody to busy quoting figures to the writhing, struggling Steiner.
her will. As to Muffat, he was an old man’s child; his fa-
“My word, he’s got a phiz for it!” murmured Fauchery.
ther, a general, had been created count by Napoleon I, and
“A pretty present he made his wife! Poor little thing, how 57
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he must have bored her! She knows nothing about any-mother’s death. A terrible man was the marquis, a man thing, I’ll wager!”
about whom strange tales were beginning to be told, and Just then the Countess Sabine was saying something to that despite his lofty piety! Fauchery asked if he should him. But he did not hear her, so amusing and extraordi-have the honor of meeting him. Certainly her father was nary did he esteem the Muffats’ case. She repeated the coming, but only very late; he had so much work on hand!
question.
The journalist thought he knew where the old gentleman
“Monsieur Fauchery, have you not published a sketch of passed his evenings and looked grave. But a mole, which Monsieur de Bismarck? You spoke with him once?” he noticed close to her mouth on the countess’s left cheek, He got up briskly and approached the circle of ladies, surprised him. Nana had precisely the same mole. It was endeavoring to collect himself and soon with perfect ease curious. Tiny hairs curled up on it, only they were golden of manner finding an answer:
in Nana’s case, black as jet in this. Ah well, never mind!
“Dear me, madame, I assure you I wrote that ‘portrait’
This woman enjoyed nobody’s embraces.
with the help of biographies which had been published in
“I have always felt a wish to know Queen Augusta,” she Germany. I have never seen Monsieur de Bismarck.” said. “They say she is so good, so devout. Do you think He remained beside the countess and, while talking with she will accompany the king?”
her, continued his meditations. She did not look her age;
“It is not thought that she will, madame,” he replied.
one would have set her down as being twenty-eight at most, She had no lovers: the thing was only too apparent. One for her eyes, above all, which were filled with the dark blue had only to look at her there by the side of that daughter of shadow of her long eyelashes, retained the glowing light of hers, sitting so insignificant and constrained on her foot-youth. Bred in a divided family, so that she used to spend stool. That sepulchral drawing room of hers, which ex-one month with the Marquis de Chouard, another with the haled odors suggestive of being in a church, spoke as plainly marquise, she had been married very young, urged on, as words could of the iron hand, the austere mode of exist-doubtless, by her father, whom she embarrassed after her ence, that weighed her down. There was nothing sugges-58
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tive of her own personality in that ancient abode, black his escape from the circle of ladies. “We’ll hook it!” with the damps of years. It was Muffat who made himself But Steiner, deserted at last by the Count Muffat and the felt there, who dominated his surroundings with his devo-deputy, came up in a fury. Drops of perspiration stood on tional training, his penances and his fasts. But the sight of his forehead, and he grumbled huskily: the little old gentleman with the black teeth and subtle smile
“Gad! Let ‘em tell me nothing, if nothing they want to whom he suddenly discovered in his armchair behind the tell me. I shall find people who will talk.” group of ladies afforded him a yet more decisive argument.
Then he pushed the journalist into a corner and, altering He knew the personage. It was Theophile Venot, a retired his tone, said in accents of victory: lawyer who had made a specialty of church cases. He had
“It’s tomorrow, eh? I’m of the party, my bully!” left off practice with a handsome fortune and was now
“Indeed!” muttered Fauchery with some astonishment.
leading a sufficiently mysterious existence, for he was re-
“You didn’t know about it. Oh, I had lots of bother to ceived everywhere, treated with great deference and even find her at home. Besides, Mignon never would leave me somewhat feared, as though he had been the representa-alone.”
tive of a mighty force, an occult power, which was felt to
“But they’re to be there, are the Mignons.” be at his back. Nevertheless, his behavior was very humble.
“Yes, she told me so. In fact, she did receive my visit, He was churchwarden at the Madeleine Church and had and she invited me. Midnight punctually, after the play.” simply accepted the post of deputy mayor at the town house The banker was beaming. He winked and added with a of the Ninth Arrondissement in order, as he said, to have peculiar emphasis on the words:
something to do in his leisure time. Deuce take it, the count-
“You’ve worked it, eh?”
ess was well guarded; there was nothing to be done in that
“Eh, what?” said Fauchery, pretending not to understand quarter.
him. “She wanted to thank me for my article, so she came
“You’re right, it’s enough to make one kick the bucket and called on me.”
here,” said Fauchery to his cousin when he had made good
“Yes, yes. You fellows are fortunate. You get rewarded.
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By the by, who pays the piper tomorrow?” had risen briskly from her seat in order to go and greet her, The journalist made a slight outward movement with his and she had taken both her hands in hers and addressed her arms, as though he would intimate that no one had ever as her “dear Madame Hugon.” Seeing that his cousin been able to find out. But Vandeuvres called to Steiner, viewed this little episode with some curiosity, La Faloise who knew M. de Bismarck. Mme du Joncquoy had almost sought to arouse his interest and in a few brief phrases convinced herself of the truth of her suppositions; she con-explained the position. Mme Hugon, widow of a notary, cluded with these words:
lived in retirement at Les Fondettes, an old estate of her
“He gave me an unpleasant impression. I think his face is family’s in the neighborhood of Orleans, but she also kept evil. But I am quite willing to believe that he has a deal of up a small establishment in Paris in a house belonging to wit. It would account for his successes.” her in the Rue de Richelieu and was now passing some
“Without doubt,” said the banker with a faint smile. He weeks there in order to settle her youngest son, who was was a Jew from Frankfort.
reading the law and in his “first year.” In old times she had Meanwhile La Faloise at last made bold to question his been a dear friend of the Marquise de Chouard and had cousin. He followed him up and got inside his guard: assisted at the birth of the countess, who, prior to her mar-
“There’s supper at a woman’s tomorrow evening? With riage, used to stay at her house for months at a time and which of them, eh? With which of them?” even now was quite familiarly treated by her.
Fauchery motioned to him that they were overheard and
“I have brought Georges to see you,” said Mme Hugon must respect the conventions here. The door had just been to Sabine. “He’s grown, I trust.” opened anew, and an old lady had come in, followed by a The young man with his clear eyes and the fair curls which young man in whom the journalist recognized the truant suggested a girl dressed up as a boy bowed easily to the schoolboy, perpetrator of the famous and as yet unforgotten countess and reminded her of a bout of battledore and
“tres chic” of the Blonde Venus first night. This lady’s ar-shuttlecock they had had together two years ago at Les rival caused a stir among the company. The Countess Sabine Fondettes.
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“Philippe is not in Paris?” asked Count Muffat.
taurant. Impelled by a sort of sensuous curiosity, he had
“Dear me, no!” replied the old lady. “He is always in always wanted an introduction into the Muffats’ circle, and garrison at Bourges.” She had seated herself and began now that his friend was in Mexico through all eternity, who talking with considerable pride of her eldest son, a great could tell what might happen? “We shall see,” he thought.
big fellow who, after enlisting in a fit of waywardness, It was a folly, doubtless, but the idea kept tormenting him; had of late very rapidly attained the rank of lieutenant.
he felt himself drawn on and his animal nature aroused.
All the ladies behaved to her with respectful sympathy, The big chair had a rumpled look—its nether cushions had and conversation was resumed in a tone at once more been tumbled, a fact which now amused him.
amiable and more refined. Fauchery, at sight of that re-
“Well, shall we be off?” asked La Faloise, mentally vow-spectable Mme Hugon, that motherly face lit up with such ing that once outside he would find out the name of the a kindly smile beneath its broad tresses of white hair, woman with whom people were going to sup.
thought how foolish he had been to suspect the Countess
“All in good time,” replied Fauchery.
Sabine even for an instant.
But he was no longer in any hurry and excused himself Nevertheless, the big chair with the red silk upholsteries on the score of the invitation he had been commissioned to in which the countess sat had attracted his attention. Its give and had as yet not found a convenient opportunity to style struck him as crude, not to say fantastically sugges-mention. The ladies were chatting about an assumption of tive, in that dim old drawing room. Certainly it was not the the veil, a very touching ceremony by which the whole of count who had inveigled thither that nest of voluptuous Parisian society had for the last three days been greatly idleness. One might have described it as an experiment, moved. It was the eldest daughter of the Baronne de marking the birth of an appetite and of an enjoyment. Then Fougeray, who, under stress of an irresistible vocation, had he forgot where he was, fell into brown study and in thought just entered the Carmelite Convent. Mme Chantereau, a even harked back to that vague confidential announcement distant cousin of the Fougerays, told how the baroness had imparted to him one evening in the dining room of a res-been obliged to take to her bed the day after the ceremony, 61
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so overdone was she with weeping.
looked at her as she sat quaintly perched, in her volumi-
“I had a very good place,” declared Leonide. “I found it nous ball dress of pale blue satin, on the corner of her arm-interesting.”
chair. She looked as slight and impudent as a boy, and he Nevertheless, Mme Hugon pitied the poor mother. How ended by feeling astonished at seeing her there. People sad to lose a daughter in such a way!
comported themselves better at Caroline Hequet’s, whose
“I am accused of being overreligious,” she said in her mother had arranged her house on serious principles. Here quiet, frank manner, “but that does not prevent me think-was a perfect subject for an article. What a strange world ing the children very cruel who obstinately commit such was this world of Paris! The most rigid circles found them-suicide.”
selves invaded. Evidently that silent Theophile Venot, who
“Yes, it’s a terrible thing,” murmured the countess, shiv-contented himself by smiling and showing his ugly teeth, ering a little, as became a chilly person, and huddling her-must have been a legacy from the late countess. So, too, self anew in the depths of her big chair in front of the fire.
must have been such ladies of mature age as Mme Then the ladies fell into a discussion. But their voices Chantereau and Mme du Joncquoy, besides four or five were discreetly attuned, while light trills of laughter now old gentlemen who sat motionless in corners. The Count and again interrupted the gravity of their talk. The two Muffat attracted to the house a series of functionaries, dis-lamps on the chimney piece, which had shades of rose-tinguished by the immaculate personal appearance which colored lace, cast a feeble light over them while on scat-was at that time required of the men at the Tuileries. Among tered pieces of furniture there burned but three other lamps, others there was the chief clerk, who still sat solitary in the so that the great drawing room remained in soft shadow.
middle of the room with his closely shorn cheeks, his va-Steiner was getting bored. He was describing to Fauchery cant glance and his coat so tight of fit that he could scarce an escapade of that little Mme de Chezelles, whom he sim-venture to move. Almost all the young men and certain ply referred to as Leonide. “A blackguard woman,” he said, individuals with distinguished, aristocratic manners were lowering his voice behind the ladies’ armchairs. Fauchery the Marquis de Chouard’s contribution to the circle, he 62
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having kept touch with the Legitimist party after making tary pause of conversation the invited guests had become his peace with the empire on his entrance into the Council suddenly aware that the count’s mother, in all her glacial of State. There remained Leonide de Chezelles and Steiner, stateliness, had returned among them.
an ugly little knot against which Mme Hugon’s elderly and But the Countess Sabine had once more resumed: amiable serenity stood out in strange contrast. And
“Well, at last the news of it got about. The young man Fauchery, having sketched out his article, named this last was likely to die, and that would explain the poor child’s group “Countess Sabine’s little clique.” adoption of the religious life. Besides, they say that Mon-
“On another occasion,” continued Steiner in still lower sieur de Fougeray would never have given his consent to tones, “Leonide got her tenor down to Montauban. She the marriage.”
was living in the Chateau de Beaurecueil, two leagues far-
“They say heaps of other things too,” cried Leonide ther off, and she used to come in daily in a carriage and giddily.
pair in order to visit him at the Lion d’Or, where he had She fell a-laughing; she refused to talk. Sabine was won put up. The carriage used to wait at the door, and Leonide over by this gaiety and put her handkerchief up to her lips.
would stay for hours in the house, while a crowd gathered And in the vast and solemn room their laught