Then, she said, in nervous tones.
"I think you must be going mad! Let me alone!"
He trembled with fury, so exasperated that he scarcely knew what he was saying, and, shaking her with all his strength, he repeated.
"Do you hear me? do you hear me?"
She wrenched herself out of his grasp with a sudden movement, and with the tips of her fingers slapped her husband on the nose. He entirely lost his temper, feeling that he had been struck, and angrily pounced down on her.
He now held her under him, boxing her ears in a most violent manner, and exclaiming:
"Take that--and that--and that--there you are, you trollop!"
Then, when he was out of breath, exhausted from beating her, he got up, and went over to the chest of drawers to get himself a gla.s.s of sugared orange-water for he was almost ready to faint after his exertion.
And she lay huddled up in bed, crying and heaving great sobs, feeling that there was an end of her happiness, and that it was all her own fault.
Then, in the midst of her tears, she faltered:
"Listen, Antoine, come here! I told you a lie--listen! I"ll explain it to you."
And now, prepared to defend herself, armed with excuses and subterfuges, she slightly raised her head all tangled under her crumpled nightcap.
And he, turning towards her, drew close to her, ashamed at having whacked her, but feeling intensely still in his heart"s core as a husband an inexhaustible hatred against that woman who had deceived his predecessor, Souris.
ALL OVER
The Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing himself. He cast a parting glance at the large gla.s.s, which occupied an entire panel of his dressing-room, and smiled.
He was really a fine-looking man still, though he was quite gray.
Tall, slight, elegant, with no projecting paunch, with a scanty moustache of doubtful shade in his thin face, which seemed fair rather than white, he had presence, that "chic" in short, that indescribable something which establishes between two men more difference than millions.
He murmured, "Lormerin is still alive!"
And he made his way into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited him.
On his table, where everything had its place, the work-table of the gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch of the finger he exposed to view all these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before tearing open the envelopes.
It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious papers bring him? What did they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing in each case the hand that wrote them, selecting them, making two or three lots, according to what he expected from them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent; further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him a little uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced those curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?
This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he regarded it with disquietude, with a sort of internal shiver.
He thought: "From whom can it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can"t identify it."
He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between two fingers, striving to read through the envelope without making up his mind to open it.
Then he smelled it, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up from the table a little magnifying gla.s.s which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Who is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its prosings, yes, very often.
But this must have been a long, long time ago. Who the deuce can it be from? Pooh! "tis only from somebody asking for money."
And he tore open the letter. Then he read.
"My dear Friend,--You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When I bade you farewell, I quitted Paris in order to follow into the provinces my husband, my old husband, whom you used to call "my hospital." Do you remember him? He died five years ago, and now, I am returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a daughter, a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you about her entrance into the world, but you certainly did not pay much attention to so trifling an event.
"You, you are always the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well, if you still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and dine this evening with her, with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your ever faithful friend, who, with some emotion, stretches out to you, without complaining of her lot, a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss, my poor Jaquelet.
"Lise de Vance."
Lormerin"s heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair, with the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by poignant feelings that made the tears mount up to his eyes!
If he had ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de Vance, whom he called "Cinder-Flower" on account of the strange color of her hair, and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a fine, pretty, charming creature she was, this frail Baronne, the wife of that, gouty, pimply Baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut her up, kept her apart through jealousy, through jealousy of the handsome Lormerin.
Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and she used to p.r.o.nounce that word in an exquisite fashion.
A thousand memories that had been effaced came back to him, far off and sweet and melancholy now. One evening, she called on him on her way home from a ball, and they went out for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the weather was beautiful. The odor of her bodice embalmed the warm air--the odor of her bodice, and also a little, the odor of her skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon"s rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep. A little surprised, he asked her why.
She replied:
"I don"t know. "Tis the moon and the water that have affected me.
Every time I see poetic things, they seize hold of my heart, and I have to cry."
He smiled, moved himself, considering her feminine emotion charming--the emotion of a poor little woman whom every sensation overwhelms. And he embraced her pa.s.sionately, stammering:
"My little Lise, you are exquisite."
What a charming love affair short-lived and dainty it had been, and all over too so quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old brute of a Baron, who had carried off his wife, and never shown her afterwards to anyone!
Lormerin had forgotten, in good sooth, at the end of two or three months. One woman drives out the other so quickly in Paris when one is a bachelor! No matter he had kept a little chapel for her in his heart, for he had loved her alone! He a.s.sured himself now that this was so.
He rose up, and said: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this evening!"
And instinctively he turned round towards the gla.s.s in order to inspect himself from head to foot. He reflected: "She must have grown old unpleasantly, more than I have!" And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far distant!
He turned his attention to the other letters. They were not of importance.
The whole day, he kept thinking of this phantom. What was she like now? How funny it was to meet in this way after twenty-five years!
Would he alone recognize her?
He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat, which suited him better with the coat, sent for the hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling-iron, for he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his eagerness to see her.
The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room freshly furnished, was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from the days of his good-fortune, hanging on the wall in an antique silk frame.
He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly, and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended both hands towards him.
He seized them, kissed them one after the other with long, long kisses, then, lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.