She could scarcely speak, and was as pale as death;
she hardly knew what she was saying, with her eyes
on this pretty child, which George must be so fond
of.
She saw him, as if in a window which had suddenly
been lifted up, where everything had been dark before,
with their arms round each other, and radiant with
happiness, with that fair head, that divine dawn, the
living, smiling proof of their love, between them.
They would never leave each other; they were already
almost as good as married, and were robbing her of
the name which she had defended and guarded as a sacred
deposit.
She would never succeed in breaking such bonds.
It was a shipwreck where nothing could survive, and
where the waves did not even drift some shapeless
waif and stray ashore.
And great tears rolled down her cheeks, one by one,
and wet her veil.
The train stopped at the station, and the nurse scarcely
liked to ask Suzanne for the child, who was holding
it against her heaving bosom, and kissing it as if
she intended to smother it, and she said:
“I suppose the baby reminds you of one you have
lost, my poor, dear lady, but the loss can be repaired
at your age, surely; a second is as good as a first,
and if one does not do oneself justice...”
Madame d’Hardermes gave her back the child,
and hurried out straight ahead of her, like a hunted
animal, and threw herself into the first cab that
she saw...
She sued for a divorce, and obtained it.
[Footnote 10: This manuscript was found among
the papers of Viscount Jacques de X——
who committed suicide a few years ago, in his room
in an hotel at Piombieres.—R.M.]
For days and days, nights and nights, I had dreamt
of that first kiss, which was to consecrate our engagement,
and I knew not on what spot I should put my lips,
that were madly thirsting for her beauty and her youth.
Not on her forehead, that was accustomed to family
caresses, nor on her light hair, which mercenary hands
had dressed, nor on her eyes, whose turned up lashes
looked like little wings, because that would have
made me think of the farewell caress which closes the
eyelids of some dead woman whom one has adored, nor
her lovely mouth, which I will not, which I must not
possess until that divine moment when Elaine will at
last belong to me altogether and for always, but on
that delicious little dimple which comes in one of
her cheeks when she is happy, when she smiles, and
which excited me as much as her voice did with languorous
softness, on that evening when our flirtation began,
at the Souverette’s.
Our parents had gone away, and were walking slowly
under the chestnut trees in the garden, and had left
us alone together for a few minutes. I went up
to her and took both her hands into mine, which were
trembling, and gently drawing her close to me, I whispered:
