“Don’t weep, my fairy, you rob me of all
my courage. Come, you will be a great deal happier
when you no longer have your terrible demon. You
will go back to Fontainebleau and look after your
chickens. The ten thousand francs from Brahim
will help to get you settled down. And then, don’t
be afraid, once you are over there I shall send you
money. Since this Bey wants to have sculpture
done by me, he will have to pay for it, as you may
imagine. I shall return rich, rich. Who knows?
Perhaps a sultana.”
“Yes, you will be a sultana, but I—I
shall be dead and I shall never see you again.”
And the good Crenmitz in despair huddled herself into
a corner of the cab so that she would not be seen
weeping.
Felicia was leaving Paris. She was trying to
escape the horrible sadness, the sinister disgust
into which Mora’s death had thrown her.
What a terrible blow for the proud girl! Ennui,
pique, had thrown her into this man’s arms;
she had given him pride—modesty—all;
and now he had carried all away with him, leaving
her tarnished for life, a tearless widow, without
mourning and without dignity. Two or three visits
to Saint-James Villa, a few evenings in the back of
some box at some small theatre, behind the curtain
that shelters forbidden and shameful pleasure, these
were the only memories left to her by this liaison
of a fortnight, this loveless intrigue wherein her
pride had not found even the satisfaction of the commotion
caused by a big scandal. The useless and indelible
stain, the stupid fall of a woman who does not know
how to walk and who is embarrassed in her rising by
the ironical pity of the passers-by.
For a moment she thought of suicide, then the reflection
that it would be set down to a broken heart arrested
her. She saw in a glance the sentimental compassion
of the drawing-rooms, the foolish figure that her
sham passion would cut among the innumberable love
affairs of the duke, and the Parma violets scattered
by the pretty Moessards of journalism on her grave,
dug so near the other. Travelling remained to
her—one of those journeys so distant that
they take even one’s thoughts into a new world.
Unfortunately the money was wanting. Then she
remembered that on the morrow of her great success
at the Exhibition, old Brahim Bey had called to see
her, to make her, in behalf of his master, magnificent
proposals for certain great works to be executed in
Tunis. She had said No at the time, without allowing
herself to be tempted by Oriental remuneration, a
splendid hospitality, the finest court in the Bardo
for a studio, with its surrounding facades of stone
in lacework carving. But now she was quite willing.
She had to make but a sign, the agreement was immediately
concluded, and after an exchange of telegrams, a hasty
packing and shutting up of the house, she set out for
the railway station as if for a week’s absence,
astonished herself by her prompt decision, flattered
on all the adventurous and artistic sides of her nature
by the hope of a new life in an unknown country.
