The memory of this ball, then, became an occupation
for Emma.
Whenever the Wednesday came round she said to herself
as she awoke, “Ah! I was there a week—a
fortnight—three weeks ago.”
And little by little the faces grew confused in her
remembrance.
She forgot the tune of the quadrilles; she no longer
saw the liveries and appointments so distinctly; some
details escaped her, but the regret remained with
her.
Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard,
between the folds of the linen where she had left
it, the green silk cigar case. She looked at
it, opened it, and even smelt the odour of the lining—a
mixture of verbena and tobacco. Whose was it?
The Viscount’s? Perhaps it was a present
from his mistress. It had been embroidered on
some rosewood frame, a pretty little thing, hidden
from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, and over
which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker.
A breath of love had passed over the stitches on the
canvas; each prick of the needle had fixed there a
hope or a memory, and all those interwoven threads
of silk were but the continuity of the same silent
passion. And then one morning the Viscount had
taken it away with him. Of what had they spoken
when it lay upon the wide-mantelled chimneys between
flower-vases and Pompadour clocks? She was at
Tostes; he was at Paris now, far away! What was
this Paris like? What a vague name! She
repeated it in a low voice, for the mere pleasure of
it; it rang in her ears like a great cathedral bell;
it shone before her eyes, even on the labels of her
pomade-pots.
At night, when the carriers passed under her windows
in their carts singing the “Marjolaine,”
she awoke, and listened to the noise of the iron-bound
wheels, which, as they gained the country road, was
soon deadened by the soil. “They will be
there to-morrow!” she said to herself.
And she followed them in thought up and down the hills,
traversing villages, gliding along the highroads by
the light of the stars. At the end of some indefinite
distance there was always a confused spot, into which
her dream died.
She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her
finger on the map she walked about the capital.
She went up the boulevards, stopping at every turning,
between the lines of the streets, in front of the white
squares that represented the houses. At last she
would close the lids of her weary eyes, and see in
the darkness the gas jets flaring in the wind and
the steps of carriages lowered with much noise before
the peristyles of theatres.
