“I only wanted to smoke a cigar. I am coming
in now.”
“Then good-night, my friend.”
“Good-night, Countess.”
She retired as far as her low chair, sat down in it
and wept; and her maid, who was called to assist her
to bed, seeing her red eyes said with compassion:
“Ah, Madame is going to make a sad face for
herself again to-morrow.”
The Countess slept badly; she was feverish and had
nightmare. As soon as she awoke she opened her
window and her curtains to look at herself in the
mirror. Her features were drawn, her eyelids swollen,
her skin looked yellow; and she felt such violent
grief because of this that she wished to say she was
ill and to keep her bed, so that she need not appear
until evening.
Then, suddenly, the necessity to go away entered her
mind, to depart immediately, by the first train, to
quit the country, where one could see too clearly
by the broad light of the fields the ineffaceable marks
of sorrow and of life itself. In Paris one lives
in the half shadow of apartments, where heavy curtains,
even at noontime, admit only a softened light.
She would herself become beautiful again there, with
the pallor one should have in that discreetly softened
light. Then Annette’s face rose before
her eyes—so fresh and pink, with slightly
disheveled hair, as when she was playing tennis.
She understood then the unknown anxiety from which
her soul had suffered. She was not jealous of
her daughter’s beauty! No, certainly not;
but she felt, she acknowledged for the first time
that she must never again show herself by Annette’s
side in the bright sunlight.
She rang, and before drinking her tea she gave orders
for departure, wrote some telegrams, even ordering
her dinner for that evening by telegraph, settled
her bills in the country, gave her final instructions,
arranged everything in less than an hour, a prey to
feverish and increasing impatience.
When she went down stairs, Annette and Olivier, who
had been told of her decision, questioned her with
surprise. Then, seeing that she would not give
any precise reason for this sudden departure, they
grumbled a little and expressed their dissatisfaction
until they separated at the station in Paris.
The Countess, holding out her hand to the painter,
said: “Will you dine with us to-morrow?”
“Certainly, I will come,” he replied,
rather sulkily. “All the same, what you
have done was not nice. We were so happy down
there, all three of us.”
A DANGEROUS WARNING
As soon as the Countess was alone with her daughter
in her carriage, which was taking her back to her
home, she suddenly felt tranquil and quieted, as if
she had just passed through a serious crisis.
She breathed easier, smiled at the houses, recognized
with joy the look of the city, whose details all true
Parisians seem to carry in their eyes and hearts.
Each shop she passed suggested the ones beyond, on
a line along the Boulevard, and the tradesman’s
face so often seen behind his show-case. She
felt saved. From what? Reassured. Why?
Confident. Of what?
