The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
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off into a delicate gray as it fell over the shoulders, like the wing of a bird. Upon her hat — it was a kind of toque — there towered an aigret of more brightly colored feathers, and the general effect that her costume inspired was to make one think that she had got herself up in this manner in preparation for a flight through the hail and the gray sky in company with Mother Carey’s chickens.
She was still complacently contemplating herself when the carriage suddenly wheeled into the great court of the embassy.
Thereupon she arranged her wrap, lowered the mirror to its place, closed the doors of the little cupboard, and when the coupé had come to a halt said to her coachman: “You may go home; I shall not need you any more.” Then she asked the footman who came forward from the entrance of the hotel: “Is the Princess at home?”
“Yes, Madame.”
She entered and ascended the stairs and came to a small drawingroom where the Princess de Malten was writing letters.
The ambassadress arose with an appearance of much satisfaction when she perceived her friend, and they kissed each other twice in succession upon the cheek, close to the corner of the lips. Then they seated themselves side by side upon two low chairs in front of the fire. They were very fond of each other, took great delight in each other’s society and understood each other thoroughly, for they were almost counterparts in nature and disposition, belonging to the same race of femininity, brought up in the same atmosphere and endowed with the same sensations, although Mme de Malten was a Swede and had married an Austrian. They had a strange and mysterious attraction for each other, from which resulted a profound feeling of unmixed well-being and contentment whenever they were together. Their babble would run on for half a day on end, without once stopping, trivial, futile talk, interesting to them both by reason of their similarity of tastes.
“You see how I love you!” said Mme de Burne. “You are to dine with me this evening, and still I could not help coming to see you. It is a real passion, my dear.”
“A passion that I share,” the Swede replied with a smile.
Following the habit of their profession, they put each her best foot foremost for the benefit of the other; coquettish as if they had been dealing with a man, but with a different style of coquetry, for the strife was different, and they had not before them the adversary, but the rival.
Madame de Burne had kept looking at the clock during the conversation. It was on the point of striking five. He had been waiting there an hour. “That is long enough,” she said to herself as she arose.
“So soon?” said the Princess.
“Yes,” the other unblushingly replied. “I am in a hurry; there is some one waiting for me. I would a great deal rather stay here with you.”
They exchanged kisses again, and Mme de Burne, having requested the footman to call a cab for her, drove away.
The horse was lame and dragged the cab after him wearily, and the animal’s halting and fatigue seemed to have infected the young woman. Like the broken-winded beast, she found the journey long and difficult. At one moment she was comforted by the pleasure of seeing André, at the next she was in despair at the thought of the discomforts of the interview.
She found him waiting for her behind the gate, shivering. The biting blasts roared through the branches of the trees, the hailstones rattled on their umbrella as they made their way to the house, their feet sank deep into the mud. The garden was dead, dismal, miry, melancholy, and André was very pale. He was enduring terrible suffering.
When they were in the house: “Gracious, how cold it is!” she exclaimed.
And yet a great fire was blazing in each of the two rooms, but they had not been lighted until past noon and had not had time to dry the damp walls, and shivers ran through her frame. “I think that I will not take off my furs just yet,” she added. She only unbuttoned her outer garment and threw it open, disclosing her warm costume and her plume-decked corsage, like a bird of passage that never remains long in one place.
He seated himself beside her.
“There is to be a delightful dinner at my house tonight,” she said, “and I am enjoying it in anticipation.”
“Who are to be there?”
“Why, you, in the first place; then Prédolé, whom I have so long wanted to know.”
“Ah! Prédolé is to be there?”
“Yes; Lamarthe is to bring him.”
“But Prédolé is not the kind of a man to suit you, not a bit! Sculptors in general are not so constituted as to please pretty women, and Prédolé less so than any of them.”
“Oh, my friend, that cannot be. I have such an admiration for him!”
The sculptor Prédolé had gained a great success and had captivated all Paris some two months before by his exhibition at the Varin gallery. Even before that he had been highly appreciated; people had said of him, “His figurines are delicious”; but when the world of artists and connoisseurs had assembled to pass judgment upon his collected works in the rooms of the Rue Varin, the outburst of enthusiasm had been explosive. They seemed to afford the revelation of such an unlooked-for charm, they displayed such a peculiar gift in the translation of elegance and grace, that it seemed as if a new manner of expressing the beauty of form had been born to the world. His specialty was statuettes in extremely abbreviated costumes, in which his genius displayed an unimaginable delicacy of form and airy lightness. His dancing girls, especially, of which he had made many studies, displayed in the highest perfection, in their pose and the harmony of their attitude and motion, the ideal of female beauty and suppleness.
For a month past Mme de Burne had been unceasing in her efforts to attract him to her house, but the artist was unsociable, even something of a bear, so the report ran. At last she had succeeded, thanks to the intervention of Lamarthe, who had made a touching, almost frantic appeal to the gratefui sculptor.
‘‘Whom have you besides?” Mariolle inquired. “The Princess de Malten.”
He was displeased; he did not fancy that woman. “ Who else?”
“Massival, Bernhaus, and George de Maltry. That is all: only my select circle. You are acquainted with Prédolé, are you not?”
“Yes, slightly.”
“How do you like him?”
“He is delightful; I never met a man so enamored of his art and so interesting when he holds forth on it.” She was delighted and again said: ‘It will be charming.”
He had taken her hand under her fur cloak; he gave it a little squeeze, then kissed it. Then all at once it came to her mind that she had forgotten to tell him that she was ill, and casting about on the spur of the moment for another reason, she murmured: “Gracious! how cold it is!”
“Do you think so?”
“I am chilled to my very marrow.”
He arose to take a look at the thermometer, which was, in fact, pretty low; then he resumed his seat at her side.
She had said: “Gracious! how cold it is!” and he believed that he understood her. For three weeks, now, at every one of their interviews, he had noticed that her attempt to feign tenderness was gradually becoming fainter and fainter. He saw that she was weary of wearing this mask, so weary that she could continue it no longer, and he himself was so exasperated by the little power that he had over her, so stung by his vain and unreasoning desire of this woman, that he was beginning to say to himself in his despairing moments of solitude: “It will be better to break with her than to continue to live like this.”
He asked her, by way of fathoming her intentions: “Won’t you take off your cloak now?”
“Oh, no,” she said; “I have been coughing all the morning; this fearful weather has given me a sore throat. I am afraid that I may be ill.”