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Page 17
It was a lady--a school-friend of Lady A----, whose name is Madame
Durmaitre. She is a widow, and extremely handsome; she is noted for a
lesser degree of folly amid the wild and worldly ladies of the chateau.
For this reason, and somewhat also on account of her superior charms, she
has long since conquered the ill-will of Madame de Palme, who, in allusion
to her rival's somber style of dress, to the languid character of her
beauty, and to the somewhat elegiac turn of her conversation, is pleased
to designate her, among the young people, as the Malabar Widow. Madame
Durmaitre is positively lacking in wit; but she is intelligent, tolerably
well read, and much inclined to reverie. She prides herself upon a certain
talent for conversation. Seeing that I am myself destitute of any other
social accomplishment, she has got it into her head that I must possess
that particular one, and she has undertaken to make sure of it. The result
has been, between us, a rather assiduous and almost cordial intercourse;
for, if I have been unable to fully respond to all her hopes, I listen, at
least with religious attention, to the little melancholy pathos which is
habitual with her. I appear to understand her, and she seems grateful for
it. The truth is that I never tire hearing her voice, which is musical,
gazing at her features, which are exquisitely regular, and admiring her
large black eyes, over which a fringe of heavy eyelashes casts a mystic
shadow. However, do not feel uneasy; I have decided that the time for
being loved, and consequently for loving, is over for me; now, love is a
malady which no one need fear, if he sincerely strive to repress its first
symptoms.
Madame de Palme had turned around at the sound of the opening door; when
she recognized Madame Durmaitre, a fierce light gleamed in her blue eyes;
chance had sent her a victim. She allowed the beautiful widow to advance a
few paces toward us, with the slow and mournful step which is
characteristic of her manner, and bursting out laughing:
"Bravo!" she exclaimed, with emphasis, "the march to the scaffold! the
victim dragged to the altar! Iphigenia; or, rather, Hermione:
"'Pleurante apres son char vous voulez qu'on me voie!'
"Who is it that has written this verse? I am so ignorant! Ah! it's your
friend, M. de Lamartine, I believe. He was thinking of you, my dear!"
"Ah! you quote poetry now, dear madam," said Madame Durmaitre, who is not
very skilled at retort.
"Why not, dear madam? Have you a monopoly of it?--'Pleurante apres son
char?' I have heard Rachel say that. By the way, it is not by Lamartine,
it's by Boileau. I must tell you, dear Nathalie, that I intend to ask you
to give me lessons in serious and virtuous conversation. It's so amusing!
And to begin at once, come! tell me whom you prefer, Lamartine or
Boileau?"
"But, Bathilde, there is no connection," replied Madame Durmaitre, rather
sensibly and much too candidly.
"Ah!" rejoined Madame de Palme. And suddenly pointing me out with her
finger: "You perhaps prefer this gentleman, who also writes poetry?"
"No, madam," I said, "it is a mistake; I write none."
"Ah! I thought you did. I beg your pardon."
Madame Durmaitre, who doubtless owes the unalterable serenity of her soul
to the consciousness of her supreme beauty, had been content with smiling
with disdainful nonchalance. She dropped into the arm-chair, which I had
given up to her.
"What gloomy weather!" she said to me; "really, this autumnal sky weighs
upon the soul. I was looking out of the window; all the trees look like
cypress-trees, and the whole country looks like a graveyard. It would
really seem that----"
"No, ah! no. I beg of you, Nathalie," interrupted Madame de Palme, "say no
more. That's enough fun before breakfast. You'll make yourself sick."
"Well, now! my dear Bathilde, you must really have slept very badly last
night," said the beautiful widow.
"I, my dear? ah! do not say that. I had celestial, ecstatic dreams;
ecstasies, you know. My soul held converse with other souls--like your own
soul. Angels smiled at me through the foliage of the cypress-trees--and so
forth, and so forth!"
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