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Page 60
About this time, the Baroness de Pers came to spend three days with her
daughter. She was at once advised, with full particulars, of the
miraculous change that had taken place in Julia's character, and of her
behavior toward her step-father. On witnessing the gracious attentions
which she lavished upon Monsieur de Lucan, Madame de Pers manifested the
liveliest satisfaction, in the midst of which, however, could be seen at
times some slight traces of her former prejudices against her
grand-daughter.
The day before the expected departure of the baroness, some of the
neighbors were invited to dinner for her gratification, for she had but
very little taste for the intimacy of family life, and was passionately
fond of strangers. For want of time to do any better, they gave her for
company, the cure of Vastville, the local physician, the receiver of
taxes, and recorder of deeds, all of whom were tolerably frequent guests
at the chateau, and great admirers of Julia. It was doubtless not a great
deal; it was enough, however, to furnish to the baroness an occasion for
wearing one of her handsome dinner-dresses.
Julia, during the dinner, seemed to make it a point to effect the conquest
of the cure, a simple old man, who yielded to his fair neighbor's
fascinations with a sort of joyous stupor. She made him eat, she made him
drink, she made him laugh.
"What a little serpent she is, isn't she, Monsieur le Cure?" said the
baroness.
"She is very lovely," said the cure.
"Enough to make one shudder," rejoined the baroness.
In the evening, after waltzing for a little while around the room, Julia,
accompanied by her husband, sang in her beautiful, grave voice, some
unpublished melodies and national songs she had brought back from Italy.
One of these tunes having reminded her of a sort of tarentella she had
seen danced by some women at Procida, she requested her husband to play
it. She was explaining at the same time, with much animation, how this
tarentella was danced, giving a rapid outline of the steps, the gestures
and the attitudes; then, suddenly carried away by the ardor of her
narrative:
"Wait a moment, Pierre," she said, "I am going to dance it. That will be
much more simple."
She lifted the long train of her dress, which impeded her movements, and
requested her mother to loop it up with pins. In the meantime she was
right busy herself; there were on the mantel-piece, and on the consoles,
vases filled with flowers and verdure; she drew freely from them with her
nimble fingers, and, standing before a mirror, she fastened and twined
pell-mell, in her magnificent hair, flowers, leaves, bunches, ears,
anything that happened to fall under her hands. With her head loaded with
that heavy and quivering wreath, she came to place herself in the center
of the parlor.
"Go on now, dear!" she said to Monsieur de Moras. He played the
tarentella, that began with a sort of slow and measured ballet-step, which
Julia performed in her own masterly style, folding and unfolding in turn,
like two garlands, her peri's arms; then the rhythm becoming more and more
animated, she struck the floor with her rapid and repeated steps, with the
wild suppleness and the wanton smile of a young bacchante. Suddenly she
brought the performance to a close with a long slide that carried her, all
panting, before Monsieur de Lucan, seated opposite to her. There, she bent
one knee, lay with rapid gesture both her hands upon her hair, and tossing
about at the same time her inclined head, she shook off her crown in a
shower of flowers at the feet of Lucan, saying in her sweetest voice, and
in a tone of gracious homage:
"There! sir!"
After which, she rose, and, still sliding, made her way to an arm-chair,
into which she threw herself, and taking up the cure's three-cornered hat,
she began to fan herself vigorously with it.
In the midst of the applause and the laughter that filled the parlor, the
Baroness de Pers drew gently nearer to Lucan on the sofa which they were
jointly occupying, and said to him in a whisper:
"Tell me, my dear sir, what in the world is the meaning of this new
system? Do you know that I still preferred the old style myself?"
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