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Page 8
While I was considering in my own mind the invitation which had just been
extended to me, these thoughts crowded in my brain; I recognized their
profound wisdom, and I said Yes! Fatal word, through which I lost my
paradise, exchanging a retreat wholly to my taste--peaceful, laborious,
romantic, and free--for the stiffness of a residence where society
displays all the fury of its insipid dissipations.
I demanded the necessary time for effecting my removal, and Monsieur de
Malouet left me, after grasping my hand cordially, declaring that he was
extremely pleased with me, and that he was going to stimulate his two
cooks to give me a triumphant reception. "I am going," he said in
conclusion, "to announce to them an artist, a poet: that'll work up their
imagination."
Toward five o'clock, two valets from the chateau came to take charge of my
light baggage, and to advise me that a carriage was waiting for me on top
of the hills. I bade farewell to my cell; I thanked my hosts; and I kissed
their little urchins, all besmeared and ill-kempt as they were. These kind
people seemed to see me going with regret. I felt, myself, an
extraordinary and unaccountable sadness. I know not what strange sentiment
attached me to that valley, but I left it with an aching heart, as one
leaves his native country.
More to-morrow, Paul, for I am exhausted.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LITTLE COUNTESS.
_26th September._
The chateau of Malouet is a massive and rather vulgar construction, which
dates some one hundred years back. Fine avenues, a court of honor of a
handsome style, and an ancient park impart to it, however, an aspect truly
seigneurial.
The old marquis came to receive me at the foot of the stoop, passed his
arm under mine, and after leading me through a long maze of corridors,
introduced me into a vast drawing-room, where almost complete obscurity
prevailed; I could only vaguely distinguish, by the intermittent blaze of
the hearth, some twenty persons of both sexes, scattered here and there in
small groups. Thanks to this blessed twilight, I effected safely my
entrance, which had at a distance offered itself to my imagination, under
a solemn and somewhat alarming light. I had barely time to receive the
compliment of welcome which Madame de Malouet addressed me in a feeble but
penetrating voice. She took my arm almost at once to pass into the
dining-room, having resolved, it appears, to refuse no mark of
consideration to a pedestrian of such surprising agility.
Once at the table and in the bright light, I was not long in discovering
that my feats of the previous day had by no means been forgotten, and that
I was the center of general attention; but I stood bravely this cross-fire
of curious and ironical glances, intrenched on the one hand behind a
mountain of flowers that ornamented the center of the table, and on the
other assisted in my defensive position by the ingenious kindness of my
neighbor. Madame de Malouet is one of those rare old women whom superior
strength of mind or great purity of soul has preserved against despair at
the fatal hour of the fortieth year, and who have saved from the wreck of
their youth a single waif, itself a supreme charm, grace. Small, frail,
her face pale and withered from the effects of habitual suffering, she
justifies exactly her husband's expression: "She is a breath, a breath
that exhales intelligence and good-nature!" Not a shadow of any pretension
unbecoming her age, an exquisite care of her person without the faintest
trace of coquetry, a complete oblivion of her departed youth, a sort of
bashfulness at being old, and a touching desire, not to please, but to be
forgiven; such is my adorable marquise. She has traveled much, read much,
and knows Paris well. I roamed with her through one of those rapid
conversations in which two minds whirl and for the first time seek to
become acquainted, rambling from one pole to the other, touching lightly
upon all things, disputing gayly, and happy to agree.
Monsieur de Malouet seized the opportunity of the removal of the colossal
dish that separated us, to ascertain the condition of my relations with
his wife. He seemed satisfied at our evident good intelligence, and
raising his sonorous and cordial voice:
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