Strong as Death

In one corner some books that were luxuriously bound but seldom opened lay within easy reach on a round table with a single leg for a foundation, which stood before a little curved sofa. The Revue des Deux Mondes lay there also, somewhat worn, with turned-down pages, as if it had been read and re-read many times; other publications lay near it, some of them uncut: the Arts modernes, which is bought only because of its cost, the subscription price being four hundred francs a year; and the Feuille libre, a thin volume between blue covers, in which appear the more recent poets, called “les enerves.”

Between the windows stood the Countess’s writing-desk, a coquettish piece of furniture of the last century, on which she wrote replies to those hurried questions handed to her during her receptions. A few books were on that, also, familiar books, index to the heart and mind of a woman: Musset, Manon Lescaut, Werther; and, to show that she was not a stranger to the complicated sensations and mysteries of psychology, Les Fleurs du Mal, Le Rouge et le Noir, La Femme au XVIII Siecle, Adolphe.

Beside the books lay a charming hand-mirror, a masterpiece of the silversmith’s art, the glass being turned down upon a square of embroidered velvet, in order to allow one to admire the curious gold and silver workmanship on the back. Bertin took it up and looked at his own reflection. For some years he had been growing terribly old in appearance, and although he thought that his face showed more originality than when he was younger, the sight of his heavy cheeks and increasing wrinkles saddened him.

A door opened behind him.

“Good morning, Monsieur Bertin,” said Annette.

“Good morning, little one; are you well?”

“Very well; and you?”

“What, are you not saying ‘thou’ to me, then, after all?”

“No, indeed! It would really embarrass me.”

“Nonsense!”

“Yes, it would. You make me feel timid.”

“And why, pray?”

“Because – because you are neither young enough nor old enough – ”

The painter laughed.

“After such a reason as that I will insist no more.”

She blushed suddenly, up to the white brow, where the waves of hair began to ripple, and resumed, with an air of slight confusion:

“Mamma told me to say to you that she will be down immediately, and to ask you whether you will go to the Bois de Boulogne with us.”

“Yes, certainly. You are alone?”

“No; with the Duchesse de Mortemain.”

“Very well; I will go.”

“Then will you allow me to go and put on my hat?”

“Yes, go, my child.”

As Annette left the room the Countess entered, veiled, ready to set forth. She extended her hands cordially.

“We never see you any more. What are you doing?” she inquired.

“I did not wish to trouble you just at this time,” said Bertin.

In the tone with which she spoke the word “Olivier!” she expressed all her reproaches and all her attachment.

“You are the best woman in the world,” he said, touched by the tender intonation of his name.

This little love-quarrel being finished and settled, the Countess resumed her light, society tone.

“We shall pick up the Duchess at her hotel and then make a tour of the Bois. We must show all that sort of thing to Nanette, you know.”

The landau awaited them under the porte-cochere.

Bertin seated himself facing the two ladies, and the carriage departed, the pawing of the horses making a resonant sound against the over-arching roof of the porte-cochere.

Along the grand boulevard descending toward the Madeleine all the gaiety of the springtime seemed to have fallen upon the tide of humanity.

The soft air and the sunshine lent to the men a festive air, to the women a suggestion of love; the bakers’ boys deposited their baskets on the benches to run and play with their brethren, the street urchins; the dogs appeared in a great hurry to go somewhere; the canaries hanging in the boxes of the concierges trilled loudly; only the ancient cab-horses kept their usual sedate pace.

“Oh, what a beautiful day! How good it is to live!” murmured the Countess.

The painter contemplated both mother and daughter in the dazzling light. Certainly, they were different, but at the same time so much alike that the latter was veritably a continuation of the former, made of the same blood, the same flesh, animated by the same life. Their eyes, above all, those blue eyes flecked with tiny black drops, of such a brilliant blue in the daughter, a little faded in the mother, fixed upon him a look so similar that he expected to hear them make the same replies. And he was surprised to discover, as he made them laugh and talk, that before him were two very distinct women, one who had lived and one who was about to live. No, he did not foresee what would become of that child when her young mind, influenced by tastes and instincts that were as yet dormant, should have expanded and developed amid the life of the world. This was a pretty little new person, ready for chances and for love, ignored and ignorant, who was sailing out of port like a vessel, while her mother was returning, having traversed life and having loved!

He was touched at the thought that she had chosen himself, and that she preferred him still, this woman who had remained so pretty, rocked in that landau, in the warm air of springtime.

As he expressed his gratitude to her in a glance, she divined it, and he thought he could feel her thanks in the rustle of her robe.

In his turn he murmured: “Oh, yes, what a beautiful day!”

When they had taken up the Duchess, in the Rue de Varenne, they spun along at a swift pace toward the Invalides, crossed the Seine, and reached the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, going up toward the Arc de triomphe de l’Etoile in the midst of a sea of carriages.

The young girl was seated beside Olivier, riding backward, and she opened upon this stream of equipages wide and wondering eager eyes. Occasionally, when the Duchess and the Countess acknowledged a salutation with a short movement of the head, she would ask “Who is that?” Bertin answered: “The Pontaiglin,” “the Puicelci,” “the Comtesse de Lochrist,” or “the beautiful Madame Mandeliere.”

Now they were following the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne, amid the noise and the rattling of wheels. The carriages, a little less crowded than below the Arc de Triomphe, seemed to struggle in an endless race. The cabs, the heavy landaus, the solemn eight-spring vehicles, passed one another over and over again, distanced suddenly by a rapid victoria, drawn by a single trotter, bearing along at a reckless pace, through all that rolling throng, bourgeois and aristocratic, through all societies, all classes, all hierarchies, an indolent young woman, whose bright and striking toilette diffused among the carriages it touched in passing a strange perfume of some unknown flower.

“Who is that lady?” Annette inquired.

“I don’t know,” said Bertin, at which reply the Duchess and the Countess exchanged a smile.

The leaves were opening, the familiar nightingales of that Parisian garden were singing already among the tender verdure, and when, as the carriage approached the lake, it joined the long file of other vehicles at a walk, there was an incessant exchange of salutations, smiles, and friendly words, as the wheels touched. The procession seemed now like the gliding of a flotilla in which were seated very well-bred ladies and gentlemen. The Duchess, who was bowing every moment before raised hats or inclined heads, appeared to be passing them in review, calling to mind what she knew, thought, or supposed of these people, as they defiled before her.

“Look, dearest, there is the lovely Madame Mandeliere again – the beauty of the Republic.”

In a light and dashing carriage, the beauty of the Republic allowed to be admired, under an apparent indifference to this indisputable glory, her large dark eyes, her low brow beneath a veil of dusky hair, and her mouth, which was a shade too obstinate in its lines.

“Very beautiful, all the same,” said Bertin.

The Countess did not like to hear him praise other women. She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but said nothing.

But the young girl, in whom the instinct of rivalry suddenly awoke, ventured to say: “I do not find her beautiful at all.”

“What! You do not think her beautiful?” said the painter.