I
ground the pieces under my feet.
Brigitte looked at me without saying a word. During the two succeeding
days, she treated me with a coldness that had something of contempt in
it, and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindness
than usual. She called him, Henry, and smiled on him sweetly.
"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall we
go to the Opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."
"No, I will stay here; go without me." She took Smith's arm and went out.
I remained alone all the evening; I had paper before me and I was trying
to collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.
As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, and
loses himself in delightful reverie, thus I shut myself up in solitude
and yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me, were the two
empty seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinized
them eagerly as though they could tell me something. I revolved in my
mind all the things I had heard and seen; from time to time, I went to
the door and cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against
the wall for a month; I opened them and examined the contents so
carefully packed away by those delicate little hands; I listened to the
sound of passing carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread
out on the table our map of Europe, and there in the very presence of all
my hopes, in that room where I had conceived and had so nearly realized
them, I abandoned myself to the most frightful presentiments.
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