LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER I

      Table of Contents

      On the drive home, the calash could make but little way against the obstruction of carriages returning by the edge of the lake. At one moment the block became such that it was even necessary to pull up.

      The sun was setting in a pale gray October sky, streaked on the horizon with thin clouds. One last ray, falling from the distant shrubberies of the cascade, pierced the roadway, and flooded the long array of stationary carriages with pale red light. The golden glints, the bright flashes thrown by the wheels, seemed to have settled along the straw-coloured edges of the calash, while the dark-blue panels reflected bits of the surrounding landscape. And higher up, full in the red light that lit them up from behind, and gave effulgence to the brass buttons of their capes half-folded across the back of the box, sat the coachman and footman, in their dark-blue liveries, their drab breeches, and their yellow-and-black striped waistcoats, erect, solemn and patient, after the manner of well-bred servants who are in no way put out by a block of carriages. Their hats, adorned with black cockades, looked very dignified. The horses alone, a pair of splendid bays, snorted with impatience.

      “Look,” said Maxime, “Laure d’Aurigny, over there, in that brougham…. Do look, Renée.”

      Renée raised herself slightly, and blinked her eyes with the exquisite grimace caused by the shortness of her sight.

      “I thought she had vanished from the scene,” said Renée…. “She has changed the colour of her hair, has she not?”

      “Yes,” replied Maxime, laughing; “her new lover hates red.”

      Awakened from the melancholy dream that for an hour had kept her silent, stretched out in the back seat of the carriage as in an invalid’s long-chair, Renée leaned forward and looked, resting her hand on the low door of the calash. Over a gown consisting of a mauve silk polonaise and tunic, trimmed with wide plaited flounces, she wore a little coat of white cloth with mauve velvet lapels, which gave her a look of great smartness. Her strange, pale, fawn-coloured hair, whose shade recalled the colour of good butter, was barely concealed by a tiny bonnet adorned with a cluster of Bengal roses. She continued to screw up her eyes with her look of an impertinent boy, her pure forehead furrowed by one long wrinkle, her upper lip protruding like a sulky child’s. Then, finding that she could not see, she took her eyeglass, a man’s double eyeglass framed in tortoiseshell, and, holding it in her hand without placing it on her nose, at her ease examined the fat Laure d’Aurigny, with an air of absolute calmness.

      The carriages were still blocked. Among the massed dark patches made by the long line of broughams, of which numbers that autumn afternoon had crowded to the Bois, gleamed the glass of a carriage-window, the bit of a bridle, the plated socket of a lamp, the braid on the livery of a lackey perched on his box. Here and there a bit of stuff, a bit of a woman’s dress, silk or velvet, flashed from an open landau. Little by little a deep silence had taken the place of all the bustle that now stood dead and motionless. The occupants of the carriages could distinguish the conversation of the people on foot. Silent glances were exchanged from window to window; and all ceased talking during this wait, whose silence was broken only by the creaking of a set of harness, or the impatient pawing of a horse’s hoof. The blurred voices of the Bois died away in the distance.

      All Paris was there, in spite of the lateness of the season: the Duchesse de Sternich, in a chariot; Mme. de Lauwerens, in a smart victoria and pair; the Baronne de Meinhold, in an enchanting light-brown cab; the Comtesse Vanska, with her piebald ponies; Mme. Daste, with her famous black steppers; Mme. de Guende and Mme. Teissière in a brougham; little Sylvia in a dark-blue landau. And then there was Don Carlos, in mourning, with his solemn, old-fashioned liveries; and Selim Pasha, with his fez and without his tutor; the Duchesse de Rozan, in a miniature brougham, with her powdered livery; the Comte de Chibray, in a dogcart; Mr. Simpson, driving his perfectly-appointed drag; and the whole American colony. Then, finally, two Academicians in a hired cab.

      The front carriages were released, and one by one the whole line began to move slowly on. It resembled an awakening. A thousand lively coruscations sprang up, quick flashes played among the wheels, sparks flew from the horses’ harness. On the ground, on the trees, were broad reflections of trotting glass. This glitter of wheels and harness, this blaze of varnished panels glowing with the red gleam of the setting sun, the bright notes of colour cast by the dazzling liveries perched up full against the sky, and by the rich costumes projecting beyond the carriage-doors, were carried along amid a hollow, sustained rumbling sound, timed by the trot of the horses. And the procession went on, with the same noise, the same effects of light, unceasingly and with one impulse, as though the foremost carriages were dragging all the others behind them.

      Renée yielded to the first slight jolt of the calash, and lowering her eyeglass, threw herself back on the cushions. Shivering, she drew towards her a corner of the bearskin that filled the body of the carriage as with a sheet of silky snow, and plunged her gloved hands into the long, soft, curly hair. The wind began to blow from the North. The warm October day, which had given the Bois an aftermath of spring and brought the great ladies out in open carriages, threatened to end in a bitterly cold evening.

      For a moment Renée remained huddled in the warmth of her corner, giving way to the pleasurable lullaby of wheels turning before her. Then, raising her head towards Maxime, whose eyes were calmly undressing the women spread out in the adjacent broughams and landaus:

      “Tell me,” she said, “do you really think that Laure d’Aurigny handsome? How you sang her praises the other day, when they were discussing the sale of her diamonds!… By the way, did you not see the necklace and the aigrette your father bought me at the sale?”

      “Yes, he does things well,” said Maxime, without answering, laughing mischievously. “He finds means to pay Laure’s debts and to give diamonds to his wife.”

      Renée made a slight movement with her shoulders.

      “Wretch!” she murmured, with a smile.

      But Maxime was leaning forward, following with his gaze a lady whose green dress interested him. Renée had thrown back her head, and with half-closed eyes glanced listlessly at the two sides of the avenue, seeing nothing. On the right, copses and low-cut plantations with reddened leaves and slender branches passed slowly by; at intervals, on the track reserved for riders, slim-waisted gentlemen galloped past, their steeds raising little clouds of fine dust behind them. On the left, at the foot of the narrow grassplots that run down intersected by flowerbeds and shrubs, the lake, clear as crystal, without a ripple, lay as though neatly trimmed along its edges by the gardeners’ spades; and on the further side of this translucent mirror, the two islands, with between them the gray bar formed by the connecting bridge, displayed their smiling slopes and the theatrical outlines of fir-trees and evergreens, whose black foliage, resembling the fringe of curtains cunningly draped along the edge of the horizon, was reflected in the water. This scrap of nature, that seemed like a newly-painted piece of scenery, lay bathed in a faint shadow, in a pale blue vapour which succeeded in lending to the background an exquisite charm, an air of entrancing artificiality. On the other bank, the Châlet des Îles, as though newly varnished, shone like an unused toy; and the paths of yellow sand, the narrow garden walks that wind among the lawns and run along the lake, edged with iron hoops in imitation of rustic woodwork, stood out more curiously, in this last hour of daylight, against the softened green of grass and water.

      Accustomed to the ingenious charms of this perspective, Renée, once more yielding to her languor, had lowered her eyelids altogether, and looked only at her slender fingers twisting the long hairs of the bearskin. But there came a jolt in the even trot of the line of carriages. And, raising her head, she nodded to two ladies lolling languidly, amorously, side by side, in a chariot which was nosily leaving the road that skirts the lake, in order to go down one of the side avenues.

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