United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She seemed never to have had a youth; her glance never told of a past. Godefroid's curiosity was far from being appeased by a closer and more intimate knowledge of this sublime nature; the discoveries of each succeeding day only redoubled his desire to learn the anterior life of a woman whom he now thought a saint. Had she ever loved? Had she been a wife, a mother?
At eight o'clock the next morning Godefroid knocked at the door of the celebrated Polish doctor. He was shown by a footman to the first floor of a little house Godefroid had been examining while the porter was seeking and informing the footman. Happily, Godefroid's early arrival saved him the annoyance of being kept waiting. He was, he supposed, the first comer.
Madame Vauthier, deceived by Godefroid's apparent frankness, let a smile of satisfaction appear on her specious face, which confirmed all her lodger's suspicions. Godefroid was convinced that the old woman was an accomplice in some plot that was brewing against the unfortunate old man. "It is strange, monsieur," she went on, "what fancies one takes into one's head!
But this sentiment is not yet an ardent vocation. Yes," he continued, replying to a gesture of Godefroid's, "you have more curiosity than fervor. You are not yet so detached from your old ideas that you do not look forward to something adventurous, romantic, as they say, in the incidents of our life." Godefroid could not keep himself from blushing.
The old man rose, and grasping Godefroid's hand, drew him to a corner of the room beside the fireplace. "Ah! what a night I shall pass! a definitive decision! My daughter cured or doomed!" "Courage!" said Godefroid; "after tea come out with me." "My child, my child, don't play any more," said the old man; "you will bring on an attack; such a strain upon your strength must end in reaction."
That man ought to be the lieutenant of his company. I dare say he is. With what ease he plays the scene of Monsieur Dimanche! A little more and I should have made a friend of Monsieur Cartier." The old man broke into this soliloquy, which proves how Godefroid's ideas had changed in four months.
To leave room for the boy to pass, the gardener had stepped back to the sill of Godefroid's door, and as at that moment Nepomucene arrived with a quantity of wood, the creditor was forced to retreat into the room. "Monsieur Bernard!" cried the widow Vauthier, "do you think Monsieur Godefroid hired his rooms to have you hold your meetings in them?"
Madame la Duchesse d'Angouleme, afterwards the dauphine, the Duchesse de Berry, the archbishop, later the chancellor, and several pious persons contributed liberally the first necessary sums. These funds have been increased by the addition of our own available property, from which we take only enough for our actual needs." Tears came into Godefroid's eyes.
The old man followed her down a few steps. When they were out of hearing from Godefroid's room she stopped. "No," she said, "I haven't any letter; I only wanted to tell you to beware of that young man; he belongs to a publishing house." "That explains everything," thought the old man. He went back to his neighbor with a very different expression of countenance.
"Married women relish these little expeditions as ogres relish warm flesh; they feel young again with the young bliss, unspoiled as yet by fruition. Breakfast was served in Godefroid's sitting-room, decked out like a troop horse for a farewell to bachelor life.
Word Of The Day