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Such a one was Ivan, whom Nathalie herself could only have served again and again to quicken into higher and richer musical expression: to whom her loss had only meant many years of minor melodies. Such a man as Ivan, Joseph still believed himself to be. Slowly, inch by inch, with every step a form of torture, was he to learn the truth.
Long before this time he realized that all the passion of his youth had been renewed and increased a hundredfold: that he loved the Princess Féodoreff as he had never loved Nathalie Dravikine. He was ready, nay, mad, to lay himself at her feet.
One night there was a dance in our honour. Nor have I forgotten Jerry's sister, Nathalie, whom I had met at Class Days, a slim and willowy, exotic young lady of the Botticelli type, with a crown of burnished hair, yet more suggestive of a hothouse than of spring. She spoke English with a French accent.
As he sat beside his cousin, talked to her, held her in his arms during one of the wild, Russian mazurkas, he felt his body tremble with the terrible force within him. And once the little form he held twisted, suddenly, in his embrace. Nathalie cried out, and looked up at him; and he realized that his strong clasp had hurt her. His look answered hers.
The marquis, his niece the Countess Nathalie de Vallauris, and his chaplain the Abbé de Navailles, in spite of orders from General Trochu, have remained at this country-seat, apparently indifferent to passing events.
I went back home, determined to say nothing to my mother; but my little sister when questioned about her wound had told everything in her own way, exaggerating, if possible, the brutality of Madame Nathalie and the audacity of what I had done. Rose Baretta, too, had been to see me, and had burst into tears, assuring my mother that my engagement would be cancelled.
He was, as a matter of fact, just returning from a night of festivity at the Nobility Club. But this, naturally, was not to be confessed. "No earlier than you, at least, mademoiselle," he returned. "And will you accept my escort to wherever you are going?" Nathalie gave one, quick glance into the old woman's scowling face. Then the demon of mischief entered into her, and she accepted Ivan's offer.
Moreover, here was a new season coming on; and one that promised him delight untold. For was it not to bring the début of his cousin Nathalie? She, light of his dreams, no longer to be shut away from his eyes, or voice, or even speak of it reverently! arms, perhaps stood where he had stood a year before: on the threshold of the ballroom of youth.
The dirty servant met her in the stuffy passage, dark but for a lamp which burnt there all day. He told her that the Prince was not in. Nathalie asked to be shown into his rooms, as she wished to leave a note for him, and the man took her up. Nathalie carefully examined her brother's two little rooms.
And finally, at six o'clock more than an hour after despatching a short message to Piotr, in Konnaia Square Gregoriev, with Lodoroff, three other men, and Mesdames Nathalie, Anna, and Celéstine, whose last names were as changeable as their complexions, set off, in four public droschkies, for the Gregoriev palace.
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