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And then the War, the short month of long, long days in the apartment on the avenue des Champs-Elysées, waiting, waiting, while the earth trembled to the tramp of armed men and the tireless rumbling of caissons and camions, and the air was vibrant with the savage dialogue of cannon, ever louder, daily more near.... She fell silent, sitting with bowed head and gaze remote.
One morning shortly after the departure of the Morrels for Rome, the Count of Monte-Cristo was driving along the Champs-Elysées in his elegant barouche drawn by a pair of spirited, blooded bays, when, near the Rond-point, his progress was suddenly checked by a great, tumultuous concourse of people.
He rode in the Bois in the course of the day, but did not meet any one there; for of every two carriages one was a hackney coach with a worn-out sleepy horse, his head hanging between his knees, going the round of the lake. He ceased going to the Bois, and went out on foot in the Champs-Elysees. He crossed the Pont de la Concorde, and walked up and down the avenues near the Cirque.
They were always thinking of something else and passed their lives asking one another: "Malvina, if you were rich what would you do? For my part, I'd live on the Champs-Elysees." And the great trees in the square, the carriages that wheeled about there, coquettishly slackening their pace, appeared momentarily before their minds, a delicious, refreshing vision.
Once, however, on going out with Marianne in the Champs-Élysées, he had met the old Dujarrier with the swollen eyelids and the yellow hair that he had known formerly. One of his friends, the Marquis Vergano, had committed suicide at twenty for this woman who was old enough to be his mother.
Of course I saw much less of W. He never came home to breakfast, except on Sunday, as it was too far from the rue de Grenelle to the Etoile. The Arc de Triomphe stands in the Place de l'Etoile at the top of the Champs-Elysees. All the great avenues, Alma, Jena, Kleber, and the adjacent streets are known as the Quartier de l'Etoile.
I repeated to myself, stifling my sobs, the words in which Gilberte had given utterance to her joy at the prospect of not coming back, for a long time, to the Champs-Elysees.
The count grew as pale as death. "My word of honour, my dear Casanova, is more precious to me than my life; and I will give you the hundred louis at nine o'clock to-morrow morning at a hundred paces from the cafe at the end of the Champs-Elysees. I will give you them in person, and nobody will see us. I hope you will not fail to be there, and that you will bring your sword. I shall have mine."
"My sweet child," said Captain Fitzgerald, when he was seated beside his daughter in her brougham, rolling down the Champs-Elysées, "you must not be so grateful; he won't let you out again if you are." "Oh, papa!" said Theodora. They arrived at the Ritz just at the right moment.
"Poor sister!" said Cephyse, with touching emotion, which seemed to expand her contracted features; "when I think that, without informing me, and in spite of your resolution never to see that generous young lady, who protected you, you yet had the courage to drag yourself to her house, dying with fatigue and want, to try to interest her in my fate yes, dying, for your strength failed on the Champs-Elysees."
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