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Updated: June 1, 2025
"How is it possible," he continued, lowering his voice, and leaning towards Mademoiselle Cormon's ear, "that a young man brought up in those detestable lyceums should have ideas? Only sound morals and noble habits will ever produce great ideas and a true love. It is easy to see by a mere look at him that the poor lad is likely to be imbecile, and come, perhaps, to some sad end.
Soon the words: "Mademoiselle Cormon has returned!" burst like a bombshell into all households. He opened the great green gate, round at the top, and closed in sign of mourning; for during Mademoiselle Cormon's absence the evening assemblies did not take place.
The old gentleman, who loved to assist women, turned Mademoiselle Cormon's sayings into wit by sustaining them paradoxically, and he often covered the retreat so well that it seemed as if the good woman had said nothing silly. She asserted very seriously one evening that she did not see any difference between an ox and a bull.
The town was already topsy-turvy in mind, as a consequence of the five extraordinary circumstances which accompanied Mademoiselle Cormon's return; to wit, the pouring rain; Penelope at a gallop, in a lather, and blown; the early hour; the parcels half-packed; and the singular air of the excited old maid.
Mademoiselle Cormon's ambition took its rise in the most delicate and sensitive feminine feeling; she longed to reward a lover by revealing to him a thousand virtues after marriage, as other women then betray the imperfections they have hitherto concealed. But she was ill understood.
This entrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon's mind which was favorable to the republican, although in all other respects the Chevalier de Valois held the advantages. "God wills it!" she said piously, on seeing du Bousquier. "Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate.
Four persons were playing piquet, an expensive game, at which the most money was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureur-du-roi, and two ladies went into the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glass lustres were lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle Cormon's company gathered before the fireplace, on sofas, and around the tables, and each couple said to her as they arrived,
"The Cormons end as they began; there's only a hand's breadth between a steward and a purveyor." The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Granson to the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitation within him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house of the chief-justice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston.
Had he listened to her, he might have made her, then and there, perceive his passion; for, in the agitated state of Mademoiselle Cormon's mind, a single word would have sufficed. But that stupid absorption in his own sentiments, which characterizes young and true love, had ruined him, as a child full of life sometimes kills itself out of ignorance.
The shore opposite to Mademoiselle Cormon's garden is crowded with houses where a variety of trades are carried on; happily for her, the occupants are quiet people, a baker, a cleaner, an upholsterer, and several bourgeois. The garden, full of common flowers, ends in a natural terrace, forming a quay, down which are several steps leading to the river.
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