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Updated: May 12, 2025
And suddenly pointing me out with her finger: "You perhaps prefer this gentleman, who also writes poetry?" "No, madam," I said, "it is a mistake; I write none." "Ah! I thought you did. I beg your pardon." Madame Durmaitre, who doubtless owes the unalterable serenity of her soul to the consciousness of her supreme beauty, had been content with smiling with disdainful nonchalance.
I must tell you, dear Nathalie, that I intend to ask you to give me lessons in serious and virtuous conversation. It's so amusing! And to begin at once, come! tell me whom you prefer, Lamartine or Boileau?" "But, Bathilde, there is no connection," replied Madame Durmaitre, rather sensibly and much too candidly. "Ah!" rejoined Madame de Palme.
The good-natured Nathalie mentioned Monsieur de Breuilly, two or three other married gentlemen, and the parish priest. "Then I am going away after breakfast," said the Little Countess, looking at me. "That's very polite to us," murmured Madame Durmaitre.
As to myself, I promptly offered my arm to Madame Durmaitre, and I endeavored by earnest attentions, to make her forget the storm which the mere shade of sympathy she manifests toward me had just attracted upon her.
I am so ignorant! Ah! it's your friend, M. de Lamartine, I believe. He was thinking of you, my dear!" "Ah! you quote poetry now, dear madam," said Madame Durmaitre, who is not very skilled at retort. "Why not, dear madam? Have you a monopoly of it? 'Pleurante apres son char? I have heard Rachel say that. By the way, it is not by Lamartine, it's by Boileau.
Angels smiled at me through the foliage of the cypress-trees and so forth, and so forth!" Madame Durmaitre blushed slightly, shrugged her shoulders, and took up the review I had laid upon the mantel-piece. "By the bye, Nathalie," resumed Madame de Palme, "do you know who we are going to have at dinner to-day, in the way of men?"
However, do not feel uneasy; I have decided that the time for being loved, and consequently for loving, is over for me; now, love is a malady which no one need fear, if he sincerely strive to repress its first symptoms. Madame de Palme had turned around at the sound of the opening door; when she recognized Madame Durmaitre, a fierce light gleamed in her blue eyes; chance had sent her a victim.
Madame Durmaitre is positively lacking in wit; but she is intelligent, tolerably well read, and much inclined to reverie. She prides herself upon a certain talent for conversation. Seeing that I am myself destitute of any other social accomplishment, she has got it into her head that I must possess that particular one, and she has undertaken to make sure of it.
I therefore unconsciously uttered a sigh of relief when the door, opening suddenly, introduced upon the stage a new personage, whom I felt justified in considering as an ally. It was a lady a school-friend of Lady A , whose name is Madame Durmaitre. She is a widow, and extremely handsome; she is noted for a lesser degree of folly amid the wild and worldly ladies of the chateau.
I paid no further attention to the matter for the time being, and my soul went to converse amid the clouds with the soul of Madame Durmaitre. The next day a grand hunt was to take place in the forest. I had arranged to take no share in it, wishing to make the best of a whole day of solitude to push forward my hopeless undertaking.
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