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"What is it, dear Joseph?" I asked; and when he could answer nothing on account of his emotion, I rose, crying: "More bad news? What has happened to my nurse-mother? Speak, speak, Joseph!" "Nothing, Mme. la Viscomtesse," he replied. "My mother and Bastien, I hope, are well. It is of myself I wish to speak."
"Mademoiselle met me with a radiant smile, and her wedding dress of white silk, made her look perfectly charming. Her lips were caressing, her eyes melting, but all at once, as she looked at me, I saw the color all fade out of the rosy lips of the lady; and from the great dark eyes darted the lurid flash. A chill, like that of death smote me, I know not why, but I suppressed my emotion.
As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments. His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for an instant predominated.
That one glance had shown the lad's face flushed with emotion; but when his mother spoke to him in fretful tones, bidding him be ready next morning when she should call in the carriage on her way to the station, he answered at once with polite acquiescence "Very well, mater, I won't keep you waiting. I shall be ready by half-past ten if you want me."
A few minutes went by, then the door was thrown open, and Varvara Pavlovna, with a swift and almost noiseless step, came up to Maria Dmitrievna, and, without giving her time to rise from her chair, almost went down upon her knees before her. "Thank you, aunt," she began in Russian, speaking softly, but in a tone of deep emotion.
Such a spectacle was not unusual in the army then and afterward the rough fighters were often men of profound piety and on this occasion the sight before him seems to have excited deep emotion in Lee.
He came straight up to her, taking her once more by the hands, and looking steadily into her steady eyes. In the hearts of both of them resolve and faith were holding down the emotion that was not yet dead. He drew a long breath. "Yes," he said in an even voice, "it is over." Her lips moved; and that deadly paleness lay on her cheeks. He gripped her firmly. "Listen," he said. "You must face it.
Walking slowly towards the house, slowly, for he was both impelled and retarded by the conflicting feelings that mastered him, he heard her voice at a little distance, singing; and directly she came out of a by-path, and faced him. He need not have feared the meeting; at least, any display of emotion; she gave no opportunity for any such thing.
Never had she felt such overwhelming emotion. "Ah! I love him too much," she said, with a sort of despair. "To-day, perhaps, I shall no longer be mistress of myself " She hurried over the distance which separated her from the cottage, and reached the courtyard, the filth of which was now stiffened by the frost.
And after she had come out trembling with emotion before the audience, and looking so exhausted and tearful that you fancied she would faint with sensibility, she would gather up her hair the instant she was behind the curtain, and go home to a mutton-chop and a glass of brown stout; and the harrowing labours of the day over, she went to bed and snored as resolutely and as regularly as a porter.
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