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Updated: June 15, 2025
"The day after to-morrow, then. Will the day after to-morrow suit you, my dear Duchess?" asked Madame de Guilleroy. "Yes, indeed; you are charming! Monsieur Bertin never thinks of me when he has his little parties. It is quite evident that I am no longer young."
Desire for Madame de Guilleroy hardly occurred to him; it seemed to be hidden, crouching behind another and more powerful feeling, which was still uncertain and hardly awakened. Olivier had believed that love began with reveries and with poetic exaltations. But his feeling, on the contrary, seemed to come from an indefinable emotion, more physical than mental.
From the date of this gift, she loved the painter as little children love, with that caressing, animal-like affection which makes them so sweet and captivating. Madame de Guilleroy began to take pleasure in the sittings.
Guilleroy hastened to meet her, and kissed her hand, saying: "How do you do, Duchess?" The other two men saluted her with a certain distinguished familiarity, for the Duchess's manner was both cordial and abrupt.
Guilleroy, filled with the gaiety of Parisians when they return, to whom the city, after every absence, seems rejuvenated and full of possible surprises, questioned the painter about a thousand details of what people had been doing and saying; and Olivier, after indifferent replies which betrayed all the boredom of his solitude, spoke of Roncieres, tried to capture from this man, in order to gather round him that almost tangible something left with us by persons with whom we have recently been associated, that subtle emanation of being one carries away when leaving them, which remains with us a few hours and evaporates amid new surroundings.
Weeks followed weeks, without changing this manner of life, and autumn came, bringing the reopening of the Chamber, earlier than usual because of certain political dangers. On the day of the reopening, the Comte de Guilleroy was to take to the meeting of Parliament Madame de Mortemain, the Marquis, and Annette, after a breakfast at his own house.
These meetings would be agreed upon beforehand, and always seemed perfectly natural to M. de Guilleroy. Twice a week at least the painter dined at the Countess's house, with a few friends; on Monday nights he visited her in her box at the Opera; then they would agree upon a meeting at such or such a house, to which chance led them at the same hour.
Through continually meeting, the two men, becoming accustomed to each other, finally became excellent friends. When Bertin entered, on Friday evening, the house of his friend, where he was to dine in honor of the return of Antoinette de Guilleroy, he found in the little Louis XV salon only Monsieur de Musadieu, who had just arrived.
The Marquis informed him: "The first page, at the top, with the title, 'Modern Painting." And the deputy ceased to be astonished. "Oh, exactly! I did not read it because it was about painting." Everyone smiled, knowing that apart from politics and agriculture M. de Guilleroy was interested in very few things.
On inquiring her name, he learned that she was the Comtesse de Guilleroy, wife of a Normandy country squire, agriculturist and deputy; that she was in mourning for her husband's father; and that she was very intellectual, greatly admired, and much sought after. Struck by the apparition that had delighted his artist's eye, he said: "Ah, there is some one whose portrait I should paint willingly!"
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